#Insatiable RAM hunger?
8 messages in this thread
During a five layer Video Post process including two RGB and two alpha
transparency layers I've run across an interesting problem: at the beginning
the memory usage is around 13 megs, then, every two or three frames, the RAM
consumption is increased by 3 megs. If I break the process and restart it at
the 'break frame', memory usage is down at 13 megs again. It seems that 3DS
can't free the used memory appropriately. Or is something else the reason for
this behavior? I've finished the 400 frames process by breaking it down into
twenty pieces (sweat!) but I wonder what I should do if it were 10000 frames I
had to render… 😉
Volker
Are you using an IFL list? If so, and your USE-TGA-GAMMA switch is ON in your
3DS.SET file, it could explain the memory leak. That's a bug that's fixed in
R4. The workaround for now would be to turn U-T-G off, since it's not needed
99.995% of the time anyway.
If not, my guess is that Phar Lap is having a hard time with your memory
management system. Are you using QEMM?
– G
BINGO!!!
You've hit the nail dead on the head, Gary. Thanks *A* *LOT* for your
lightning fast (hey, it took a mere three hours!) and precise answer. Can't
tell how much I appreciate your way of supporting customers – it's invaluable.
I'm beginning to understand why 3DS costs so much more than Microsoft's
products: less bugs – more support. (Yeah, much much much less bugs! This was
the first real trouble I encountered with 3DS)
Thanks again and keep on doin' yer good work!
Volker
PS: Yes, I do use QEMM 7.03 – but U-T-G OFF solved the problem. So now it's
back to Waiting For R4 again… <g>
3 hour turnaround for tech support from Germany on a Sunday afternoon, eh?
Even I'm impressed. <g> And what the heck am I doing working on a Sunday?
– G
>>What am I doing working on a Sunday?
Yeah, we expect a big shot like you to be entertaining celebrities on your
yacht on a Sunday. Must have had bad weather or something. <g>
Michele
No yacht… Just a rubber ducky.
– G
Sunday work, huh? Wow! I must admit that I've completely lost my sense
of time over my work, so I first didn't realise that you actually were helping
me on a Sunday. Impressive, young Skywalker… [sic] <g>.
Ah, as for the 99.995% you mentioned – You won't guess what happened
when I queued a huge animation file to be rendered overnight… Right! When I
returned the next morning, MCS told me that this particular process failed
because of differing alphas (!). Hmmm…. when I turned U-T-G on, everything
worked fine again. Is Alpha in any way related to Gamma (except that both _are_
letters in the Greek alphabet) – if yes, why so? (No, you don't have to answer
that…)
Do you know of a bug in the GIF encoding/saving routines? I render my
animations to GIF stills and every now and then a GIF is corrupted (ca. one out
of 200), in most cases in the last few lines of the image. Checks of the data
constistency on our network showed that data transfer/storage is ok… Again a
beetle fixed in R4?
Now I've raved a lot again, and I know your time is short….
See ya (virtually),
Volker
Re the gif encoding stuff… I guarantee you that there are no problems in
there. If you're getting corrupted gif files, check your HD controller.
– G