Hardware (Read Only)
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

RAM size for multi Autodesk products

11 REPLIES 11
Reply
Message 1 of 12
fenglei70
897 Views, 11 Replies

RAM size for multi Autodesk products

I am using Autocad Electrical, inventor, Vault and other Microsoft Windows office application. I am wondering what size of the RAM I should be using. and I am currently using 4G RAM, is it too low?

 

Thanks,

 

Lei

11 REPLIES 11
Message 2 of 12
dgorsman
in reply to: fenglei70

For Inventor, definitely.  For 64 bit Win 7, definitely.  RAM is relatively cheap - find out what your motherboard can support (typically in the 16 - 24 GB range) and max it out.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 3 of 12
pendean
in reply to: fenglei70

what exact OS are you using?

what is your processor?

while RAM ia relatively cheap, it may still be a waste of money if the OS is the limit. And while "maxing out" sounds good, since you must be doing ok with 4G perhaps 8G is all you might want to consider unless therest of your hardware is worth the effort of "max".

Message 4 of 12
fenglei70
in reply to: fenglei70

OS is Windows 7 enterprise; intel core i7-2620M cpu 2.7GHz, 64 bit OS

Message 5 of 12
pendean
in reply to: fenglei70

So it's all new, great: explore installing at least 8Gig as a minimum from now on, find out what your system can hold as a mx and determine if it's worth it based on your actual usage of your software (light user=pointless, heavy user=consider more, Uber-Power user that people go to for advise for all that software=max out).

 

With 3D, if you render, vid card becomes important too.

Message 6 of 12
dgorsman
in reply to: pendean

Using Inventor isn't what I'd consider light use, hence the immediate recommendation 🙂

 

Also, If by "render" you mean "to file", then video card doesn't really come into it - thats all RAM and processor speed  I think we're still a generation or two from being able to send data to a video card and having the graphics processor there duplicate the "on screen" image back to the CPU.  The video card comes into play for real-time navigating through the model while designing.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 7 of 12
fenglei70
in reply to: dgorsman

My AutoCAD got shut down by Windows many times everyday. It usually happens when I plot the project to PDF. It is worse if I plot a project containing more than 10 drawings, and works better if i plot prjects containing less than 5 drawings.

 

I suspect the root cause is the RAM. I may need a bigger RAM.

Message 8 of 12
RaoulM
in reply to: fenglei70

Hello FengLei70 and List,

 

this Question is perhaps a "easy to ask" question, but not even so easy to be answered, but perhaps the following lines are helping you to go step by step to solve and configure it out. I´ll hope that helps you a little bit and please 

don´t bother with me because my english is not verry welformed, I´m naturally german speaking.

 

Ok, here we go:

Best of all start at the basement, that means your mainboard, than the OS and than the Software, so for most peoples it becomes more logical.

 

Hardware:

 

Mainboard:I´ve a mainboard from EVGA named SR-X with two LGA 2011 Sockets and two Intel Xeon E5-2690 CPU´s. The mainboard is capable to hold a maximum of 96 GB RAM on 12 RAM Slots, point not more and not less.

So that means I can´t install more ram because the RAM must also be adressed by the TAG RAM chip on the mainboard to make him reachable for the OS.

 

CPU´s: The CPU´s I am using are sorted with 8 real and 16 logical cores normally you should count for each real core (not the logical cores) 2 GB of RAM, that is like 16 real cores x 2 GB RAM = 32 GB RAM is a moderate count!!!!!

 

RAM Channel architecture: Later not jet please.

 

Operating System:

 

In all three variants (Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise), Windows 7 / 64 Bit is supporting of TOTAL 96 GB RAM,

that means the Video Card RAM and the normal RAM on the mainboard.

 

That means if I have a Videocard setup as an example Smiley Happy like the following shown in the next line I have to, it is not a can do, it is a must do, calculate this to the on the mainboard installed RAM!!!!

