Can I make MAX access more memory?

[stephenwashburn]

Hi All,

 

 

Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

 

I am having the following error when attempting to render a large sized 14400x10800 render in MAX. I have a pretty decent system with a Xeon 2.50GHz quad core processor, 32GB of system RAM, NVIDIA QUADRO 5200 8GB Graphics and Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. Is there a way to provide more access to my ram or vram to the application to fix this problem?

 

 

MEM 0.4 681 MB fatal 031008: can't allocate 2488665848 bytes.

 

 

MEM 0.4 681 MB fatal 031008: can't allocate 2488665848 bytes.

 

 

MSG 0.0 681 MB error: A Fatal error occured while rendering with NVIDIA mental ray.

 

 

 

 

 

This render will abort. NVIDIA mental ray is now in an unstable state and cannot be used any more for this session.

 

 

 

 

 

To render again with NVIDIA mental ray, please restart 3ds Max.

 

 

 

 

 

The error is :

 

 

MEM 0.4 681 MB fatal 031008: can't allocate 2488665848 bytes.

 

 

 

 

 

[Stephen Thomas]

There is some advice on this problem here: http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/softimage/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Error-MEM-0-6-fatal-031008-can-t-allocate.html

 

Not being a Mental Ray user, that's the best I got.

[ryannelson]

And here I am thinking that a 4000x long side was a big render...

 

Sorry, I can't help you out any more than Stephen can unfortunately though.

 

Could you try breaking it up with the region window then reassemble in PS?

[stephenwashburn]

Hi Gents,

 

 

Thanks for the responses, I explored the BCDEDIT command option but it looks like it is limited at 3GB, I'm having a heck of a time trying to sort out how to make these resources available to max rendering.

 

 

@Ryan - If I use the region window can I define exactly the size and position of the region window within my camera view or will I have to carefully line the pieces up down to the pixel? Wondering the best approach to do this with the region option as I need to get this produced this week and I'm coming up empty on the resource management front.

 

 

Thanks!

[Tommy L]

Im not an MR user either, but Im pretty sure its not a 32bit program and should be able to access your full 32 gig of memory. If you render with the frame buffer disabled, can the render complete? If so, make sure you're rendering to an 8bit format, such as a jpg. Maybe its a 32 or 16 bit export format thats the bottleneck.

Trying to do a 14k render with MR might be asking too much. Ive done bigger with VRay, but MR is known for being a little unforgiving..

[Chris MacDonald]

This isn't helpful at all, but the primary reason I switched from MR to VRay is because when MR hit the RAM limit of my PC at the time, it simply crashed. No warnings, no attempt to push the additional data onto the hard drive instead, just a crash. It was so unforgiving.

[stephenwashburn]

I think I may have struck out on this front

 

 

I've tried exploring memory allocation and allotment options but with 64 bit max and 64 bit windows it appears there isn't much I can do on that front as apparently the system is using al that it can.

 

 

I've tried exploring blowup/regional rendering but when I attempt this approach while the region is 25% the size and a full scene render of the prescribed resolution will work fine it seems to still be hung up on the fact that the entire scene is still 14,4000x10,800 and won't get passed the first stages of rendering as if I am still rendering the entire scene.

 

 

I am considering writing for a fully enabled trial of Vray to see if this solves the issue but that may take longer than I have as these renders MUST be ready in 6 days.

 

 

Thanks for anything else you guys can come up with, this has been most helpful!

[Scott Schroeder]

You can strip render it using the feature in the render dialog so you don't have to create regions then painstakingly re-align them in PS. Though, you may get some slight banding issues on each strip if you do not pre-save your GI maps. Tom's suggestion of turning off the frame buffer is a good one as well, as having that on does suck up memory and can create bottlenecks at high resolutions.

 

Let's eliminate some things. First, save a copy of your scene and apply a gray MR material to everything and turn off all GI. You don't want to just do an override material as that doesn't completely eliminate textures, it just overrides them. We want all texture maps gone. Does it render? If yes, enable GI. Try rendering again. If that renders as well, then there might be an issue with your texture maps not fitting into memory and not MR or the scene itself.

 

One dumb question, but I have to ask as I had a student do it once. Is your Max version 64-bit or 32bit? I had a student a while back accidentally install the 32-bit version of Max from the educational website and it caused them all sorts of memory issues when they went to render.

Edited February 3, 2015 by VelvetElvis

[Dimitris Tolios]

This is pretty much a no-brainer if you are using 32bit version of 3DS (even by mistake). Render in regions, render smaller (really, do you need that big of a file? are you hoping to print 300dpi banner size? = don't) or switch to 64bit.

 

If it is a 64bit version, something is wrong, but I don't know what.