Here is a chartto help decide how much ram is useable by a particular app
vs how much is available in your machine.
I’m running Win Home Premium. ZBrush 4R6 is x86, so can only use 4GB.
(or whatever is available), but 64bit apps, e.g. Blender, can use as much
as is available.
ZB4R7 will be 64bit, and will be able to use up to 16GB. (correct me if I’m wrong)
I could be wrong but those are the physical limits of the MS operating system, and they’re mostly arbitrary limits. The 4GB limit on your current system is not per software, it’s the total memory that can be used with your operating system, this includes things like memory for the graphics, etc. This means you’ve got less than 4GB for Zbrush because the operating system and other processes will use memory as well. So the 16GB for W7 home premium is a physical one. That’s just the operating system limit, the motherboard and other hardware components also have physical limits. W8 Pro might be limited to 512GB but that doesn’t mean my hardware can even get close to that.
Currently Zbrush is a 32 bit program so it’s limited to about 4GB. So on a 64 bit system it will still run as a 32 bit program and those lower limits. However once it goes to 64 bit mode it can access much more memory than 4gb, they can still code limits to its use if they need to. But even if it can do more than 4gb it doesn’t mean the hardware or operating system will let it access more.
Again I could be wrong but that’s my understanding of those memory limits posted by Microsoft, as a physical limit.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but VUE11 (64bit) seems to run much smoother now with the extra ram,
i.e. 10gb vs 6gb.
The 4GB limit on your current system is not per software, it’s the total memory that can be used with your operating system, this includes things like memory for the graphics, etc. This means you’ve got less than 4GB for Zbrush because the operating system and other processes will use memory as well.
I have 10GB…ZBrush can use up to 4GB, leaving 6GB for everything else, right?
According to the chart, I should be able to load up to 16GB if using Windows Home Premium (?)
Later…just found this thread that verifies what I was hoping…16gb is Ok (in my case).
Thanks for the input. 