#2 drives
27 messages in this thread
I am having a problem with lock-ups and crashes just when I am saving final
renderings. 486DX2, 66 8meg ram, Stacker, and two drives. I get the not
enough memory for effective use each time I start the program. I have a 30+
meg swap setup and over 7 megs of ram available. I removed QEMM 7.5, and am
only loading DOS high. I have had no crashes with my Wacom tablet (maybe just
luck) but have with the mouse. I use two start-up configs, and disable the
tablet when using the mouse, as Windows wants to turn the tablet driver on
regardless of which config + autoexec I use. Is there a problem with the
program on D and the swap on C, or could the mouse, tablet drivers be the
problem? You can imagine my frustration after 5 or six hours of adjustments
when the file is lost. It happens saving or rendering to screen when the
design is complicated ie. shadows, smoothing, multiple objects, etc. Help.
Bill Latch
Bill,
It might help if you would let us know which program you are using.
Richard Lindner
Forum Staff
Sorry about that. Simply 3D. Also which would speed the program up best, 8
more megs of ram added to the 8 I have, or a video card with 4 megs vram
(Diamond pro)? I love the effects but the wait kills me.
Thanks, Bill
Bill,
I've forwarded your message on. I don't work for any off the vendors in this
area. For future reference, you can contact Visual in Section 5 at:
Nick Josephs [VISSOFT] 74431,3611
Richard Lindner
Forum Staff
Richard,
Thank you. I don't use this service that often. My home address is at AOL
because it is simply cheaper for most transactions. However, vendor support
and files are better here.
If you play Wolf 3D I would be happy to send you my shareware patch with 40
new maps and new graphics called Rabid Wolf 3D.. I think it is quite good. The
maps will be in the new WOLFMASTER program but not the graphics due to the way
WM works. I would ask you to post it somewhere in exchange for my transmission
costs.
Bill
Bill,
Sorry. I've never played Wolf 3d so the patch would be useless :-(.
FYI, the cost of CIS is going to be dropping dramatically in the next few days.
If memory serves, the standard pricing plan will cost $9.95 per month (increase
of a dollar but more basic services) and the cost for all connection speeds
will drop to a flat rate of $4.80. This will definitely help me out <g>.
Richard
Hello Bill:
Your msg was forwarded to my section today.
There are several different things giong on. First, you need to increase
available RAM to eliminate the "not ewnough memory to run efficiently" problem.
This isn't a critical error but it does affact performance. If you have
Smartdrive in your autoexec.bat, reduce it to 1024. (eg c:\dos\smartdrv.exe
1024 1024). If you are running in a high color mode, you'll have to reduce to
256 colors — with 8MB of RAM the high color modes are pushing it,
memory-wise).
It shouldn't matter where the swap file is (though I assume it is on the
uncompressed partition).
What msg do you get when crashing? Which version of WIndows are you running?
If it is 3.11, do you have 32-bit file access enabled? Are you using QEMM
Loadhi commands in your config files? Do you have any TSR's in the
autoexec.bat, win.ini (load line) or in a Startup group?
I'm confident that we can solve your problem. If this is all overwhelming,
please feel free to contact our customer support group at (818) 883-7900.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
Nick,
Most error messages open with unknown block or something like that. Qemm is
remed out should I enable it? Em386 is remed out. No tsr's. I just moved
swap file to uncompressed. I really don't like using Stacker as I have had
problems with it. With this program S3D, I was forced to reinstall, as I feel
more RAM would do me more good than a huge new drive. (Financial Reality) With
stacker I now have 1GB free. I get great results, but a lot of the time I
can't reopen the file as the EYE files cause an error. I can't see the pattern
to this.
>>Most error messages open with unknown block or something like that<<
The error message that appears is critical to the reslolution of your problem.
I must know the exact message and when it occurs in order to help. If your msg
really says "unknown block" that sounds like a nasty hard drive problem.
REMing out Qemm and Emm386 is fine, as long as you have Himem.sys, preferably
at the beginning of the config.sys.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
I sent last reply then checked autoexec. Command for smartdrive is just exe.
