save file when getting an "out of memory" message

[ichi.one]

like the title says being able to save the rendering when getting an "out of memory" message,
thats my wish for today :lol:

this morning we had another very frustrating one
after 9hrs of rendering only ±10 buckets of grass needed to be rendered
but before the file was finished we got an 'out of memory' message
after that it's always the same : the file stops rendering and after a few minutes some error message appears and C4D quits
(i can send the error report if that helps)

So from now on we render all files in a 2 or 3 split because we had way too many from these 'out of memory' messages in the last few projects
specially because it's very unpredictable when it's going to happen & what eats the RAM.
i don't have a problem with the 2/3 splitt option (i'm thankfull to have this option)
but it's of course something we would love to avoid because we really need/use all the multi-layer-channels in photoshop
And it's very frustrating this always happens in the last 90% of the rendering

PLUS !!! from what i read in this thread : http://www.forum.vrayforc4d.com/viewtopic.php?t=2748
mr Burden had the same problem with the RAM in his lobby rendering but was able to save the file, can somebody please show me how to do this 8)

[stefan]

the future 64 bit version will eliminate the stupid ram limit of 32bit windows and osx apps.
for highend 3d this is really needed.

for now splitting is an option thats why we have built it in,
or also simpley tryingt o learngi settings better to lower ram consuption. i never ran our of ram also on 32 bit.

you can also lower the ram consumption in vray system tab:
lower the "max ree depth" to 40 insead of 60 and lower dynamic memory limit to 200 instead of 400.

also reducing the bucket size will use less ram
cheers
stefan

[ichi.one]

thx for the reply
think i'm stuck with 32bit for a while
switching to windows isn't an option, for us


2 questions :

- is it normal when running out of RAM, i'm unable to save the file ?
Mr Burden was able to save his file when he got the 'out of memory' message, was he just lucky or is it mac/pc difference ?

- When rendering a decent file size/project, vray seems always to take all the RAM
we have 4giga RAM in the machine and when rendering all the RAM
is used until the last 40/60mb even if the project isn't that big
When only putting 2giga RAM in the machine he does the same
uses the 2gigabyte RAM untill the last 40/60mb but he doesn't run out of memory, how's that possible ?

[Walli]

are you rendering directly from Cinema?
Because you can save some additional memory when rendering via Netrender or via commandline.
Its not much, but sometimes its exactly those few spare mb that help to finish the render.

[stefan]

dont mix up physical ram and ram used by the os.

that has nothing to do. the 32 bit limit is always there with 2,4 or 30gb ram installed. depending on yiur overall nmachine configuration and installs the limit is slightly different on machines.
you can render big scnes in vray with only 1gb installed, it only will be slightly slower.

if you can save or not depends on how much ram your machine is over.
but better to look in advance that your scene is setup to not use to much ram.

the ram consumption mostly depends on your setup and optimasation.
if you donnot want to use 64 bit you will have to cope with the 32bit limit with optimizing your scenes so they fit into a 32bit system. please also see my hints above how to reduce ram consumption. the future for both os's is 64bit sooner or later.

by the way , we render normally 5000px wide wide images of complex archviz and did all this also with 32bit machines...thats no problem, with reasonable setups.
cheers
stefan

[Ernest Burden]

- is it normal when running out of RAM, i'm unable to save the file ?
Mr Burden was able to save his file when he got the 'out of memory' message, was he just lucky or is it mac/pc difference ?

I think lucky. But when that happened the first time (the OOM pop-up) I went to the TaskManager and shut down a few things that were running, like Firefox browser. Then, a few buckets later it happened again, and I remembered that I could also close the file in Cinema (should have done that before rendering, of course) and in the end, saved my render. I was sure it was going to bomb out when the message came up, but when I cleared up a bit of RAM it went on. The multipass file was left with a few black buckets, but the main render was 100% fine.

Lucky.

[ichi.one]

thanks for the explanation

Most of the time we render at night so nothing else is running on the computer and of course it's always a bit of a shock
to find the 'OMM' in the morning plus if i click on it C4D shuts down
and the rendering is gone

Yes i think we will have to deal with the 32bit limit
and optimizing the scene even more, the render settings are most of the
time not that very high or special (AA & DMC default + IR / BF default)
the only thing is the image-size is always 3500 to 5000pixels width
and of course some scenes are big