I’ve been testing fluidsims between windows and linux and I’ve found that my linux box (1GB of RAM) did a fluidsim at 512 Resolution, it was using 1.5GB of RAM and didn’t crash. Tried the same thing on my laptop (2GB of RAM, 2.1GHz Proc) and it crashed. So I’m wondering if windows is causing my copy of blender to crash even though it has enough RAM to do the fluidsim.
To test if its windows / linux and not the hardware, you could grab a live CD like one from Ubuntu, try the samer version of blender, and see how it goes. You may be running into the memory limit in windows, 2GB per app total (ram + vmem).
about the memory limit in windows, I don’t think so, whilst rendering a project it was using 3.5Gb and I only have 2Gb, windows just gave an allert that it was going to increase the RAM (dunno how) and it continued happilly ever after.
i don’t know why, but apparently windows and OSX (albeit the unix core) all can’t handle ~1.5GB of ram for a single application. The orange team ran into the exact same problem during final rendering while working on Elephants Dream.
The only solution is to use linux. I tried it, it works flawlessly for projects that requries more than 1.5GB of RAM.
snelleeddy, what OS are you using? XP x86 or x64?
Plain and simple MediaCentre Edition that would be x32. And I checked the RAM with ctrl alt delete. (am I saying dumb things now?)
So basically adding more than 1.5 gigs of ram to a Windows machine for the purpose of fluid sims is pointless? Does this 1.5 GB per process limit exist in 64 bit Windows?
[Edit] Hmm, as far a OSX goes, I’m searching around the apple support forum right now. Apparently there is some sort of firmware limitation to 3GB of memory per app, which Apple could probably fix if they so desired. Honestly, what’s the point of getting a Mac with 16 GB of RAM if you can’t use it all to make a shiny 512 resolution fluid sim?!
i havn’t tried any x64 OS, but apparently Windows server 2003 (32bit) does the same thing: crashes. Also, even wINDOWS Vista 32bit (RC2) does that…
I just got a64bit computer so i might be able to test some 64bit windows environment and see what happens.
The sad part is that my spanking new mobo uses the jmicron SATA/IDE controller, which isn’t recognized by ubuntu 6.10.
yeah I’ve had those same issues. I was wondering if others had the same problems.
At least I now know I shouldn’t get more then 2 gigs of RAM for my Windows computer because the OS will not let me use it all. Anyone know the upper limit for Vista?
I don’t think that the limit in Vista 32-bit is any different then in Windows XP. The 64-bit versions may be different though.
there is some kind of tweak you can apply to windows’ boot.ini, so it may allocate 3GB rather than 2 GB ram to a single application… but you’ll need 4 GB of ram in your machine
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721/en-us <- this should be helpful
add or adjust under [boot loader]
timeout=15
and this should be what you need to !!ADD!! to your boot.ini under [operating systems]:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=“Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3GB” /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB /USERVA=2990
its probably easiest to copy the line which looks like this and append the “/3GB /USERVA=2990” part and add “3GB” after “XP Professional”
if you dont know what your doing have someone with experience do it for you, as you can screw up your windows installation… if you did everything right, after rebooting your pc, you will be prompted to choose which OS you’d like to start, you have 15 seconds to decide between
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
and
Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3GB
if you start the 3GB version windows should be able to allocate 2990 Mb of ram for a single application (which additionally needs to support this adress range)
hope, it works
it depends on what version of vista you’re using, generally lets you use more ram, but the cheap versions cut you off at 4 Gig if i remember corerctly, if you go Ultimate there shouldn’t be a problem
no, utimate lets you use more RAM in total, but is still limited to 2GB/3GB per app if running a 32bit application.
yeah, it basically depends on what program you use and how it is programmed, but 32 bit Apps have a mathematical limit of 4 GB, with 64 bit version of ultimate, i think i have read somewhere, you can use 128 GB of ram theoretically, but thats just somewhere out of the dark recesses of my brain
So fluid sims in Windows that need more than 3 gigs of ram would need 64 bit Blender and 64 bit Windows? (Please God, say it doesn’t have to be 64 bit Vista…)
afaik that is correct… but i’d recommend to use the 64 bit version of vista anyways if you have a 64 bit processor, there may be some driver problems at first, but all in all its the more future-proof technology. Keep in mind that if you buy a System Builder Pack of vista you’ll need to choose between 32 and 64 bit. In the other packs both versions are included
I think just using linux for rendering would be useful, since most tests have confirmed the increase in performance when using Blender compiled for your platform on your system.
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yeah, except linux support for the jmicron IDE controller is still buggy… ( as of 2.6.18)
I am pretty fed up with the ~1.3GB memory wall in windows, and had gone through a great deal of trouble to find an non-linux alternative, unfortunately, none seems to exist at the moment:
xp original 32bit: fluid sim and rendering all crashes at around 1.2GB mem usage
xp sp2 32bit: same as above
xp sp2 32bit, with ‘/3GB’ flag: same as above
xp sp2 32bit, on 64bit core 2 Duo: same as above
xp sp2 32bit, on 64bit core 2 Duo, with ‘/3GB’ flag: same as aboveWin Server 2003 R2 120day trial version with all updates: still crashes
Mac OS X (10.4, i assume?) on PPC processor does the same thing, according to the orange team behind elepants dream
Data in quotes are confirmed by me
Just to follow up: WinXP x64 Pro does NOT crash when the memory usage is higher than 1.5GB, as long as you pair it with a x64 build of blender.
Blender 32 still crashes on X64 windows.
…I am liking Linux more and more each day
indeed mpan3, I enjoy linux way better then it’s buggy counterpart.