I'd say that 2G of RAM is a minimum requirement in order to work with Vue Infinite comfortably. Much less than that, and you are talking simple scenes without many figures in them.

I used to make complex 3D scenes back in the days where 128 M of RAM was a lot :) That has always been a problem with modern software. As tools become more accessible, it is easier to demand a lot more from them. When a handful of meshes were a limit a few years ago, we are now not satisfied without 2G of RAM and millions (billions ?) of polygons. My point is that it all comes down to what you want to do with the tool. You can still be creative and make amazing pictures with 512 M of RAM :)

Admittedly, I enjoy doing complex scenes.

For me, 2G it is.

Less than that, and V5I just won't take -- at least not with pleasure.

I have to agree with XENOPHONZ, i was pretty happy with 1GB ram, meaning to upgrade some day. As i start to make Vue 5i scenes that are more than simple tests, i see that the time to buy more RAM has come. Not surprising, considering the power.

Yes, I've been working with 1G RAM for Vue4Pro. It was OK. Not the best, but mostly OK. I've found that 1G just won't do it for V5I. But this program is worth the cost of the extra hardware.

Dunno if I agree with that. My latest gallery image was created with 1.2 gigs of RAM and there were hundreds of objects, many of them PZ3s. My computer is 2 years old but seems to be keeping up with Infinite just fine.

"I've found that 1G just won't do it for V5I." That makes me even more sad.... It's going to take me ages to save up for V5I already and now you're telling me I need to have another system upgrade as well? I've just upgraded my system to it's max to work well with V5.

I would propose that you all should simply look at Phouls video. He said that it is done with a system that has less then 1 GB RAM - to set up the scenes. For rendering he used the stronger machines to reach the deadline i guess. I have a Mac G4 with 1 GB and even less than 1 MHz clock rate. Works ok for me.

I think the keyword is "free" RAM. A 512mb system with say Windows XP loaded is not going to have anywhere near 512mb free, lucky if it's only half that.

Walther is right. Here what hapened (with my poor english words): during many days, I had my 2 "powerful" PC (P4 2,8 ghz with 1g ram) for the renders. The PIII (my web pc) is too slow for the renders. So, when scenes were at rendering on the 2 big engines, I start and create next scenes with my "old" PIII 1ghz 512 ram. Hum... about 75% of the scenes were created on that old PC. Mad (fool) isn't it? :-))) I remember some messages from the soft when launch ecosystem populate. It is like "Are you sure" for my hears. Anyway, let's beta testing!!! I clicked yes! And was cool. And I had the time to lunch. :o)))

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 09:38

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 09:38

Yep, "free" RAM is key. For me more RAM than my 1GB is not a REQUIREMENT for V5i, it's just very desireable. And if i come up with a new PC as well (now on a P4 1.8GHz), then i can start a render farm (will then have 3 PCs total). And i like having more then just Vue running. Would like to wait for the cooler dual core processors to arrive though. The current fastest processors put out so much heat (along with the top display cards). I might have to invest in a water cooling system. Plumbing my PC is not something i like to think about, although there is at least one system where all water cooling components stay inside the box. Check out tom's hardare site for tests of water cooling systems.

My latest gallery image was created with 1.2 gigs of RAM and there were hundreds of objects, many of them PZ3s. My computer is 2 years old but seems to be keeping up with Infinite just fine.

Load up a scene with several mil figures, clothing, hair, background objects, misc. props, perhaps an animal or two, heavy-duty textures & lighting.....and pretty soon you are talking real demands on your system's RAM.

Of course, if someone doesn't ever do scenes of this sort of complexity -- then it won't matter as much.

But even on the minimal end of things -- it's still easier with more free RAM for the program to romp around in.

FrenchKiss -- Beautiful work.

I just ordered a 1G RAM stick online. That'll bump my system up to 1.5G. I've got 2 RAM slots, so I'll have to pull one of my 512M sticks, and replace it with the 1G stick. I'll give this a try......if it's not enough for my needs, then I'll jump it up to 2G.

According to some feedback I got from e-on, Vue will not handle more than 2G on windows because of limitations from the way Windows XP handles memory. Which means that if you have 3G of RAM, Vue will use up to 2G and will likely to start complaining around 1.5 G used. However, Vue Infinite has several ways to improve memory management. If you set the number of undos to just 2 or 3, and use Decimate / Bake to polygons to simplify your objects, you should be ok with complex scenes.

