I added more RAM to my system, but Zbrush doesn’t seem to think so.

system · October 2, 2008, 3:51pm

I was having trouble a while back with Zbrush saying I was out of RAM, so I went from 1 Gig and added 2 more. So now I’m up to 3 Gigs of RAM. That should really change the way Zbrush works right? You’d think so. Well, Ztools I created before hand that ran struggled before wont even load now, because I don’t have enough memory. How is that possible?I created these tools with only 1 Gig of RAM and now with 3 Gigs, I cant even load it!

Even tools I worked with after the upgrade still wont load back into Zbrush after I save them because it claims I don’t have enough memory.

Is there anyway to find out how much RAM Zbrush is aware of or maybe allocate more to it? I just checked my preferences in Photoshop and noticed that it claims I only have 1661 of system memory available. So now Im really concerned this stuff is going to waste.

I have Zbrush 3.1 that I’m running on Vista (service pack 1). In my system information it registers all 3 Gigs. So the OS sees it but Im getting no improvement in my applications where I really need it. Any ideas?

HD_CG_ADDICT · October 2, 2008, 5:22pm

not quite sure if this is your problem but have you tried chaging when zbrush compacts memory to match you new RAM?

might work might not, im not sure sorry

system · October 2, 2008, 5:30pm

I haven’t tried that yet. I gotta be honest, I really never understood how the compact memory thing works. Currently its set at 256 and the slider goes up to 4096. Normally I’d just jack it up but I didn’t know what the setting actually meant.

aurick · October 2, 2008, 5:32pm

If your version of Vista is 32-bit, set Compact Mem to 2000.

If your version of Vista is 64-bit, set Compact Mem to 2800.

system · October 2, 2008, 5:55pm

Alright, I’ll give that a go. Thanks to both of you.

Oh, any chance you can tell me why I have to set my memory preferences every time I run ZBrush. Can’t I just save those preferences somehow?

skullbeast · October 2, 2008, 6:58pm

You Neen To Save Your Configure Settings And I Would Recommend Saving Your Ui Also.

system · October 2, 2008, 7:11pm

Oh ok, I wasn’t sure if the UI saving affected that or not. I will definitely be doing that. Thanks.

Also in case anyone is interested, someone just told me about the “3Gb switch” and the problem with the 32 win os. So I googled it and got this:

http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/qaID.asp?tip=5551

I followed the instructions on that page and now photoshop is registering 2596 (previously it only registered 1661), so that should mean ZBrush should be getting a bit more RAM too. Im going to use my PC with this new setting for a while to see if it acts buggy before I actually recommend it though.

Thanks again for all the insight. Any other tips that you might have on increasing performance in ZBrush would be greatly appriciated.

system · October 2, 2008, 7:15pm

Actually, does anyone know what the appropriate ‘max poly per mesh’ should be set to in ‘preferences’ when running a 32 bit Vista machine with 2.5 Gigs of RAM allocated to apps and 3Gb total system memory?