Where would I insert the 1024 line?
thanks,
Bill
The entire line for smartdrive should read:
[drive]:\[directory]\smartdrv.exe 1024 1024
For example:
C:\dos\smartdrv.exe 1024 1024
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
Nick,Thjings are working better, and maybe the problem is solved to some
extent. Exact msg=Stack Fault, Module unknown, 2067: 5A1D. Wintune points to
some problem with slow drive access which may be bios related. This I will
have to see a friend about correcting, as I don't seem to be able to get into
the start up listings on the bios. At least now when the program stops all the
parts of the picture are in the EYE file and I can resume rendering. Sometimes
it has gotten behind the program manager and is still running. I am now using
Infobar to watch resources, and that reminds me to close the unused editor
boxes. About RAM would it be better to go to 16 megs ram or a video card with
4 megs vram. If I move up to VR I will need the 4 vram megs, but I get the
impression the ram is better for now. I have lots of room for the swap
file,40MB now.
I appreciate your help. I am relatively new at this, so my terminology may be
imprecise. I plan to master this program as I want to make a short animation
to run while a graphics swap program inserts my patch in the Wolf 3D game.
Thank you,
Bill
>>About RAM would it be better to go to 16 megs ram or a video card with 4
megs vram.<<
Upping your RAM to 16MB will give your a bigger performance boost, esp. because
now you can set a 2MB smartdrive (smartdrv.exe 2048 2048) and speed access to
the swap file.
>>If I move up to VR I will need the 4 vram megs<< Not so. Simply 3D and
Visual Reality have the same display requirements. The added vram allows you
to work in high resolution, high color.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
Nick,
I just had a crash after doing a couple of renderings successfully. The msg
was "fatal exiting because out of memory. Top of screen said global memory
left 2766400. The program attempted to save, but the files were gone when I
opened core.eye. It said files could not be reclaimed, resolution save failed
etc. There were seven objects at various angles, seven lights casting shadows,
and a single tif image in the view. I had rendered rhe same assortment to
screen and to file. Did I tie up the memory by not saving the image as an EYE
file before repositioning all the objects and lights? In other words does
saving to a TIF file set up some kind of a save for the image as an EYE file
which ties up some memory? Or could the fact that more polys were exposed in
the new view have eaten up the memory? I can set up a swap file as large as
Stacker will allow on 220 meg drive. I can also go out and get the RAM in 10
minutes. I do like what S3D does.
Bill
>> The msg was "fatal exiting because out of memory. <<
Bill: I have had the same thing happen to me with S3D. I believe, (don't know
but think) that it's because I have quite a number of things tying up memory.
Images, and objects, a number of materials and so on. What I have learned to
do is to watch and if I see that it's taking longer and longer to do whatever
it is I'm doing, then I start to close unneeded
things. If I don't need certain "materials" or images, objects, then I delete
them.
I also save from time to time, and save images that I like as Tif files or Bmp
files…
no particular reason, but I know that I can convert to them some other type if
I wish.
I love S3D… I have 16 mgs of ram and 2 mgs of Vram… and if I watch, and
pay attention
I don't get these error messages.
Jinny
Jinny's right that one should save early and save often. However, note that
deleting resources does not necessarily free up usable memory, so that's not a
guaranteed way to avoid the ignoble out of memory msg.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
>> However, note that deleting resources does not necessarily free up usable
memory, so that's not a guaranteed way to avoid the ignoble out of memory msg.
<<
Nick: Well… phooey… what other methods do you suggest???
Jinny
After deleting resources, save the file, exit and restart to clear memory.
That way you're sure things are clean.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
Jinny,
Did you add any RAM since installing the program? I ask to find out exactly
what performance difference you experienced. I now have 8 megs, which I know
is inadequate. Is there a way to use the same textures on more than one
object? Perhaps this would reduce the chance of a crash. This was a real
disaster for me, as everything was in place and I was adjusting lighting for a
final render. Everything was adjusted, and I was about 2 minutes from
finishing a 4 hour project. I saved a previw, but it was too flat for my
purpose.
Thanks for the help.
