64bit meeting today looking for your advice/exp.

[Tommy Burns]

Hi all

 

I am looking for a bit of advice on a 64bit system for max 2008 and Mental Ray. I work in an office with about 150 people in it. There are only three of us that use Max. I have a decent quad core (3.0ghz) with dual quadro 4500 graphics cards. Sometimes when rendering it freezes at 99.9%. I know this is a memory issue and since I have changed the memory limit to 3000mb in translator options. (Is this the right amount for my spec?)

What I am wondering is has anyone got any experience with 64bit in an office set up and how does it gel with I.T. (I have a meeting with them today). I have asked about this before with previous I.T. personel and have had all types of excuses why not to get it e.g. doesn't work with office, networking, emails etc. I think though the main reason is that it is too much work for them could be wrong.

My understanding of 64bit is that it allows you to use much more Ram and hence less crashing. One of the guys here is due for a workstation upgrade and if you guys could let me know of your experiences with 64bit good or bad it would be a big help.

 

Thanks in Advance

 

P.S. xp64 or Vista ?

[AJLynn]

You can use more ram and also map more ram per app. E.g., no matter how much ram and virtual memory space you have, if Max hits 3GB on a 32-bit system with the /3GB switch, it dies. This is because the OS does not have the ability to comprehend larger addresses for memory. On a 64-bit OS, the limit goes from 3GB to some number I forget but it's so large it's basically meaningless.

 

Of course, if you want to you can also add more than 4GB of RAM to the system.

 

And as always, for professional use you want XP instead of Vista.

[Tommy Burns]

Thanks for that Andrew and just in time too (half hour before meeting)

 

Has anyone had any problems within an office set up e.g. networks, emails other programs?

 

Thanks

[fourthand11]

we have not had any problems with networks, emails. usually takes a bit linger to set us up for printers.

[SandmanNinja]

How did the meeting turn out?

 

Sorry I missed this, but I would have suggested XP64 or Win64 instead of Vista 64 Ultimate-Uber (just like Andrew suggested).

[blowback]

I just experienced the same thing....I switch over next week. Good Luck.

[Tommy Burns]

Meeting went well they are still a bit afraid to bring in 64bit though. Whats gonna happen is I am going to get an extra hard drive and put a 64bit system on it and see how it goes. The other alternative is build up a good renderfarm which is ok but i like having the power on my desk too for test renders.

Is there anyone out there that uses 64bit in a large office 100+?

[SandmanNinja]

I can only think that the IT department is concerned about maintaining a different set of files for your system:

* Ghost / Recover Image

* Drivers

* Software versions may be different / different licenses (32 -vs- 64 bit)

 

Functionally, it should work with no problems. I'd be more concerned if you had a radically different OS than everyone else, but that's just me.

[Chasteen]

I agree with sandman. I have run a network mixed with XP and XP64 since 2006 and have never had any network issues. It is true that you will need to use a different printer driver specifically for XP64, but once installed you should be able to print over the network the same as anyone else. Nearly all 32bit versions of software will run on XP64 with the exception of anti-virus and software based firewalls. I would recommend installing both the 32 and 64bit versions of Max(only one license needed). Be aware that a 32bit renderfarm cannot render a bb project submitted from a 64bit version of Max. You solve this by submitting the scene from the 32bit version of Max on your XP64 workstation.