Hello all, again

After fixing the last problem of mine, I've now got another. I'm trying to
render a protein molecule at high resolution, but it runs out of memory. I
was wondering if this memory refers to just RAM or does it also include
swap space?

I am using Windows2003 on a PC with 1GB RAM and 3.5GB free for my work
partition (the .pov file) and 11GB for my programs partition (POV-ray
rogram), but I do have other drives with a lot more free space... Is there
a way of assigning more memory to POV-ray?

Apologies if this is a stupid question!

Thanks in advance!

Uplah

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Uplah wrote:
> Hello all, again
> 
> After fixing the last problem of mine, I've now got another. I'm trying to
> render a protein molecule at high resolution, but it runs out of memory. I
> was wondering if this memory refers to just RAM or does it also include
> swap space?
> 
> I am using Windows2003 on a PC with 1GB RAM and 3.5GB free for my work
> partition (the .pov file) and 11GB for my programs partition (POV-ray
> rogram), but I do have other drives with a lot more free space... Is there
> a way of assigning more memory to POV-ray?

If POV-Ray reports it runs out of memory (usually via 'Cannot allocate 
xx bytes for yy...') that means the OS is not able to provide POV-Ray 
with sufficient memory.  POV-Ray does not care if this is virtual or 
physical memory.  If this only occurs in large size renders you should 
of course try to render without display.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 23 Sep. 2004 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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web.417b843d992fb15717968a7d0@news.povray.org...
> Hello all, again
>
> After fixing the last problem of mine, I've now got another. I'm trying to
> render a protein molecule at high resolution, but it runs out of memory.

I don't know VMD but exporters are sometimes not optimal. For instance, it 
could be that every primitive gets its own texture statement. With hundreds 
of thousands of atoms, this alone could waste a lot of RAM. Having the 
primitives grouped in several union{} and the textures applied to each group 
would reduce the memory use.

For instance, the scene below uses 688 Mb when the texture is attached to 
each sphere and 208 Mb when the texture is applied to the group.

union{
    #declare i=0;
        #while (i<1000000)
        sphere{x*i*2,1
//            texture{pigment{rgb x}}
        }
        #declare i=i+1;
    #end
    texture{pigment{rgb x}}
}


G.


-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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Darren New nous apporta ses lumieres ainsi en ce 2004-10-24 15:05... :

> Uplah wrote:
>
>> Apologies if this is a stupid question!
>
>
> Since you mention that it may be a stupid question, I'll offer a bit 
> of advice that might assume you don't know how to configure your 
> computer. :-) Apologies if you already knew this.
>
> Control panel->System->Advanced->Performance Settings->Advanced->Change
>
> Make sure the maximum size is big enough.
>
> If during the render you get a little yellow warning icon in the 
> system tray, try turning up the "initial size" there, as PovRay may be 
> running out of memory even while the system is growing the swap space.
>
> Note that when you make it smaller again after you're done, you might 
> need to reboot. You can also use the top half of that window to decide 
> to put the swap space on one of your bigger drives, or split it 
> between drives.

If you do that, put the parts on different physical drives. Otherwise, 
you'll loose performance.

>
> If you have plenty of swap space, something else might be happening.

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Thanks for all the replies!

Yes, VMD is not very efficient when writing out the .pov files - it
specifies every object individually...

The problem seems to have fixed itself though! Windows automatically
increased my virtual memory...

Thanks again!

Uplah

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