Quite erratically, when saving a 200meg Bryce 5 file, I get the following:

An unexpected error has occurred (out of memory). 

I have 2.5 gigs of memory and the task manager's performance window indicates only 700megs of actual memory usage.  This is starting to drive me nuts as it's totally erratic and random.  Any ideas as to what might be going on here?  I have worked on files larger than this in the past on this very same Dell Optiplex GX 270 with no trouble whatsoever.  Rebooting seems to help, but that often results in lost renders that sometimes have been running for hours.

Any assistance would be appreciated!  Thanks!

gmvgmvgmv

The current Bryce app has a 200MB memory limit, and you are just at the threshold.  Try standard memory reduction techniques, like smaller texture maps, object conversion, etc.  Hopefully any new release of Bryce will deal with that issue.

Your error was caused by the memory leak causing havoc with the undo buffer. You can cause a crash easily by using the copy, paste, or replicate/duplicate commands on imported meshes, or high poly native meshes such as trees. I have seen this myself. anytime you are making replications/duplications of imported models or high poly trees save the file often and restart Bryce. Make sure you rename the file each time as you do not want to copy over a good save with a corrupted one. Restart Bryce because that is the only way to clear the clutter from the undo buffer. Do not save as you close the file, save first then close. Because you need to check the integrity of the save and make sure it did not go corrupt and balloon to 1.98gb, another variation of the same memory problem issue. Remember that Bryce 6 compresses files in a way that bryce 5.5 did not, so you need to know the difference between the file size on disc and the size in the page file history. Also, try to never use the undo command. it too gums up the memory and can lead to crashes. Also, I have found that Bryce is sensitive to any and all system instability at the time of a save. I have found that the mere act of minimizing Bryce to work in other priograms then restoring Bryce causes the undo buffer to go crazy. So try not to work in other apps while working on scenes with alot of replications or duplications, and especially when saving files in Bryce. the truly deadly combination is perforiming lots of replication commands and undo commands while jumping between Bryce and photoshop editing textures ot 3dsMax editing meshes. Hope this makes sense. The memory leak sucks.

Thanks for all the input.  One funny thing about this save error - it does not occur when I save with the render setting at "fast preview" with the default render (no antialiasing).  It appears to happen when the render setting is at normal with antialiasing and only happens after the render's been running a while if I try to save incrementally.  If I start the render and pause the render and save, it saves fine. Let it run a while, pause, save, then the error occurs.

I have since reduced the file size to some 160megs and still get the crash on the Dell Optiplex with 2.5 gigs of RAM but did not on a Latitude Laptop loaned from work that has a mere 1 gig of RAM.  Strange, huh?

It seems that I can work on this file fine on the Optiplex, adding lights or other polygon groups, I just can't do a quality render on it with this particular file.  Admittedly, one texture has a 50meg photo which may the cause of all this, but I've been working on this file for at least a month now with the high meg photo texure, but only yesterday had the first save crash.

Oh well, live and learn, right?  At any rate, thanks for the suggestions!!

I'm getting more and more covinced that bryce has a memory-leak - i've experinced that after opening bryce (and closing afterwards) many times in a row , with renders in between i get less and less free memory - but that doesn't show up in the task manager because the stolen chunks of memory don't belong to any process any longer, but still are unavailable to the system. That could be a part of your problem (if i'm right in assuming the memory leak)

Be careful that you are not running two instances of Bryce. I have found that you can shut Bryce down but it will still show up in the task manager. If you then fire up Bryce again you'll have 2 running and have the resultant memory problems.

TheBryster - well if your post was for me - i've cheked that - and there has been no hidden running processes - i know that you can experience - if explorer fails that all your instances of bryce disappears from the taskbar - but you can get them back with alt-tab cycle through running applications - but the memory theft has been without running bryce applications ...neither as applications nor as processes :-)

/Arne

Bryce vs. Goodyear - I knew a fella once who consistantly over-inflated his car tires above manufacturer's recommendations.  Naturally, he kept having blowouts.  He asked for advice.  He stopped driving over curbs.. that didn't help.  He stopped driving over mountainous rocky terrain; that didn't help.  He even stopped driving at excessively high speeds in 100 degree temperature.  Still no luck.  He kept over-inflating and blowing out tires.  The conclusion he reached was that the manufacturer was selling defective tires, he had tried everything else.

Just an analogy and smile for the day.. :)
 

LOL

Its a known memory leak, been there a long time:-/

I guess I should consider myself really fortunate in that case - been Brycing avidly since 2003 and have never encountered this error before.  Don't know why it's happening with this particular file, but heck, perhaps it won't ever happen again - just a fluke of some sort.  And I've only ever had one corrupted file. 

Try renaming the file to something new before you save it, sounds weird but just try it heh:-)

@ gmvgmvgmv - I have found that using one of the many free memory optimizers available often helps.  If nothing else, you can watch the memory slowly being released/recovered.  I too, have been using Bryce for many years, and found that Bryce takes some time for memory to "settle" after loading and after complex rendering.  A very large/complex scene may take 5 minutes or more to release all available memory back to cache. Try waiting awhile before saving. :)

Army4499,

Thanks for that suggestion.  I used to use MemTurbo a number of years ago, but I believe that it's no longer freeware.  What might you recommend for an XP-Pro system, something with low system overhead and meaningful interface?

Well one day my car wouldn't start. I tried it all, jump-starting, clearing the carb, cleaning the plugs, checking the points, made sure there was petrol in the tank. But while I was scratching my head the wife said she noticed the licence plate had a screw missing and maybe that was the problem.
So just to show her who's boss and that the licence plate had nothing to do with the engine, I fitted a new screw, got in the driver's seat and turned the key.
Yup! The car started!
Don't ya just hate know-alls?

lol

Gosh, I'm sorry I blew up!  LOL  Looking over my first post I discovered I said 200 MB instead of 2 GB. I'm sorry about that, just human error.  However the guy was asking about a file save, not file buffers, memory leaks, etc, of which he has no control, other than avoidance.  In general I have found the obvious and simplist solution to a problem is usually the best first approach, as opposed to esoteric ones, which was all I was trying to illustrate, ie, keep file size down,  If anyone took offense, I apologize.