Mental Ray Can't access RAM

# 1 24-08-2009 , 02:47 AM

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Join Date: Mar 2007

Posts: 92

Hi. Using Maya 8.5 on a Precision 690, XP Pro x64, 8 gig RAM.

Hello. I just upgraded my computer, replacing my XP Pro x32 with XP Pro x64 and building up to 8 gigs RAM.

The PC definitely has the RAM properly installed, I have double checked properties and BIOS. Other programs are accessing the memory fine.

However, when I check Mental Ray memory info (see attached pic) I saw the physical memory was 1200.

When I went in to the memory limit and had the program generate the memory limit it is just 1.2 gigs. Why can't Mental ray access the 8 gigs RAM?

Can I fix this?

Help needed badly.

Thanks, T

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# 2 24-08-2009 , 01:20 PM

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Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

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Sounds silly but is it the 64 bit version of maya that you installed?

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 3 24-08-2009 , 01:21 PM

Maniacal boy king of Babylon
Join Date: Aug 2005

Location: the netherlands

Posts: 1,605

Hi tristanartform

-First of all don't post the same question over and over again in a different thread it's annoying.

-second ,when i look at your screengrab i see that your scene contains around 200 polys and you have a dual core processor.
I am by no means an expert when it comes to the inner workings of a computer but as i recall a computer works like a factorypipeline.

The software package sends out his packages to the processor which sends it via RAM to the disk.
Extra RAM only helps if your processors are so blazingly fast your disks have a hard time keeping up so that RAM temporarily stores the submited files to relieve some pressure of the harddisks

If i am correct about the fact you have a dual core machine don't think you having bought that extra RAM helps much when it comes to rendering because the first line is your processor and that will not render fast enough to fill up that 8 gigs.

Changing to a 64 bit os was one of the better choices you made since win xp 32 bit only adresses like 2 gb for programs, i know that there are boot ini settings which can change the fact that windows can see more than 2 gigs, but i know for a fact that xp 32 bit wasn't designed to adress more than 2 gigs and therefore will never work properly with more .

Hope this helps, please delete all the other obsolete posts or are ask the site admin to do it for you, and don't do it again, because it is quite irritating THE SAME WAY AS WHEN PEOPLE TURN ON CAPS LOCK, YOU FEEL LIKE PEOPLE ARE SHOUTING AT YOU IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT, LOL!!!!!!

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https://srv01.simply3dworld.com/showt...threadid=29188

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# 4 24-08-2009 , 03:09 PM

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Join Date: Mar 2007

Posts: 92

Hi. I tried to delete the earlier posts and was told I didn't have access to do that, so....

second, this is actually a slightly different post. earlier I was trying to locate the physical memory settings to check them This time, I had located them and was trying to find why Mental Ray wasn't accessing the RAM, but I get your point.

Regarding the problem, Right dual quad core processors. So, is there no way to access the extra RAM?

T

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# 5 24-08-2009 , 07:25 PM

Maniacal boy king of Babylon
Join Date: Aug 2005

Location: the netherlands

Posts: 1,605

First of all you do have a 64 bit maya installed right?
if not download it here;
https://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...linkID=9242259

if you have a dual quad core then that changes things;
-set the amount of rendering threads to 8 since you have 8 cores
--set memory limit to 0 making it Unlimited if i remember correctly

try loading or rendering a really heavy scene and watch if it works okay

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# 6 24-08-2009 , 09:39 PM

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Join Date: Mar 2007

Posts: 92

Hi. Right, the Maya 64-bit is the one I installed. I will follow your steps. I should add that since my earlier post, I went in to render cuurent frame options and manually set the memory limit to 6144 (6 gigs RAM) and rendered a desnse scene and it worked. Took 69 minutes, but rendered fine.

I still don't know why Maya couldn't calculate the available RAM on it's own, but I will see if following your steps fixes that.

Thanks, sir.

T

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Mental Ray Can't access RAM

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