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Low RAM?

DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
in Carrara Discussion

Going from 16GB RAM down to 8GB was frustrating at best.

As it turns out, that wasn't the only thing to go wrong. I'm not savvy at this stuff, but a PC guru estimates that at least one other chip has blown as well - and I believe he meant on the motherboard... but I gained that from context. I could very well be wrong.

Anyway, so my computer still won't render. It dies when I try. But I can still load products into a scene and work on their shaders. Sometimes it crashes during this, but sometimes I'm okay for a while. So I tend to save after reaching certain milestones.

Many of the new products use 4K texture maps. They might (might) load okay, but once I start adding the missing maps to the shader nodes that are missed by the conversion, I quickly begin to run low on resources, and my whole machine begins to become a slurry of low-response - and then often a crash.

One way I've recently dealt with this to be able to mess with some of my newer content is to reduce the resolution of all of the maps for that product prior to loading. Since the maps are still the same name, and in the proper location, this content loads up just fine and my dying computer often lets me complete the optimization!

How do I do this to an entire folder full of many, many maps? Easy! Although there are likely many other apps, I use one called Irfanview, which is free for casual use, and $12 USD (EUR 10) for commercial use.

I have Irfanview set as my default image viewer since it opens pretty much anything. So to get my Batch Processing going, here are the steps I take:

  • Locate the folder of texture maps for the product in question
  • Create a new folder and name it "Orig" and move all maps into that folder
  • In the new Orig folder, double-click any image to open Irfanview
  • In Irfanview, go File > "Batch Conversion / Rename"

In the Batch Process, I do the following:

  • Leave "Work As" set to "Batch Conversion"
  • I leave Output to JPG, and use Options to set the JPG Quality - I leave mine at default
  • Place a check in the "Use Advanced Opions (for resize)" boxand click "Advanced"
  • In the Advanced Options dialog, I leave everything at the default except for RESIZE, where I click "Set new size as percentage" 
  • Set the Width % to 50 (You may choose any amount), with Maintain Aspect selected, Height is filled in automatically
  • Click Okay on the bottom of the dialog
  • To set the Output Directory to the proper folder, I choose "Use Current (Look-In) Directory", then scroll to the end of the line and remove the "Orig" portion of the line
  • On the right, toward the bottom, I use "Add All" to add all of the maps at once
  • On the lower left, click "Start Batch" - Irfanview will now start resizing your images!

Keep in mind to look for images in the Orig folder that might not be JPG. For example, some of the maps might be .png, so Carrara will be looking for a .png Simply copy the original png to the main folder - good to go.

After doing this, I've been seeing amazing results toward letting my broken machine deal with these products much easier

Comments

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    An old mainboard had issues with 1 of 4 memory sockets. I swapped the 2 RAM sticks to the other 2 and the PC ran fine after that.
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    A desperate mainboard repair trick: http://www.computerrepairtips.net/how-to-reflow-a-laptop-motherboard/
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    If you run the 32bit version of Carrara, you will automatically be limited to 4GB RAM on 64bit OS and about 2GB RAM on a 32bit OS.
  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,050

    My guess sounds like your video card is on the way out or even the power supply is karking under load.

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543

    Well, whichever chip blew, it took out one of my RAM modules with it - perhaps the whole channel. New video card sucks, but is not the problem. 

    For now, I'm just going to get an HP Omen Laptop to get back on my feet, then rebuild my Carrara machine with a new motherboard, new Ryzen 8 core (16 thread), new GPU, and 32-64GB RAM - as much as I can afford at the time, along with SSD C drive and a new large SATA HDD.

    The Omen I'm looking at has a six-core i7 (12 thread) 16GB RAM (if I can, I'll also order the extra 16), GTX 1060, 256GB SSD and 1TB Sata HDD. It has a nice, beefy cooling system and easy access upgrade panel for changing out RAM, GPU, HDD, etc.,

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    hmm sounds like a pita - good luck!

     

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,200

    well for years I did Carrara renders on a Dell inspiron duo core laptop with 4GB of RAM only 3.5 useable on 32bit

    my graphics were abysmal I had to work in wireframe mostly but it rendered

    so I thjink you have something else going on surprise

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543

    Indeed. 

  • ed3Ded3D Posts: 2,177

    __ _
    _And also You could consider an Refurbished_
    Dell has good deals on these _
    HP also offer refurbs, and both Dell and HP offer new machine guarantees with them. It could be well worth a look _

  • ed3Ded3D Posts: 2,177
    edited March 2019

    Also_  not to forget this _  just in case

    _However, contact corrosion is common with RAM.

    I suggest you remove and re-seat each RAM stick 4 or 5 times

    to burnish the contacts. -

    _I had this trouble around Christmas '16  in a Dell T3500

    did this with _Just the one DIMM slot that "Fail"

    also did it 6 times

    - then said well One more won't hurt and did one more

    and that Fixed it _thanks_``~...

     - Not meaning this is the  trouble -

    Post edited by ed3D on
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