ZBrushCentral

Constant freezing despite 4GB ram

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey guys,

I’ve been using Zbrush since the ZB2 days, and we all know that some times you just have to be patient once you get above sub-d 6. But recently, my ZB3.1 has been freezing, not allowing me to get more than 2 brush strokes in before lagging, and this is with only 600k points!

This still occurs when I have 80% of the mesh hidden. It also seems to be a huge issue when I do hiding or masking.

My memory settings are the way the thing comes bundled, which means 256 compact mem. However, I have 4GB, and 2 are always free while I’m sculpting. I tried to up the compact mem to 1gb (1024mb) but it doesn’t alleviate the issue.

Any help would be much appreciated.

My system specs are:

2.4 ghz intel core duo
4gb ddr2-800 ram
ATI radeon mobility 3500

I’m kinda going nuts, I lost about 4 hours worth of work all told today… ugh.

Thanks for the help.
Eric

#2

you don’t say what os you’re using. but if its 64bit then you can turn the mem pref at least up to 2500, cause you’ll need about 1gb for the os and other programs. do not leave it at the 256.
also be aware that zbrush needs about 10-20gb of hardrive space for its own virtual memory usage, zbrush’s vmem folder, which if you’ve had crashes will sometimes fill up. also HDD speed for this comes into play as well.
also what are your undo’s set at?

lastly don’t post stuff about subd levels. a single poly at subd 6 and a cube, etc at subd 6 are totally different. its always better to post a poly number instead. just a tip.

#3

Another tip: you can have tons of free space on your drive that’s completely useless to ZBrush. Be sure to defragment regularly in order to get the best performance out of free space.

#4

Yeah, sorry to reference via subd levels, that’s why I said I have about 600k points in the full model.

I’m using Vista 64. I will defrag the HDD, it’s been a while since I’ve done that.

So, nothing in particular is pointed to by the fact that it really hates masking? I was hoping that might help. Oh well, thank you very much for the tips, I will try them and report back.

Eric