Max crashing when rendering with Vray

[mondex]

Hello!

 

This is my first thread, and I was very carefull to check previous ones if somebody encountered the same problem as me. Forgive me if I didn't look well enough, and asking a question already asked.

 

I've been using 3DS max 2009 with Vray 1.5 SP2 for over a year now, without any problems. But now, using some archmodels trees and plants (not too many though - I still can work comfortably without having to use proxies), I have a problem, and I would really like to understand what's going on.

 

Here's the problem: rendering at 1024X700, irradiance map low quality, in HDRI, + light cache, max simply shuts down after calculating light cache. No error report window, no error messages: max just vanishes from my screen. I've managed to render region my plants individually, but sometimes encountering the same problem. Sometimes it didn't crash after restarting the program. Sometimes it did. I found out my plants caused the crash, because I've been able to render the entire scene without them. But I'm not using that many plants! Just a couple simple bushes, a palm tree, and some Ivy from Ivy generator. I attached an image so you can see it's not that much (comments and critics are very welcome).

 

I really don't understand what's wrong. Maybe I should not render in HDRI (does it use more ressources than basic rendering)? Here are my specs:

 

Vista family edition (yes I know...) service pack 1 - 32bits

Intel Core Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz 3.17GHz

4G RAM (Yeah, I know :/)

ATI Radeon HD 3850

 

So would it be coming from my system specs? My render settings? I have absolutely no idea, I'm quite a noob.

 

Thanks for your time to read my problem, I hope somebody will shed some light in this very dark area in which I'm totally lost!

 

Best regards

[Eric Sosa]

u got a CPU problem. as u got 32 bit and can not add more ram (32bits registrate max 3.2 gb ram), there are several solutions tho the easiest is to make your renders in parts...I mean, u need to render by "region", one at the time & not the full view. then put them together with PS.

 

other solution is to get rid of displacements.

 

....your scene is simply too big, in poly counting & displacements for your pc configuration.

 

good luck

[mondex]

Many thanks Eric for your reply. It's greatly appreciated

 

I will follow your advice. It's true that I've got loads of displacement in my scene: the grass.

 

I think I'll have to invest in a new machine

 

I will come back for some advice on that.

[Jonathan Sanchez]

I was getting same problem Mark. I have exact setup as you do.. running in 32 bit mode. So whenever I'd render a scene that was heavy on displacement or vegetation, render would crash with no explanation. So the tip here is to try to be very efficient with you modelling. Vegetation.. make them vray proxies(saved me)

[mondex]

Thanks Jonathan! I will follow your advice. Great link on the grass tutorial by the way! Fantastic results!