How do I adjust mem for 16 gigs of RAM, & a 64 OS on Windows 8?

[system]

Hi guys :). This will be my first post/thread on here. I have already done some hunting on this topic, but can’t seem to find a clear answer for my specific situation. ANY help would be very much appreciated! I’m a traditional sculptor new to z-brush. I’ve been dipping in and out of it for a while now, but recently got a beefier computer, as I need to get to know this program well for my art career. That being said…

I’m running on an i7, with 16 gigs of RAM, on a 64 bit operating system, with Windows 8 (it’s a gaming PC too if that’s relevant). I have an original character I’m working on, that I started as z-spheres, made an adaptive skin for, then sculpted up to the highest resolution in Dynamesh. I’ve un-clicked dynamesh to subdivide, but can’t get beyond a subdivision of 3…and at 3 I get horrible lag, and an unending loading bar if I do even one brush stroke.

I have reloaded it and currently have it at subdivision level 2, and it says it has “Polys= 8355102, Points= 8355104” . I have deleted the lower subdivision levels as well. When I try to subdivide, I get the message stating I need to increase the maximum polys, or delete lower subdivisions, etc.

Can anyone tell me what number I should have all the levers set to in the preferences mem setting, that would be appropriate to the power and memory I have to work with?

Is there something within my actual computer I need to adjust? Or is this poly count just insane and I somehow need to get rid of polys? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated :). I’ll attach a screengrab of my character in this message…he’s still a work in progress. He is an original character for a project I’m doing, please do not copy/use him for any reason. Thanks for your time/help! ~Angela

Attachments

[womball]

You can’t yet since zbrush is still a 32 bit program. It only has access to 4 gigs of ram. Until zbrush 5 comes out or whatever version has 64 bit support your stuck with 4 gigs of ram tops dedicated to zbrush. It might be best to break down the character into sections such as eyes, arms, fur into seperate subtools. Dynamesh itself might use a lot of memory as well so it might be wise to get the forms down first, than deactivate. Than subdivide from there. But using multiple subtools allows for much higher poly counts as to a singular subtool.

[system]

Thank you! Yeah that makes sense…here’s the thing though, lol…

I’m still such a newbie, I don’t know how to break the character down into subtools. I’ll see if I can dig out a tutorial somewhere on how, but if it’s something you can describe to me that would be cool too :). I know where the menu is located and everything, it’s just a step I haven’t done yet in the program. If possible, I’m hoping this forum can help me with some of my struggles since there’s such a giant and confusing pile of tutorials out there for all the different z-brush versions. My version is 4R4…so I know there are some changes from say, z-brush 3.5 or something.