Luxology´s usage of physical memory

I admit I have quite oldie for this kind of job, but I managed till last errors. My compu runs 32 bit Win and has 3,4 G of RAM.

It seems like after error "all the tubes" stuck, but I figured out how to "clean the tubes" :) - just I've to open any model as simple as possible and render it with rendering mode of very low settings level (Draft, no assigned materials, low reso) ... and after that I´m able to render again :) Of course - this is not normal, but job has to be done!

How much memory does your machine have and are you running 64 bit Windows?

Jerry

Hello everybody!

I've the same kind of problems, getting result "Luxology render engine fails" I'm posting my problem here, because earlier threads of that field of problems are too old to continue. My problem could be connected to the same kind of things - using displaced materials, but, BUT, when I open the design with no any of fur- or displaced materials (rendered before correctly), Luxology fails too!!! So I think, the problem is not connected only to these material settings???

brgds

Enn

Jerry,

the memory usage of Modo confused me because of the maximum size of 16000 MB.

I only run out of memory when I use fur material from the Luxology assets site.

Jacques

modo is not limited to 16GB if you have more to will us it and if your processors are at 100% you are not out of memory. Once the buckets start rendering your CPU usage should be100% if it is not then you likely running out of physical memory.

Jerry

Thanks Vincent,

I already tought something like that.

Regards

Jacques

Hi Jacques,

I can only answer for the fur materials from Modo assets.

I also noticed that renderings were difficult to acheive with Modo assets (I had tried "elmo fur"...).

Issue is that settings (density, ratios, ...)  of their materials are Ok for "small" entities: a a pair of shoes, a car, ... a muppet, a room maybe.

But fur settings are usually far too high for large surfaces (like in landscape scenes), and thus render engine fails...

The exact culprit is not exposed, as LXP files can't be edited in Microstation.

Hi Adam,

With fur the Modo renderer climbed to the usage of 11,6 mb memory.

That´s near to the maximum of 16 mb what Modo supports.

Isn´t there any possibility to use the full 32 mb. memory I installed?

And another question:

Using the fur delivered by Bentley I didn´t have any problem.

Using fur materials from the Modo assets side, the render engine failed as soon as it renders the first pass.

What´s the difference here?

Thanks

Jacques

Jacques - Try testing with fur.  It's a more reliable memory hog - a displacement material's memory demands depend on the characteristics of the map used for displacement.

Thanks Jon,

I´ll make a few more tests.

Jacques Jacobs:

Could it be Microstation (V8i SS2 08.11.07.443) has been installed in the wrong directory (C\:Programme (x86))?

MIcroStation is a 32-bit application, and that is the correct installation folder for 32-bit applications.

Jacques Jacobs:

I thought MicroStation recognizes a 64bit PC

MicroStation V8i recognises a 64-bit address space at run-time.

Adam,

I did another test with displacement and the usage of memory never reached 6Mb.

Could it be Microstation (V8i SS2 08.11.07.443) has been installed in the wrong directory (C\:Programme (x86))?

This isn´t the 64bit directory but I tought Microstation recognizes a 64bit PC during the installation.

I also know that MS is a 32bit programm but Modo.exe works on a 64bit level.

Adam,

thanks for that explanation, it´s all clear to me now.

You´re right: I don´t have any materials with procedurally-generated geometry, only a few bump-maps.

Untill now, I didn´t use a lot of these geometries, even because of the low memory capabilities on my maschine.

Thanks again.

Jacques

The biggest consumer of memory (speaking from my own observations) is procedurally-generated geometry.  This includes fur, displacement maps, and probably normal maps (I don't use too many of those, but I assume the end result is more generated triangles as in the other two cases).  Because this geometry is not saved in the design file, it needs to be stored somewhere at render-time - in RAM.  If you aren't generating more geometry than what is represented by the objects in your scene (i.e., you aren't using fur or displacement materials) then the RAM required to store your scene during rendering will not be excessive.  

Try placing a dense fur material in scene and see the difference in RAM usage.  The process that creates all of that additional geometry seems to be single-threaded, so you will only see a fraction of one of your CPU cores in use during that phase, while the RAM steadily increases, until it either runs out of memory and gives up on the generated geometry, or completes the process and moves on to the rendering phase - which is multi-threaded and uses all available CPU power.  

This was the reason for my question - if you ARE using fur/displacement/normal maps and they're not showing up, it would point to a possible memory problem (lack of, or configuration).  But during the course of rendering a scene, it won't use all available RAM simply because it's there - it has to have a reason to do so, and that reason is nearly always (in my experience) due to the mentioned material types.

As it looks on the screenshot, your processor is fully loaded so that's probably the bottle neck.

Perhaps if Luxology would use more memory the rendertime will be faster?

I don´t know, it´s just a question.

Why do you believe it should be using more memory?

Why does Luxology uses just a minimal part of my physical memory?

Workstation:

- Intel Pentium i7-2600 (4  x3,4 Ghz)

- 32 Gb Ram

- Windows7 Professional 64bit

Settings:

- Luxology render preferences: the maximum of 16.000 Mb

- Resource cache: 32.767 Mb

Do I have to change some settings in the system?

Thanks in advance

Jacques