Hello,well I’ve been here awhile and finally bought ZBrush2. Wow.
But, I’m having tons of problems. I was shown how to raise the memory preferences. So now I have 1084mb memory for ZBrush.
But, when I start a document and finish it…and go to start another one. My system becomes non responsive. Super slow. The only way to fix is to quit ZBrush and re-start Zbrush.
My computer set up is this
G4 1.4Ghz
1.25Gigs of Ram
OSX 10.2.8
7 hard drives- 3 internal/4 firewire
Thanks for any and all helpful replys! I also have Meats DVD “intro to ZBrush”
ANyone?
Did you check out Aurick’s Optimizing Zbrush thread?
I think its a sticky thread in the FAQ or Quicklinks forum…click on the Quicklinks link in my signature.
Also inbetween session you might want to initialize zbrush…that should reset things. If I remember right it’s in the preferences menu at the top…the initialize button I mean.
Thank you Aminuts. I figured out of 34,000+ users a few could help. I’ve looked those quicklinks over and over. In between sessions my system slows to a complete hault! I can’t do anything but quit program. I’m not blaming ZBrush, I just want to know why is it doing this, and how can it be fixed. It’s making my Zbrush experience extremely unsatisfying. Again thanks for the links. Anyone else??
A couple of thoughts GORILLA…
If possible you should upgrade to the latest Mac OS, you stated you had 10.2.8 and the most current version is 10.3.7 there may be some memory management updates included there (just a hunch). Also, if you’ve only got 1.25 GB of RAM I would lower the settings from 1087 in ZBrush to give a little more cushion. I’m not sure that this advice will help you but then again…
Best of luck.
Hi Gorilla, welcome aboard
Not sure if I can help as I am not a Mac user, yet that is, getting one soon though 
Just wondered if you have allocated memory to Zbrush in the OS, I may not be on the right track here but I do remember from way back that you could allocate memory to specific programs, so I wonder if that would help.
Maybe you should also drop an email to the Pixologic team mentioning the problem as they may be able to help.
Hope you get it sorted anyways
Bill
Also, GORILLA,
check out this thread, if you haven’t already.
compact mem
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=23515
Thanks guys, I read that thread. I want to move to the 10.3, but I figured, heck I’m still in Jaguar. And Tiger is suppose to be out soon.It’s $100 for Panther and Tiger will probably another $100. I wish Apple would quit throwing these cats out and just get one that works flawless. 
It’s wierd because once I did the compact memory ZBrush flies like a jet plane. And as soon as I finish one session, it’s down. I e-mailed tech support, they responded twice, than gave up!
So, I’m not blaming Pixologic. But as of 2:00p.m. today I have a $489.00 program that does me no good.
My system and memory runs flawless on ALL my other apps. and I don’t have anything running in the background when trying to use ZBrush2. I hope I can get this solved soon, I’ve got tons of models in my head that I want to translate to ZBrush!!!
Did you open the Activity Monitor when your system slows down?
In 10.2.8 I had the same problem occasionally. Turns out the TrueBlue Environment was running and eating processor time. I killed it from the Activity Monitor and things went back to normal.
Found out later on some Mac Troubleshooting Forums, it had something to do with the Classic Environment, even though Classic wasn’t running. Since upgrading to Panther it hasn’t happened.
If this isn’t the problem, try some Mac Forums.
Hey thanks Sscreener, I’ll look into that. Gonna try one more thing too and see what happens. I’m just fRaZzLeD:eek:
:idea: Hi dear artists.
Iwould run a small memory applicatiion wich is 499 Kb when zipped
It is called Ram saver Pro.
My Pentium 600 MHz and 196 Mb Memory comp now are OK with Zbrush2.
I feel a good few of you could find it also useful with Zbrush.
I would gladly upload it, but feel more storing capacity is needed.
How can this large file be sent over?
Anatom
Wow. Cool, but is it for Mac too? I use Macintosh. If it is for Mac I will try it!!! 
RAM Saver Professional 3.4
23 November, 2003
Win98/Me/NT/2000/XP
It is an easy-to-use RAM optimizer tool
that will keep your computer running
faster. It increases the operation
system performance by making more memory
available for your applications.