Thanks for the information, agiel.

agiel when you say bake to pologons do you mean each object,vob,etc you load to go ahead and bake to pologons. I am little confused with this feature and its use. :o)

'Bake to polygon' takes an object made of several groups and simplifies it into a single mesh. For example, if you import a poser character into Vue, you should be able to select each individual body part as they are all part of a 'group'. If you bake that character to polygons, you end up with a single mesh and no way to select individual body parts (you can still access their materials but you cannot detach them from the character).

I'm a bit confused too. I thought that Vue handled most of this stuff more efficiently than other apps by storing ans manipulating many items as software proceedures, instead of as geometrical objects. But if you bake most items into meshes (their "physical" version, as opposed to their "virtual" version), aren't you requiring Vue to work harder, use larger storage and use more memory? I notice that when i bake objects to meshes for export purposes, scenes seem to get slower.

Thanks for explanation. I loaded a Blossoming Cherry tree to a scene with only an atmosphere and when I baked it to polygon on the highest setting I got an out of memory error. I don't think that is how you do an object after reading your explanation. If I am correct I could take a group of Blossoming Cherry Trees and then bake to polygons. Is that correct. :o)

Now I may be way off on this but this is how I understand how it works.

Take a poser figure for example. As mentioned above, you can select each body part. So if you select the arm you have all the parts of it as usual. However, the place where the arm connects to the body (shoulder joint) is also a side. That side has to be calculated with shadowing lighting etc. Now turn that one joint into many with each finger part,hand, knee, ankle toes etc. That is a lot of extra sides. However when it is simplified into one object, those extra sides no longer exist. This would save on calculation time as since it is not rendering shadowing etc for those parts as well.

Again, this is just how I understood it. I may be way off. :)

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 14:52

I upgraded to 4 gigs of RAM and V5I flies...V5I is not complaining :) In fact, I can feel the love V5I is emmitting LOL.

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 15:20

and V5I flies

Hmmmmmm. Attracts flies, does it?

I don't know if that's the desired result.........

Hmmmmmm, again. I'll give the 1.5G a go -- just to see how it does. Depending upon the results, I might be looking higher.

At the moment, all that I know for certain is that 1G isn't enough.

Hehe, 1gb is certainly not enough for what you have in mind looking at your first post - good luck with the upgrade :)

Hehe, 1gb is certainly not enough for what you have in mind looking at your first post - good luck with the upgrade :)

Thanks.

I'll end up with more before it's over. It's just a question of how much more. My goal is to be able to do the scenes that I want to do.....with as little hassle as possible. But without an unnecessary investment in overkill. ;-)

I suspect that 2G is going to be the balance point.

The reason I went for 4g from 2g was that V5P was not happy all the time..FYI..so I was not willing to take ANY chances.

When it comes to system RAM -- the more the merrier, that's what I say.

Currently, I've got 2 desktop PC's - networked together. Both PC's hove dual monitors.

The older PC is a 1G AMD Athlon with 512M of RAM. I use it as a file server. It's got something like 8 hard drives connected to it -- including several external drives of various types and sizes. There's a drive left over from my old 233MMX mounted in an external box. There's another external box which contains the 20G drive from my old laptop. It's also got my Nikon Coolscan 35mm film scanner connected to it.

It also serves as an occasional rendercow.

I'm a packrat, in case if you haven't figured that out.

My newer machine is a 2.53 PentiumIV with 1G RAM (soon to be 1.5G). It's got dual flatscreen monitors and several external drives mounted onto it, too. Along with numerous scanners, printers, palm sync cradles, digital video capture devices, etc.....etc.....etc........

The max RAM that my newer PC can handle is 2G. To go higher than that, I'd be looking at a new PC.

Which isn't out of the question......but I am waiting for another generation or so of processors to pass before I'll consider the performance differential to be worth the price.

At that point in time, I'll have 3 desktop PC's on my network.

The question then will be one of finding the room for them all. Along with all of their associated peripherals. The space is getting to be an issue.

You should see my cat negotiating her way between the dangling cables.........like a tiger in the Deep Jungle. My wife occasionally complains about the maze that she has to walk through to get to me.

