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compact mem

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello. I’m sorry I’m sure that this question has been posted lots. I’ve read aurick’s post on performance, and looked at some other posts, but I can’t find a specific description of this setting.

It seems Zbrush examines the system and sets the performance options optimally. This setting defaults to 256. What does this mean? I have 2 gigs of memory and am getting “insufficient memory” errors and “compacting memory” delays when I’m only less than 1 gig if memory.

What specifically should I set this to - or should I leave it alone?

I would appreciate very much some more clarification on this or a pointer to where I can find it.

Thanks,

Allan

#2

Here is the Panel Preferences>MEM
mem.jpg

Thanks for your attention
Andreseloy

#3

What the Compact Mem setting does is specify the amount of RAM that ZBrush can make use of before it has to start writing to virtual memory (hard disk). The default setting means that ZBrush will never use more than 256 MB of your system’s RAM. Since you have 2 GB, that’s not going to be very beneficial. With the amount that you have, you can set the slider up to 2048, but a better setting would be something like 1536 (which then leaves memory left over for any other apps you might have running). Whatever you do, don’t set it higher than 2048 or ZBrush will never use virtual memory at all, even if it needs to. This is because you’d be telling ZBrush to only write to virtual memory after you have reached that value of RAM usage – but since the setting is higher than the amount of RAM you have, the value could never be reached. :slight_smile:

#4

Thanks guys! I’ve now tried 1536 and 2048 and TaskManager says ZBrush is using around 1.2 gigs of ram at peak but I’m still getting the “insufficient memory” warning and “compacting ram” delays. Is there anything else I should look at? I’m using a single cpu p4 with 2 gigs of ram and win 2k. Why won’t ZBrush use more memory before these warnings and delays?

I want to add - I could be wrong about this, but it seems that that peak of 1.2 gigs is ram and virtual mem combined. It seems ZBrush is only using about 600 megs of ram.

Thanks,

Allan

#5

Youll get those insufficient memory warnings regardless of how much ram you have or where your slider is set at. Ive read that this is something thats addressed in the next version.

Just click out of the warning box via the red x, wait a minute, and your operation will probably eventually complete itself. I think its a problem with the program not letting go of memory fast enough after its gobbled it up, and so it temporarily clogs up.

#6

Thanks Bingo. It’s good to know that it’s not something I can fix on my end.

Allan

#7

I have 4 gigs of ram have had it where it shows I still have 2048 left unused…it’s using only 1 or less and it writes to virtual memory constantly…although it does it fast enuf it doesn’t interfere like it did with old dinosaur computer.

It’s frustrating when ya get insufficent memory or insufficent core memory errors though when ya see the 2048 still left unused.

Hopefully next version deals with it a bit better.:smiley:

#8

Windows XP can only give 2 gigs of ram to an individual program. ZBrush’s memory scheme is only part of the issue; maybe the 64 bit release of Win XP will allow more memory for individual apps. There is a patch called “Switch 3” for windows that will boost that limit to 3 gigs. I haven’t tried it myself but there is someone in this thread who is planning on posting his experiences sometime soon. I’ll try it out following his results.

In the meantime, cranking up my page file settings helped out with Maya when rendering. Don’t know if that would be helpful with ZB, since ZB has its own scheme for virtual memory.