[true]

I found that even if I use -hd, I can't render a scene with polygon over 2.5 million. It will just crash.
However, is it a matter of RAM or maxwell limitation? If it is about RAM, then I will go and get some more. I got 1G RAM at the moment.

Thank if anyone can answer.

[michaelplogue]

I don't think it's a RAM issue. I've got 8 GB on my dual opteron box, and it'll crash as mxcl reaches 2gb in processes.

[true]

thanks for reply, but that is a bad new to hear though.

[michaelplogue]

Yea.... Hopefully the final version will be able to take full advantage of available RAM. I can get 3dsMax to generate an mxs file with over 10 million polygons, but Maxwell can't handle this yet. Let's just hold our breath and hope for the best!

[zoppo]

32bit programs are restricted to 2gb if running under 32bit windows.

how do you even use your 8gb with xp pro?

[falconking]

I have the same problem with the last version. 4.5 million seems to be the limit for my system. I hope they fix this in the final release.

[michaelplogue]

I haven't quite figured out this whole memory limitiation thing yet. On my older system (WinXP Pro with 4 GB RAM), 3dsMax would only go up to (around) 1.7 GB before crashing. However, with the dual opteron system (running XP 64 w/ 8 MB RAM), 3dsMax will go all the way to 4 GB before crashing. It's the same installation of Max on both machines (no special 64 bit plugins).

The difference may be that for the dual system, each cpu has it's own dedicated memory slots (four each), so as Max processes, it's reaching its 32 bit (2 GB) limit on each cpu, giving you a total of 4 GB.

However, on both systems Maxwell would crash at pretty much the same 2 GB memory load.

One thing I've noticed with Maxwell is that it dosen't actually fully use both cpu's during the voxilization process. The load will bounce back and fourth between the two cpu's, never exceeding a combined 50% utilization (the loads are mirror images of each other). It's during the voxilization process that the mxcl crash takes place. So, we might be able to conclude that (at least during the voxilization), you are only getting the benefeit of a single 32 bit process (as opposed to two x 32 bit processes), and thus the 2 GB limit.

And since I don't the the first thing on how a computer actually works, this is quite likely complete rubbish! Hey, I just use the damn things, I don't design them........

Anyway, I would assume that as NL makes headway towards a 64 bit version of Maxwell, we'll be able to address a lot more RAM.

.

[alkis]

you need to change your boot.ini file to something like that
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3GB" /3GB /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

also known as the 3gb switch
only way to stop max or any other app crashing at 1.7gigs
regards

[Kabe]

2.5 million Tris are no problem here, 5 MTris are ok, and even 11 MTris render, though they use memory swapping then - 2.68 GB memory assigned on my 2.5 GB Apple G5.

I was not able to go beyond that because the Cinemaxwell plugin crashes if the scenes are getting bigger.

Kabe

[Jun In Gi]

i have same problem.