Main program features:
- Defragment system memory for faster
access time - Increasing the efficiency of your CPU
and Motherboard caches; - Recover memory leaks from poorly
behaved applications; - Temporarily flush unused libraries
out to disk; - System Tray monitor;
- Desktop RAM monitor;
- Desktop CPU Usage monitor;
- specialized Control Panel;
- professional memory monitoring;
- flexible memory optimization with
complete statistics output; - RAM benchmark test;
- monitoring and control over the
processes which take place in the memory; - possibility to create “boosted shortcuts”;
- common and advanced options;
- automatic and intelligent optimization;
- fast run of tools;
- forced cleaning of Clipboard;
- possibility to close all programs for
full memory release by one click; - control over Windows uptime;
- suppressing and fast running of screen
savers; - check the presence of disk in CD-ROM
drive in the moment of computer shut down; - manipulating with desktop icons;
- forced shut down and restart of computer;
- fast access to Control Panels;
…
Me, I operate within Win98. This program helps a lot,
even supporting Zbrush working when my operative memory is diminished by Sound Card synthesizer.
sounds interesting anatom…do they have anything more recent than 2003 info? sounds like it could either replace…well maybe not cuz i love this little utility… or compliment my FastDefrag program.
I will add it to my list of things to research. thanks for the info.
Thank You, Aminuts.
To-day I had a chance to see Zbrush working on Celeron 1.7 Gb Processor with 256 Mb memory.
Oh, I liked it!
Anatoly.
Hi Gorilla, I am a newbie so I can’t offer much, but I am also a Mac user. I have a G4 933mhz with 1.25 gigs of ram, absolutley no issues (so far).
Have you tried reinstalling the application, or reverting back to the default settings? I would suggest not trying to optimize anything at first and just going with the base setup. I have only changed things like color and Doc size, haven’t touched anything in the performance area.
Good luck, post again if you are still having trouble, or figured it out.
Hey thanks Sinthetic. well, What looks like probably my problem is- I had ZBrush installed on a firewire drive. I do alot of audio and video- I have seven drives three internal and four daisy chained fire wire drives and the main drive is small 20g.
So I installed both 1.55b & 2 on the main drive. But I’ve been waiting for the {{Ulicense.zul }}So until I get it, I’ll post my results, hopefully that’ll fix it.
O.K. guys, finally I have ZBrush on my main drive. But, still the same problems persist. The area on top where the letters mem>" " are I noticed when I downloaded a users zscript his numbers were like 90. My numbers there stay around 47. I don’t know if that is anything.
Also, when in between a session and I try to initialize zbrush, the system is extremely slow, not even useful. Is there somewhere on Macs (OSX) where you can see virtual memory settings? I’m so disappointed. I reall want to get ZBrush running right.
Any more ideas? Ssceener how do you get to the activity monitor? I have a CPU monitor app. I also bought Norton and there’s no viruses or spyware. 
Hi GORILLA,
Have you repaired Permissions and run Disk Utility on your Mac recently? I would say do that first, restart your mac. After restart go to utilities and open the Activity Monitor, you can see your ram usage there. You may need to hit Command (apple key) 1 to show the window.
After that, start up ZB2 and see what your system is using. I forgot, you aren’t on 10.3 yet, hmm I think it was called the Process Viewer in 10.2, so look for that possibly, not Activity Monitor.
There is definitely something going whacky, but it may be your sys (possibly). Fix permissions and run disk utility often (weekly even) if you are using a lot of memory intensive apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, I need to do restarts some times because I think some memory is getting left in VM or something from the Adobe apps. I have seen ZB2 act jerky, a simple restart has fixed that both times it happened.
HTH
Sinthetic is right, Process Viewer in Jaguar. Applications/Utilities.
Disc Utility is in the same place. Start it and pick the drive ZBrush is on and click Repair. A lot of users do this once a month and every time they install a new Application. You can also do this from the Jaguar CD.
As for Norton Utilities, according to some Mac Forums, it can do more harm than good. I don’t think they even support OSX anymore. Besides, Macs don’t get viruses and spyware.
Some third party apps can mess with your system or other Apps.
The last few updates to Jaguar did some weird things to some people’s operating systems. Some attribute this to said Apps that place items in certain directories and are then incompatible with the updates. Update these Apps to releases that are compatible to these updates or trash them.
When you quit ZBrush, go to it’s folder and open the VMEM folder, it should be empty when the App isn’t running. If it’s full, select everything and delete it. Not sure if it helps, but the first time I ran ZBrush, it wasn’t empty. After emptying it the first time it’s empty after quiting every time.
The MEM should increase with the number of polygons your model has.
This last try at a fix is something Macs do when they are left on for long periods of time and not going to sleep.
You can do this manually, it looks a bit daunting, but it’s easy.
Restart and press Command(Apple) S.
The screen will be black with a lot of text.
At the bottom is a localhost# prompt
Type fsck -y don’t forget the space beyween the k and -
Press return
You’ll see the screen updating and when it’s done the locahost# prompt will be there again.
Type reboot
For Panther users, you type fsck -f
Is it possible to partition one of your other drives and install a fresh Jaguar without anything but ZBrush?
Upgrade to Panther?