I posted a message in the Max forum about my renders crashing, which I thought was due to a lack of ram. I've been working on a Pentium 4 2.4ghz with 768mb ram. I just increased my ram to 1280mb ram. Max still crashes on large rendering scenes, but I am also having problems in Poser: I am working on a Poser scene that has two V3 and one Freak model, along with a pretty substantial set. I can't recall the pz3 file size (I'm at work) but its up there. I've been monitoring the ram usage and when I open the file I'm using about 700mb of ram, when I go to render it shoots up to the limit of about 1.2 gb ram, which I assume the swap file takes over from there. I had big (detailed) texture maps on all the models. When I tried to render, it started to about 5% and then just stopped! I decreased the texture map on one of the models from about 1600x1200 to 800x600, there is a visible loss in quality, but at least I can get the render completed. Anyway, I just wanted to know if there was anything else I could try that I haven't thought of. My swap file is on the D drive and set to a very large size, so I don't think increasing that would help. Thanks for any advice, pzrite

Your memory configuration (768MB & 1280MB?) sounds a bit odd. What are the sizes of your individual RAM Modules? Is your machine DDR?

Yes its DDR SDRAM PC2700 (not sure of what all that means but thats what I have), I have two 512MB modules and one 256MB module. I just added them up in my head (I'm not in front of my machine right now) but it's a close approximation! :)

That is not a legal DDR Configuration. You have to have two 512MB and two 256MB modules. With DDR, you need to buy memory modules in pairs. It is also important to have the modules in the correct RAM slots. Your system or motherboard manual should tell you how to properly configure your memory. For now, take out your 256MB Module and just use the two 512MB Modules. Make sure they are in the correct slots. By the way, your original configuration of 768MB was also incorrect.

Hmmm, but I only have 3 ram slots. I'll double check on my motherboard specs, but I was pretty careful in researching what type of ram I need and can use.

Actually only some motherboards require that you install the memory modules in pairs. Since you have three slots it's safe to say that your mobo does not requires this. To try to solve your rendering problem, you should of course make sure that you're not running any unnecessary processes in the background, and also try rendering after a directly after rebooting. If it doesn't help you could try optimizing the memory. Assuming you use Win XP there are a couple of free apps you could try: FreeRAM XP Pro, frees up and defrags RAM. http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/ and PageDefrag, defrags the swap file. http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml

Sorry, I'm confused. The configuration I am talking about is for dual-DDR, not the older single-DDR, which sounds like what you have. You could have a bad RAM Module. Try turning off the "quick-boot" options in your BIOS. That should force the system to boot and run the full memory test. You could also have a hard drive problem. Check you system logs for disk errors if you have W2K or WinXP.

Thanks cuba, I am running Win XP and I do have one of those ram apps, I was monitoring what files and programs are using up the most ram. I only have a firewall and antivirus program running, I tried shutting them down, but they don't use up very much ram. I'll check out those programs you listed though, and I think I might consider buying a new motherboard.

Thanks nakamuram. As I said in my last post, I think one of the problems might be I have an older motherboard that might be at it's limit for accepting ram. It says it can only accept two sticks of pc2700 ram. So I think it's time for an upgrade!

try upgradeing your Bios ( some prossers only run at half speed in the default or older configs and it could still be telling you that your running at speed x when your running at speed a {the reasion for this is that the prosser is telling your bios what it is and it is what you will see in your post }) or you could be running on a bad driver for your video card ( i know i cant exit from city of heros with out crashing my system it's a driver error i just havent updated it yet )

Yep, I'm one step ahead of you blackwulf :) I just discovered my clock speed wasn't set correctly. I didn't really notice any big difference, in fact I didn't notice any difference when I added more ram either. But I'm going to do some more digging, maybe even gasp try overclocking just a wee bit. But I think I'll just get a new motherboard and cpu. I discovered my Pentium 4 is the bottom of the line - 2.4 ghz / 400mhz. Scotty...I need more power!!!

Attached Link: http://www.cpuid.com/

The link is to a page that has some nice utilities to check and overclock your cpu and memory.

I am still basically a newbe to Poser and here is how I deal with the RAM woes. I have 1GB of ram with my virtual memory (paging file) set to 1.5 - 3GB and sometimes I still have trouble. 1. Disc Cleanup before almost every production render. 2. Defrag regularly. 3. Kill my antivirus program and as many of its processes as I can. 4. Using the Material Room in P5 remove any unnecessary/unseen skin textures, etc. 5. Make any hidden geometry invisible by unchecking the "visible" property. 6. Use a dial cleaner on the file before render if you have multiple DAZ characters in it. 7. Delete any scenery that doesnt end up in my final camera angle. 8. If all else fails, render in "layers" by doing multiple renders, each being only a part of the final product and compile in Photoshop. Hope that laundry list helps someone out.

Geez Pixelpunk, for a newbie you have some pretty good recommendations there. thanks!