Bill
>> Did you add any RAM since installing the program? <<
Hi Bill: Sorry to hear about the 4 hr work, then crash! (Just remember to
SAVE as you go, for next time!!) And! If the program starts working more
slowly… watch out…
I have 16 mg of ram, and 2mg Vram… I increased my disk space last night, and
one thing,
we did clear our C drive to make more room too… Window applications just eat
up space so we
decided to make more room available.
One thing I have decided is that the more complicated the object is, then the
more it takes memory.. so I need to be more careful as I proceed.. (I'm a game
player, I've learned
over the years to save from time to time… ha ha… hate dying!)
>> Is there a way to use the same textures on more than one object? <<
Yes, All you have to do is either pull the object icon into the edit well, or
use your
right mouse button and hit "Edit" Then you can change your material as you
wish. I don't find that it takes too much memory to have several different
materials, but in a big
project, it might make a difference.
I like to keep adding different materials to my objects… and changing the
Opacity of the object, just to see what the image looks like with the change.
Hope this helps…
I have 20Megs. of RAM using a 10 Meg swap file in Windows. The only thing that
the VRAM on your video card is used for is windows screen modes, (ie. the depth
of color and screen resolution) Anyhow my point in writing this message is to
say that when I run VR I always run it under a seperate OS/2 Windows session,
OS/2 will allocate windows memory as it needs it. In other words, there is no
set size for a windows swap file…. OS/2 will allocate disk memory
dynamically as needed. I dont use OS/2 for everything, but it does come in
handy for some things.
Ryan
The performance improvement realized when upgrading from 8 to 16MB RAM is due
in great part to the fact that you can now afford a larger smartdrive cache, so
now you have faster access to the swap file on your hard drive.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
Bill:
Additional RAM speeds things up. Additional swap increases the amount of
resoureces available for rendering. How much RAM, how much swap do you
currently have?
The order in which one does things determines how quickly memory fills up.
Thus it's difficult to say exactly what could have caused you to max out.
Nick Josephs
Visual Software
Nick, I have 8 megs ram and 40 meg permanent swap.
Bill
Hi Bill,
A few tips for building projects and reducing resource strain.
— minimize how many lights are casting shadows, I find that I can usually get
the effects I want by having 3 or less lights casting shadows – remember, in
real life the more lights you have the fewer shadows you get because the
shadows casted by a light are being filled by the other lights in the scene.
— Make good use of the images you load in to use as resources for materials.
For example, with a marble texture you can create many diffrent types and
colors of marble, ar you could use it as a reflect texture to create many types
of metalic materials. Remember Images take a lot of resources – which brings me
to my next tip-
— Convert the images on your disk that you are going to use for material
construction into 256 col images (I save them as GIF files because its a
compressed format that is always 256 col, so if I load a GIF I know its a 256
col file). This will cut the file size of the image by two thirds (aprox.). The
proccess of rendering with highlights and shadows as well as other atributes
you set effectively masks the fact that you are useing a 256 col file. In other
words you can't see the difference.
— If you are only rendering a 640×480 BMP file and the object that you are
applying a texture to is only in one eighth of the picture, there is no use in
using a bitmap for that texture that is a 640×480 image. Reduce it to somthing
like 160×120 or of that is two small then 320×240.
— Finaly save your rendered resources to disk and then del them from your eyes
file. You will still have the image on disk but it won't be taking up resources
the next time you load the project.
Hope these help,
Brian Edgin
Visual Software
Product Specialist
P.S. – I learned it all from Nick! 🙂
Brian, thanks. I'll buy into the GIF idea 100%. I should have known this from
expereience in e-mailing files. I can't see the difference on my set-up. When
would it actually show, 64 bit svga?
However, I can't use less than seven shadow casting lights and get what I want
as each object must be independantly lit for the illusion to work. I am not
into reality in my rendering, so physics and common sense do not apply. A lot
of the crashes did involve 24 bit images. I have been turning unused items
off. Does that help, or should I get them out of the area completely?
Thanks again for the GIF idea, that might just do it.
Bill
Brian: What an excellent note. I'm keeping this for future reference.
I also appreciated the lighting tips.
Another tip given to me about lighting is that it's like stage lighting and
that reference material relating to that type of lighting will be of use with
our program.
Jinny