I've looked at the documentation, but don't get the
knack.

How do I set POV-Ray to use most my RAM, the
+B option needs to be set, or what?

Or is +B just for buffering instead of writing to disk only
for the finished parts of the image?

I'm just wondering if POV-Ray (oh, for Windows, by the
way) uses the entire RAM by itself or has a certain
limitation (like using only 90% or such)...

Thanks for any help in advance!

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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Tim Nikias wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> I'm just wondering if POV-Ray (oh, for Windows, by the
> way) uses the entire RAM by itself or has a certain
> limitation (like using only 90% or such)...
> 
> Thanks for any help in advance!

POV-Ray uses as much memory as it *needs*, not more, not less. If the OS
does not supply enough it will stop with an error. 

How much memory it needs obviously depends on the scene.

On Windows systems you have the limitation of 2 GB of maximum memory that
can be supplied by the OS to a program, no matter whether physical memory
or not.  

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 26 Apr. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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Ah, okay, thanks. I thought the +B option could
be used for something like "assign all RAM to POV"
or such.

Christoph Hormann wrote:

> POV-Ray uses as much memory as it *needs*, not more, not less. If the OS
> does not supply enough it will stop with an error.
>
> How much memory it needs obviously depends on the scene.
>
> On Windows systems you have the limitation of 2 GB of maximum memory that
> can be supplied by the OS to a program, no matter whether physical memory
> or not.
>
> Christoph

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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Tim Nikias <tim### [at] gmxde> wrote:
> Ah, okay, thanks. I thought the +B option could
> be used for something like "assign all RAM to POV"
> or such.

  If POV-Ray needs 2 MB of memory for what it is doing, why should it
allocate all the (eg.) 256 MB available? What would it do with the extra
memory?

-- 
#macro N(D)#if(D>99)cylinder{M()#local D=div(D,104);M().5,2pigment{rgb M()}}
N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

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No no! I meant I have 512 MB RAM, and sometimes it
seems that the disk is swapping although peak level
is somewhat lower (I know that windows etc need
RAM too, but I feel like there's some RAM unused
while swapping).

But that's probably just Microsoft at work, not POV-Ray...

Warp wrote:

>   If POV-Ray needs 2 MB of memory for what it is doing, why should it
> allocate all the (eg.) 256 MB available? What would it do with the extra
> memory?

Perhaps POV can think, has an AI and is the smartest programm in
the universe - but without its own RAM, there's no space
for the brain-storage.. ;-)
--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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Wasn't it Tim Nikias who wrote:
>No no! I meant I have 512 MB RAM, and sometimes it
>seems that the disk is swapping although peak level
>is somewhat lower (I know that windows etc need
>RAM too, but I feel like there's some RAM unused
>while swapping).

I've heard that Windows can sometimes be a little reluctant to release
some of the memory it has grabbed for caching files. There are some
freeware programs that can be used to persuade it to release the file
cache when the memory is needed by other programs.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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> >No no! I meant I have 512 MB RAM, and sometimes it
> >seems that the disk is swapping although peak level
> >is somewhat lower (I know that windows etc need
> >RAM too, but I feel like there's some RAM unused
> >while swapping).

Now hear my story! I have 128 mb RAM and 2 OS's but I tend to use Win98
rather than Win2000 (has to do with my palette of software)... SOO, when
Win98 is finished loading after booting, I only have 43 mb left! Those
quickly run off by opening just 2 small programs or so....

> I've heard that Windows can sometimes be a little reluctant to release
> some of the memory it has grabbed for caching files. There are some
> freeware programs that can be used to persuade it to release the file
> cache when the memory is needed by other programs.

I use such a program - actually 2.. "Cachemaster" for disk caches, and
"RAMpage" for administrating memory..

Regards,
Hugo

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Hugo wrote in message <3ccc7c59@news.povray.org>...
>Now hear my story! I have 128 mb RAM and 2 OS's but I tend to use Win98
>rather than Win2000 (has to do with my palette of software)... SOO, when
>Win98 is finished loading after booting, I only have 43 mb left! Those
>quickly run off by opening just 2 small programs or so....


You should have 56 MB left after Windows starts up.  Windows uses half your
available physical memory, plus an additional 8 MB.  Are you loading some
additional programs at startup?

--
Mark

The Universe is expanding.
The budget for its exploration is shrinking.

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> You should have 56 MB left after Windows starts up.  Windows uses half
your
> available physical memory, plus an additional 8 MB.  Are you loading some
> additional programs at startup?

Nothing that I can imagine needs 13 mb.. I only have a few common things at
startup; drivers for keyboard, mouse, sound, graphicscard and the (very
small) freeware RAMpage program.. The "cachemaster" (also freeware) even
forces unload of all unused DLL files.

But even when you say 56, I don't understand these days.. If you ever had an
Amiga computer, maybe you remember it's "windows-like" OS that ran on 512
KB... And I don't see why todays Windows need SO much physical memory.. I
really think Microsoft just expands memory because of some odd deal with the
RAM chip manufacturers.

Regards,
Hugo

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On Mon, 29 Apr 2002 11:02:03 +0200, "Hugo" <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote:
>why todays Windows need SO much physical memory..

for gadgets

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