On 23 Feb 2004 16:59:34 -0500, "Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <spa### [at] raf256com> wrote:
> It realy is irritating in PovRay 3.6 how it can hang entire system (in 3.5 
> also

In the next thread you said you are able to fix it. Sources of 3.5 are
available, you claimed you are programmer. What do you need more ?

> but in 3.6 this effect is stronger).

There is povray.beta-test group. Rules for reporting problems are clear. There
is a warning about risk using beta versions. Please, read second part of
second sentence of POV-Ray 3.6 beta announcement at http://www.povray.org/

> Now for some constructive critics / sugestions,

Thanks, constructive critics are welcome.

> - pov 3.5 did better job with priority settings and was more nice with 
> sharing thime with other processes

Minimal sample + statistics comparison 3.5 vs 3.6 from the same machine ?

> I suggest adding an ini options:
> +meml 128  memory limit in MB, render will stop with an error if it will   
>   try to alocate more memory  

My personal opinion is that POV-Ray is not for dummies: if you type +W8000
+H6000 then you know it will be large image, when you type
media{}/isosurface{}/parametrics{} then you know it will slow down, when you
turn on photons you should be ready for memory/CPU usage. Moreover "6.10.2
Using Photon Mapping in Your Scene" describes techinics about limiting number
of photons aka memory usage in photons{}.

> +old CPU cycle (80%, 90%) - I suggest it should also be an ini option
> +old priority - it should be also an ini option

where is explanation what it does ?

> - new duty cycle / priority settings - for memory, i.e. that PovRay will 
> delay for i.e. 1 second every second of memory swapping. 

How do you want to fix memory swapping in POV-Ray for Windows if you do not
understand that it is not a task of POV-Ray ?

> Explanation - if povray will detect that each memory operations took to 
> much time, say simply allocation of 4 mb buffer tooks almost 1 second, it 
> will assume that it is causing heavy swapping in system, and will sleep for 
> several seconds if told to do so, to give user a change to kill povray

IIRC current beta expires in middle of March. Until then can you write
universal function based on 3.5 sources which recognizes than next line of
code takes 4 mb ?

> - I think that photons related code does not check if STOP button was 
> pressed (or it does it rearly)

That's the only sensible sentence if real. Please provide (povray.beta-test)
script so others could confirm it.

ABX

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