Can anyone make sense of this?  Even better, suggest how to fix it?  I 
am running povray3.5 under w2k on an Athlon 650 with 512 mb of ram.  My 
photons block is as follows:

     photons {
       count 100000
       media 100    // media photons
       max_trace_level 5
       save_file "fotons"
       autostop 0
     }

The message screen was as follows:



ZLib 1.1.4, Copyright 1995-1998 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
  LibPNG 1.2.1, Copyright 2000, 2001 Glenn Randers-Pehrson
  LibJPEG 6b, Copyright 1998 Thomas G. Lane
  LibTIFF 3.5.7, Copyright 1988-1997 Sam Leffler, 1991-1997 Silicon 
Graphics, Inc.

This Windows port by Christopher J. Cason.

Loaded 8 tools from D:\PROGRAM FILES\POV-RAY FOR WINDOWS 
V3.5\INI\PVTOOLS.INI into Tool Menu.

Preset INI file is 'D:\PROGRAM FILES\POV-RAY FOR WINDOWS 
V3.5\renderer\quickres.ini', section is '[800x571, AA 0.1]'.
Preset source file is 'D:\Program Files\POV-Ray for Windows 
v3.5\include\claesz\stilllife.pov'.
Rendering using command line '+otest003 -gw  -c Palette=T'.
Persistence of Vision(tm) Ray Tracer Version 3.5 win32 (.icl)
   This is an official version prepared by the POV-Ray Team. See the
    documentation on how to contact the authors or visit us on the
    internet at http://www.povray.org/.
Copyright 1991-2002 POV-Ray Team(tm)
This Windows version by Christopher J. Cason
Parsing Options
   Input file: D:\Program Files\POV-Ray for Windows 
v3.5\include\claesz\stilllife.pov (compatible to version 3.5)
   Remove bounds........On  Split unions........Off
   Library paths: D:\Program Files\POV-Ray for Windows v3.5\INCLUDE
     D:\WINNT\Fonts
Output Options
   Image resolution 800 by 571 (rows 1 to 571, columns 1 to 800).
   Output file: test003.bmp, 24 bpp (system format)
   Graphic display......On  (type: 0, palette: T, gamma:  2.2)
   Mosaic preview......Off
   CPU usage histogram.Off
   Continued trace.....Off  Allow interruption..Off  Pause when done.....Off
   Verbose messages.....On
Tracing Options
   Quality:  9
   Bounding boxes.......On  Bounding threshold: 3
   Light Buffer.........On  Vista Buffer.........On  Draw Vista Buffer...Off
   Antialiasing.........On  (Method 1, Threshold 0.100, Depth 3, Jitter 
1.00)
Animation Options
   Clock value....   0.000  (Animation off)
Redirecting Options
   All Streams to console.........Off
   Debug Stream to console.........On
   Fatal Stream to console.........On
   Render Stream to console........On
   Statistics Stream to console....On
   Warning Stream to console......Off

Scene contains 11 frame level objects; 1 infinite.
Slab Building Error: Out of memory.  Cannot allocate 327680 bytes for 
photons.


Returned from renderer with error status

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You're using more photons than your computer can handle. Reduce the total
number of photons to as little as is necessary, and *especially* reduce the
maximum number of media photons to the minimum necessary.

 - Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

Post a reply to this message

Slime wrote:
> You're using more photons than your computer can handle. Reduce the total
> number of photons to as little as is necessary, and *especially* reduce the
> maximum number of media photons to the minimum necessary.
> 
>  - Slime
> [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
> 
> 

But how can that be?  I would expect the hard disk to start thrashing if 
that was true, but not a error code.

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 07 Sep 2002 19:09:57 -0400, Jim Charter quoth:

> Slime wrote:
>> You're using more photons than your computer can handle. Reduce the
>> total number of photons to as little as is necessary, and *especially*
>> reduce the maximum number of media photons to the minimum necessary.
>> 
> But how can that be?  I would expect the hard disk to start thrashing if
> that was true, but not a error code.
 
Perhaps you've run out of disk space or don't have virtual memory set up
right?  Also, IIRC, photon tracing is fairly quiet in its use of virtual
memory -- the serious thrashing doesn't start until POV-Ray begins
sorting photons.

-- 
Mark

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:3D7### [at] aolcom...
[sbip]
> Scene contains 11 frame level objects; 1 infinite.
> Slab Building Error: Out of memory.  Cannot allocate 327680 bytes
for
> photons.

See my post in p.g "Snail racing is more exciting" on 25 Aug 02.

Said me
> And a different scene with photons - after a 3 hour parse - "Slab
> Building Error: Out of memory.  Cannot allocate 327680 bytes for
> photons."

Alf

Post a reply to this message

So in other words it is still something of a mystery.  The 327680 must 
be more than mere coincidence eh?

Alf Peake wrote:

> "Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
> news:3D7### [at] aolcom...
> [sbip]
> 
>>Scene contains 11 frame level objects; 1 infinite.
>>Slab Building Error: Out of memory.  Cannot allocate 327680 bytes
>>
> for
> 
>>photons.
>>
> 
> See my post in p.g "Snail racing is more exciting" on 25 Aug 02.
> 
> Said me
> 
>>And a different scene with photons - after a 3 hour parse - "Slab
>>Building Error: Out of memory.  Cannot allocate 327680 bytes for
>>photons."
>>
> 
> Alf
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Post a reply to this message

"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:3D7### [at] aolcom...
> So in other words it is still something of a mystery.

Searching the web view of news.pov turned up a number of posts with
this error but no definitive answer.

An entrant in IRTC around 1998 (?) said turning off light_buffer
solved his problem.

Google gives a number of links that show other applications have this
error. In some cases memory was stated to be available, but again, no
explanation that I understood.

I have 160MB, Win98SE and around 9 gig free disc space. In my case,
photon count in the stats line increased to around 78K in about 6
seconds and pov then froze for a few hours before giving up. No disc
operation was evident.

Alf

Post a reply to this message

In article <3D7### [at] aolcom> , Jim Charter <jrc### [at] aolcom>  
wrote:

> So in other words it is still something of a mystery.  The 327680 must
> be more than mere coincidence eh?

Yes, photon storage is allocated as blocks of 16384 each and each photon
requires 20 bytes.  You just run out of memory.  Nothing special to it.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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