That sounds familiar Xenophonz. I've currently got three desktops and a laptop in my render farm. A 1.2GHz P4, an AMD 2200+, 1.8GHz P4 mobile and my main A64 FX 53. All machines have at least 768MB RAM and are stuffed with extra hard drives. To save space I got a KVM switch to connect the two older desktops to a single screen and mouse (the keyboard is usually stuffed away in a corner). But then with an external film scanner, a flatbed scanner, Wacom tablet, colour printer, laser printer, router, firewall, speakers, etc. etc. There's still no room! Back on topic - memory is reasonably cheap at the moment. The more the merrier, although I'm not sure above 2GB is going to be properly utilised until Win XP64 comes out.

A bit OT....All my cables are hidden by notebooks filled with tutorials to hide my cables(like you I have quite the cable salad)...out of 5 cats 2 are cable chewers >:(. That said, back on topic...I was able to upgrade quite a bit here this last go around...I wanted to upgrade to 64 bit chip...but my MB is already obsolete(from upgrade a year ago >:(...)So, it is my & my hubbies "hope" that this upgrade will last at least 2-3 years. This is becoming quite tiring to say the least. I upgraded to a 3.2ghz processor & Nvidia 6800 Ultra VC & the 4g of ram. I could have gotten a 64 bit processor, but it would have been hitting the $1000-1500 mark o.O..would have to special ordered....My memory sticks had to be special ordered as well.

My techie did some tinkering with settings all over the XPPro OS...have no idea what he did...but everything is flying...beyond my expectations...He said XP could use 2g+...you just had to mess with some things...those things I'm not willing to do ;). Ditto Above as well...scanner/printer/tablet 2 sets of Klipsch speakers....in addition my husbands puter mess to the left of me...he's into music...so there is all kinds of mixers/piano keyboard/speakers/micorphones dangling all over..... ~sigh~ puter junkies

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 17:41

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 17:41

Message edited on: 03/29/2005 17:45

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

What I meant is that even if Windows XP supports more than 2 Gb, each application cannot work with more than 2 Gb by default. Here is what that page from Microsoft said about it : "The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file." Thanks for that link by the way... it made the issue a lot more clear !

Yes, BigGreenFurryThing -- thanks. That's good information.

Attached Link: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,6102,00.asp

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

My favourite process viewer is one of SysInternal's excellent freebies: Process Explorer. Go to the URL above and, on the left hand side of the screen, select 'utilities' from the section relevant to your operating system. Scroll down until and find Process Viewer.

It's a little more complex than most process viewers but has some very neat tricks. For instance, drag a target from the software over a window and the relevant process is highlighted in Process Viewer. Also right click on a process, select Google and your browser displays pages relating to that process. A great aid for quickly deciding which processes to kill when freeing up resources.

Check out SysInternals' other apps. They're all free too. 'Bless 'em.

What my techie told me was that the memory limit was restricted to the Win Applications(os) ie Word/Excel etc....Any other applications will use as much memory as you throw at it. Why would they make MB's that can handle up to 16G of Ram if nothing out there will utilize it??? That makes no sense....I can testify to the fact using 4g vs 2g has made a HUGE difference.

Message edited on: 03/30/2005 18:02

Does all make sense what Microsoft does? That would be new to me. I think this thread went a little - just a little - off topic. Looks more to me in the direction "who has the biggest..." All comments about "I have 1 GB and it works fine" are ignored. The RAM here goes up and up like the tail of a cow in spring. Difference between 2 GB and 4 GB RAM btw does not mean neccessarily that the application uses more than 2. It could be that only there is more space available for other applications in the background. Which is ok and an advantage of course too. I repeat it, 1 GB works absolutely fine here. As it does with a lot of others.

Just in case if anyone is still watching this thread -- the 1.5G expansion helped. No question about it.

But it's obvious that 2G would be better. So......2G it's going to be.

All comments about "I have 1 GB and it works fine" are ignored.

I wouldn't say that it's ignored -- but I would say that it's irrelevant. In the sense that 1G doesn't "work fine" for some of us.

It all depends upon what you are attempting to accomplish.

When it comes to good things: more beats less.

I've been reading it. And, on the "who's is biggest" subject, my XP Pro system sports 4g. I wasn't sure having more than 2g would help so I got it just in case someone/some company figured out how to use it or MS made some sort of change that would be useful in the next 3 years. Well, anyway, glad to see having 4g seems to be better than 2g (as I have nothing to compare it against...I never loaded Pro on the new box).

Just a note : Phoul : "I start and create next scenes with my "old" PIII 1ghz 512 ram. Hum... about 75% of the scenes were created on that old PC." ;)

Xenophonz, thanks for the update. I'll certainly look into upgrading my box in the next few months (finances permitting, of course!).