Memory allocation error

wsxc

I use Carrara 7.
Even the simplest render cause message "A memory allocation error has occured". What can I do with it?

Don't offer me to choose newer Carrara versions - in my computer they aren't make any render at all.

3DAGE

Can you give some information about your system..

PC / Mac
What processor ?
What Operating system ?
How much RAM ?
What graphics card (make and model)

wsxc

PC
OS: Windows XP SP3
Proc: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual 5000+
RAM: 2GB
Graphic card: GeForce 8600GT

I have no problems with any other soft, including DAZ Studio 4.5, Photoshop etc.

3DAGE

Thanks :)

With that specification, Carrara should be capable of running. I've previously had Carrara running on a similar system, and although 2GB isn't a lot of ram now, it should be enough, but, with Windows it also depends on other applications running in the background which are using ram.

Q: When do you get the memory allocation error.

evilproducer

More info. regarding your scene could help. For instance is it an animation?

The main thing I see regarding your system, is you need more RAM. Since it's relatively cheap I would add another two gigs if your system can accept it. The other thing I wonder about is your system maintenance. For instance, how full is your HD, has it been defragged? Are there a lot of programs or utilities running in the background?

In the meantime there are some things you can do to lessen your system overhead. I would start by going to the preferences and lowering the texture spooling down as low as you can, then choose to consolidate duplicate textures on loading. When I set up a scene, one of the first things I do is go to the interactive render settings and lower the default texture display. Don't know if this helps to free up system RAM or just the GPU's RAM, but it does help prevent lagginess in the assembly room. The other important thing to do when you've been working on a scene for awhile, is to go the Edit menu and go to the Remove Unused Masters sub-menu and go through the options there.

To help prevent issues while rendering, you could save your scene when you're done working on it, quit Carrara and reboot your computer to clear out your RAM. Then relaunch Carrara and render your scene either by opening your scene or rendering through the Batch Queue. Personally, I would render through the Batch Queue. Seems to save on resources. If you're rendering an animation, try rendering to an image sequence, that way, if you do get a crash or an error you only lose the frame that it occurred on.

wsxc

When do you get the memory allocation errorDuring the rendering process. Sometimes first render is OK, second render always fails.

More info. regarding your scene could help. For instance is it an animation?It's a simpliest scene with only one character (DAZ Victoria 4) in default pose. No details, background etc.
you need more RAM

I don't think so. If 2 GB doesn't allow me to render just a single character, how many will I need to render the scene with the dozens of characters?
The other thing I wonder about is your system maintenance. For instance, how full is your HD, has it been defragged? Are there a lot of programs or utilities running in the background?My system maintenance is very good. HD's have 80% free space (I can't imagine how to fill such a huge space :) Defragmentation is sheduled on every week (it's not so important - this error is definitely RAM error). RAM is also defragmented. Swap file is large enough (3 GB). There are almost no programs in the background: when I work with the graphic editors, I shut down all except the system processes. As about described "tricks" with textures etc, I'll try it. My scene doesn't have a lot of objects and textures, but it can be helpfull anyway.
I think the system reboot isn't really necessary: shutting down the "explorer" process and utilities like RAM Saver can effectively clear the RAM. However, even the "clear", rebooted three minutes ago system cause an error during the rendering.

evilproducer

you need more RAM

I don't think so. If 2 GB doesn't allow me to render just a single character, how many will I need to render the scene with the dozens of characters?

You might be right if all of the two gigs of RAM went to Carrara. Except it doesn't. You still have your OS and it's services that require a chunk of RAM.

The reason I asked about the HD space was not because I didn't think it was a RAM issue, but because I thought it was a low RAM and swap disk issue. Since you have most of your HD free, it shouldn't be an issue.

I also suggested quitting Carrara and restarting your computer because sometimes Carrara doesn't like to let go of it's RAM. Carrara 6 had a memory leak and I've seen posts on the old forum that suggested Carrara 7 had one for some people. I haven't had the issue, but I'm on a different platform and OS than you.

tsarist

The 3D Man and Evil Producer gave you some good tips.

Here are a few more...
There is a file called DazTMP. I'm not at my computer, so I can't tell you exactly where it is, but find it and clear it out often.

Then, in your scene, remove ANYTHING that isn't visible. Any body part that is covered with clothing, hide it.
Remember to remove any unused shaders
Always use the batch renderer
Use only one tile to render, not two.

These tips have kept me rendering without incident for awhile.

Best of luck!

P.S. I use C7Pro too.

3DAGE

A couple of other things to look at are...

As Tsarist mentioned,.. the DazTMP folder,. which should be in your (My Documents / Daz3D / DazTmp

If your system or carrara crashes, the temp files in this folder can build up and cause issues, so clearing it out occasionally is a good thing.

If you're rendering to AVI, ... try changing to a Sequenced image format , since this will also help with ram issues.

As far as rendering multiple figures,..
it depends on the polygon count, and the textures used in the figures, and whether they're Unique figures or you're using a replicator
but yes, 2 GB isn't a lot of ram to have scenes with high resolution models and high resolution textures.

tsarist

3DAGE said:

the DazTMP folder,. which should be in your (My Documents / Daz3D / DazTmp

Thanks 3D Age.
I could see the file in my head, but couldn't remember where to tell him it was.

