Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx comments...?? has anyone done this...?? succesfully...?? does anyone know if Max has (/LARGEADDRESSAWARE) in its image header? Shane can you help me? i know Max is written with Visual Basic Studio, at least I am pretty sure, which is required in order to put the (/LARGEADDRESSAWARE) in the header. i wonder if Photoshop has this? anyway, i am talking beyond my personal knowledge already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShaunDon Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 There's a lot of talk on this issue over on the Chaos boards, where almost everyone is trying to allocate 2+ gb of RAM for renders. Most everyone sets up a dual-boot option in their boot.ini file in the root of C:\ -- this way if there are ever any problems with running the 3gb switch, you can boot with it disabled. Here's what reRender over at Chaos said his boot.ini looks like with the 3gb switch enabled: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3GB" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect You'll want to copy the line under [operating systems] rather than copying and pasting this into your ini -- if your partition information is different from reRenders (probably is), then copying his directly will mess you up. Add a second line same as the first and add "/3GB" to the end as he has. One caveat -- there's been a new thread recently in which a lot of people have complained the switch is causing a lot more problems now that they've upgraded to max8. I've said it before, but I'll say it again -- Autodesk is the devil. Good luck! Shaun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 17, 2006 Author Share Posted March 17, 2006 thanks for the info. if i throw the 3 gig switch, does this mean that 3dsmax can use up to 3 gigs? ...or will it allow it to use more than that? i ask based on this line from teh microsfot website... Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. ....it implies that i can use up to 4gigs, is the 3gb switch just a name, or is it tied to how much i can use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 I made the switch about 5 months ago. My files had gotten to the point that they were crashing on almost every rendering. The switch was the easiest thing ever. I use max8 with no problems. I have the timeout at 30 but there is really no reason. Go nuts drop it to 5 or something small so it just loads up. Or wait until you know the ini file is working then drop it down. I thought win xp pro could only use 3 but I may be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 17, 2006 Author Share Posted March 17, 2006 can i boot in msdos without running windows? ..i am wondering if i simply create a copy of my boot file, and then modify the original. if i run into problems, i can safe start in msdos mode, and overwrite the boot.ini file using dos commands. think this will work? ....i would rather not dual boot the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 I thought I would use the dual boot just until I know the switch went through then get rid of the old boot option. I never modified it again (it worked fine so I didn't want to jinx it by messing with it) but there is that option. I don't see why you couldn't start from dos but I don't know. There was 1 issue I had my graphics card acted up after I made the switch. I did a few restarts and it was fine again. At the Chaos forum I was told that it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo scapi Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 I´ve been using it from more than a year now, my scenes where crushing when rendered with Vray, now that problem seems to be solved. I duplicated the line in the .ini file, and then modify the second one, so the machine automatically starts wiht "normal" windows unless i select the 3gb option. It wasn´t easy at first, if i don´t remember bad i had one computer in wich i could never get it to work, i think was something with the hardware. It is esential to have all drivers perfectly compatible with windows, if there is just one that isn´t it wont start, that´s wy you should duplicate the line in the .ini, just in case it doesn´t start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 20, 2006 Author Share Posted March 20, 2006 .....hmmm, i threw the switch, but I am not sure if it worked. everything booted fine, but I have no idea if I have 3 gigs of ram available. if i go to System Properties, under Computer it lists... 2.75 GB of RAM ...but we have an identical computer that we did not throw the switch on, and it says the same thing. ....is it possible that BOXX already enabled this somewhere besides the boot.ini file, or is the boot.ini the only place where it can be enabled? i wonder if it can be enabled in the registry settings also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jow Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 that looks about right,the "3GB switch" limit is about 2.6-2.7 gb of ram per app.,and not like its name suggests 3gb of ram. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 20, 2006 Author Share Posted March 20, 2006 that looks about right,the "3GB switch" limit is about 2.6-2.7 gb of ram per app.,and not like its name suggests 3gb of ram. that is what is wierd. we already had this much ram listed, even though we didn't throw the switch yet. at first i thought maybe BOXX threw it in the registry, but then i remembered that we bought these without OS's, and loaded them ourselves. ...so maybe the latest service packs from Windows have it thrown already? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jow Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 doubtful, how much physical ram have you got in them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 20, 2006 Author Share Posted March 20, 2006 doubtful, how much physical ram have you got in them? we have 4 gigs of physical ram. when we bought the machines we had decided to go windows xp pro, but understood that we would probably upgrade to windows 64 as support for all the drivers came around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jow Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 my understanding is windows,without the switch enabled, windows will only use 1.6gb per app. with the switch you get 3gb per app. but i doubt you will hit this.so the other 1gb will then get used for say running windows etc. 64 windows will use the full 4gb,i think it supports up to 128 of physical ram. it seems strange windows is only seeing 2.75,i would have a check to see if there is a bios update for your mobo. also get yourself CPUZ of the net and see what that reads memory wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 20, 2006 Author Share Posted March 20, 2006 also get yourself CPUZ of the net and see what that reads memory wise. well CPUZ sees all the ram, but i don't know if that means windows can use it though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jow Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 sound about right,windows isn't all that accurate. your bios is fine,cos CPUZ is seeing all the ram. do you have VRAY? if so do a test render with the frame stamp enabled adding %ram to the text,this will tell you how much ram vray/max can see. when the 3gb switch is enabled the only way you are going to see it active is putting together a high poly scene. then rendering it with task manager open and seeing in there what the memory usage is. the switch does work,my PCs have 2gb ram in them and i recently done some renders where the mem usage was hitting just under 2gb. there is no way i could of rendered these without the switch,its all geometry:- http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15716 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abicalho Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I've been using the 3GB switch for more than 2 years. MAX and VIZ always supported it and AutoCAD 2007 also supports it. 32 Bits only allows 4GB of memory space. 2GB is reserved for the OS and the other 2GB are available for applications. The 3GB switch works by allowing each application to use up to 3GB of each memory space, reducing the OS space to 1GB. Since the OS manages what's called "Virtual Memory", more than 1 application can be used at the same time, although Microsoft does not recommend running 2 apps running w/ more than 2GB usage. Some shared DLLs have to be loaded in the same memory location. This causes memory fragmentation. Sometimes the app needs a given block of memory and if a DLL is in the way, the system cannot allocate it. This is the main cause of application crashes when the system has not yet reached capacity. Sometimes, the application checks for available memory and stops when it cannot allocate as much as it needs. Most of the time, an application crashes out of RAM at 1.8 GB usage, when using 2GB; and it crashes around 2.6~2.7 when using the 3GB switch. This happens because most of the system DLLs are loaded in the upper memory space, blocking the app from using more. As for how much it lists in System Properties, it will NOT show any difference with or without the 3GB switch. In fact I couldn't find a way to know if it's "ON" or "OFF", except for trying to use 2+GB of memory. What you need to do is make sure you have enough swap + RAM to allow you to have 4GB of memory space at least. Don't buy on the 2xRAM Swap file crap - that was on the days we could only have 1/2 GB memory. If you have 2GB of RAM, have at least 3GB of swap. If you have 4GB of RAM, 1-2GB of swap is more than enough. If you have more than 4GB of RAM and are using a 32 bit system, please fire your IT advisor Hope it helps, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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