3ds MAX not using all available ressources

[Ras]

Hi

 

I am trying to get a very heavy scene set up for rendering. It was built in ADT 2004 and imported as a DWG into MAX. I have a very complex model of a building and the surroundings Xreffed into the scene.

 

I know that experienced CGartists probably don´t work this way.

I´m guessing that a pro would make a scene optimised for the views that are going to be rendered... Well I´m not a pro and I have window frames, Steelconstructions stuck in places where the light is never going to shine( ) ...

I´m using the model to develop the design and to get the plans, sections and elevations from Autocad and thats why everything is there.

 

Naturally everything is really slow When I´m fitting the building to the Xref -

 

OK, here comes the problem... I´m wondering why Max never uses more than 50% of my CPU and about 1/3 of the RAM? :???:

 

Is it supposed to be like that? - Rendering is lightning fast (Vray) but modelling is veeeeery slow...

 

I am working on a 3 GHz P4 - 1.5 GB Ram - ATI Redeon 9600....

 

Any advice?

[Ray]

I know this isn't any help, but according to my ram meter, max only uses about 50% of my ram, but then it pages half a gig!!

[Ras]

Yeah - same here - always around 500 MB... Is it my windows setup or MAX?

[Ray]

I'm not sure.

[Greg Hess]

You can't make max use all your ram. It's only going to use the amount of ram it needs.

 

Max will always use virtual memory.

 

Windows will always have a page file...even if you get rid of it.

 

Yup, its still there. You can see it by setting up performance counters and watching disk access.

 

Best thing to do is set the page file to your ram amount, max and min, and just let her fly.

 

As for max not using 100% cpu...Certain stages of rendering use more or less cpu.

 

Best thing you can do, is just compare your render times to others. If their close, your system is fine, and running within spec.

 

I used to have a nice graph of islands.max rendering...just to showcase how screwy the render process was.

[mike_sul]

can we configure max to use a particular drive to save its pagefile .. if yes and if we can configure windows to always create a ramdisk from the available ram.. then voila .. ur problems solved .. a pagefile on ram would zip like the roadrunner...

 

by the way .. how can we configure windows to create a ramdisk .. pls advise

[mbr]

I'd like to know more about this, too.

 

So far, though, Max always seems to use all of my ram, and then move into the virtual. I've just bought another gig because both of the last renderings I had did this.

 

What is the best way to set up windows (and how do you do it? Any good resources?)?

 

Thanks.

[William Alexander]

Ras & everyone,

 

The virtual memory issue, as I it was explained to me, my guru-

#1 let windows manage_well not the optimal solution for CG

#2 set the inital page file to 2x ram- 1 gig ram=2 gig virtual memory_Max size to 3X.

#3 If you have two hard drives, get the virtual memory away from the system side. This basically means assigning the minimum allowed to the system drive. For me this is 2mb intial and max. I have 25% faster hard drive as my second drive anyway.

#4 there is not substitute for cubic inches/liters-oops I mean Ram

#5 if you run out of virtual memory, increase it. This is a manual adjustment as needed. Optimum size for your needs at the time. Why; segragate, store and search a giant area if it's not being used.

#6 Use the task manager meter (or other) and settings with as much information as is understandable to reconginize whats going on in the system.

 

The virtual memory settings work well for my use, Hope it can boost yours.

 

 

Hey ras- tut on cleaning/modeling autocad to viz work flow? It's not all that bad and can yield some real rendering benefits.

 

 

rgrds

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