Haven't seen you in awhile. Glad to see you are alive and well.

wsxc

I’ve seen posts on the old forum that suggested Carrara 7 had one for some peopleOn my system Carrara 7 definitely doesn't have memory leaks after closing. I'm starting my work with 80% free RAM and I have it back after closing Carrara. However, it definitely have memory leaks during the work: the more renders without restart I do, the less memory I have (though System Monitor doesn't show it).
You still have your OS and it’s services that require a chunk of RAM

My OS and system services consume only 250MB. Another 250MB is required by Carrara per se. I still have 1.5GB of RAM for rendering.
It's interesting that the memory error doesn't depend on the output image resolution, quality etc. Occured once, it occurs on every scene - even the simpliest one. On the other hand, after restarting Carrara I can make a difficult render with many objects and high quality options.
Even more interesting that during the succesfull HQ renders my System Monitor doesn't show any large RAM consumption. Only 5-7% in comparison with "static" mode with the scene loaded. And there is no "peaks" during the failed renders: at the moment when I have error message, 65% of RAM is free.

And, as I understand the rendering technology, it doesn't really need so much RAM. Basically it depends on the CPU frequency. A little amount of RAM can only slow down the process, and my experience with another graphic editors confirms this.
So I think it's the software problem, when Carrara "doesn't see" the large amout of free RAM. I hope the new Carrara version will not have this problem.

Anyway, thanks for the advices. Now I can make even the HQ renders. I don't know how the Texture map size affects the render quality, but I was quite happy with the quality that I already got.

Thanks a lot.

1MoreThreadDeleted

Here are some suggestions.

The first thing I would do is reset my preferences. After a while carrara's preferences gets corrupted and odd problems occur.

The next thing is try to render to a different output..

If you are doing a movie try using sequenced images instead. Or try a quicktime movie over avi. (try the reverse of that).

change the FPS of your animation from 30 to 24.

Try to see if a shader is causing the problem. remove all shaders and try the render again.

LOL I think that I replied too late. Glade to see you can render HQ animations/pictures now.

3DAGE

Hi tsarist :)

I'm still alive,.. I'm just not getting much free time these days to do what I want to do, rather than what I need to do :)

Hi wsxc :)

Are you using Carrara 7.2 .. or Carrara 7 ?
You can check the version in the opening "Splash screen", or if that's too quick, you can click on the little Daz triangle Logo at the top left corner of the screen in Carrara, and then choose "About Carrara" which will show the splash screen and version details.

If you don't have 7.2 (last release) then you should update that,..

On my system Carrara 7 definitely doesn’t have memory leaks after closing.

no program should have memory leaks "after" it's closed, ..and if so, that's different from a memory error while the program is running,

Carrara's TEMP files can be left in the DazTMP folder, (if carrara crashes) and can build up with more crashes. it's good housekeeping to regularly remove any temp files from within the DazTMP folder in your My Documents folder.

And, as I understand the rendering technology, it doesn’t really need so much RAM. Basically it depends on the CPU frequency.

No, ..one thing is not separate from the other, ...they are interdependent.
The RAM memory, Feeds information to the CPU on each clock cycle (frequency) and receives the results of the CPU processing.

I don’t know how the Texture map size affects the render quality, the lower the quality of the image, the grainier the image would be, but rendered image quality has nothing to do with any memory errors. The Higher the resolution or size of the texture map, the more detail it can have,.. this also means that the image file size will be larger, which is where it effects Memory usage.

For example:
If you have an object using 10 shading domains, and each shader domain uses a different (high quality) texture map EG: 10 Mb per texture map, then you're using 100 mb in textures alone for that model. That's excluding holding the geometry in memory, and calculating the scene to render the image.

wsxc

Are you using Carrara 7.2 .. or Carrara 7 ?Carrara 7. I can't find Carrara 7.2 - this site offers me to download only Carrara 8.5.

it’s good housekeeping to regularly remove any temp files from within the DazTMP folder in your My Documents folderAll the temporary files and folders on my system are cleared on every startup. I sheduled to clear DazTMP folder every 15 minutes. I hope it will be enough.
The RAM memory, Feeds information to the CPU on each clock cycle (frequency) and receives the results of the CPU processing.

I know. However, CPU needs SOME memory, not the "ocean of RAM".
I checked this. I restarted my system, opened a lot of webpages etc, and all the 2GB of RAM became busy. Then started the HQ-rendering in Carrara. CPU usage became 100%, but RAM consumption was only 150MB. Really strange.
If you have an object using 10 shading domains, and each shader domain uses a different (high quality) texture map EG: 10 Mb per texture map, then you’re using 100 mb in textures alone for that model.Understood. Fortunately, the figures on my scenes are simple and small and don't require such a huge texture maps.

Kevin Sanderson

If I recall correctly, the only time I have ever gotten a message similar to that when rendering is when I'm rendering to screen and not to a named and saved file (that seemed to apply to both movie and individal frames for me in 8.1). When I name and save my files before rendering I don't see an error during a render. I might get it again with bigger renders like some get, but I usually don't make long animation renders or go too many tries in with stills before having to leave to do something else. I wish I had more time to work with Carrara.