Example: 2 x nVIDIA Quadro 6000 SLI and 2 x Tesla C2075 each Videocard has 6 GB RAM, that means for us now

4 Videocards x  6 GB = 24 GB

 

All in all now we have 32 GB to fit the needs of the CPU power and 24 GB of Videocard RAM that is a total

32 + 24 = 56 GB Point not more and not less!!!  If the mainboard is supporting 96 GB of RAM  and also your OS

(Windows 7 / 64 Bit Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise) is also doing support 96 GB of RAM and now you have 56 GB of RAM, you are not so many over dosed and inside the hardware and OS supported range.

 

I consider to the first answer from "dgorsman: RAM is cheap", with the following example.

Before some month a DDR3-1600 Quad Kit with 16 GB of RAM (4 x 4 GB modules)was at 249 - 269 Euro´s here in Germany, but now today at the same time  I wrote this lines to you, this Quad Kit is "only" for 192 Euro´s able to buy!!!!

 

Now we have to keep an viewing eye on the some lines above, what kind of RAM channel architecture your mainboard is supporting. The EVGA SR-X is supporting quad channel DDR3 RAM kits, I was taken the 

3 x Corsair DIMM 16 GB DDR3-1600 Quad-Kit (CMP16GX3M4X1600C7, Dominator) that means I have now 12 RAM modules with 72 GB of total RAM, point not more and not less. 

 

With the 24 GB of RAM from the Videocards, that means 72 GB + 24 GB = 96 GB all is configured out at the status of calling the maximum.

 

This is only an example setup to show you up what I am meaning with my words, because my english is not so verry welformed!!!

 

At last but not least there is a another very important thing, that helps you to keep all, the hardware, the OS and the software, smooth going and let the whole assemble play easy together, the HDD and the case.

For the example setup here owed to the 4 Videocards and the heat they are producing!!!

 

Case: 

Also for our example avbove, it should be a Zalman GS 1200 (HPTX mainboard capable) because on the left side of the case there is a very huge and big ventilator of ~ 200 mm, it turns slow and is not noisy and deliveres steadily fresh air to the Videocards, if not and the CPU´s trotteling down to a slower speed tact rate!!!!!

 

HDD´s:

First let us talk about what kind of setup we are using above, I mean low, medium high end or ultra high end,

so I mean this is something between high end and ultra high end and that we have not an bottleneck in the system

we should also go by very fast hdd´s with now raid please, but there fore later.

Also very important is the Software you are using and what you are doing with this software and also in witch succession or order.

Normally peoples should by a fast HDD that is fitting their needs of speed and space, but I think better that the hdd´s

is similiar to the rest of the hardware, of the machine. For our example above perhaps a Samsund 830 series

with 512 of RAM. So you now perhaps asking you self why sould I buy a so big hdd, but the answer is also so easy how bigger a SSD is, how faster will be the wright and read sequences.

But if a program will be started and the code goes through the CPU and will be placed in the ram and you are using inventor and this program can make really great, big or heavy files and the ram is not enough or better you are running out of the RAM, than the data will be written to the hdd, in the swap file called pagefile.sys or something like this, normally it called "swap". So if we are using a 512 GB Samsung 830 for the OS and the programs, we should use one or two 64 GB hdd´s to point the swap file on, better two if you are working on inventor huges files.

So if the OS + program hdd is a fast one and the swap hdd´s are slower (cheaper) ones, so have created the next bottleneck in the system!!!

 

As another example, perhaps you go the way AutoCAD > Inventor > 3ds Max > Photoshop, only as an example!!!!

and you are using the Photoshop for post production work or for what ever else, this program is also be able to setup temp folders and this temp folder should not be on the same hdd as the system and the swap hdd´s,

so for lower picture resolution some  one should be a fine thing, but if you are working with greater files 

and you are using plugins and somthing like blur than you should have two or more hdd´s for setting them up as temp space.

 

At last please accept that the most things are purely fast pointed to one or more things like not enoough ram or something else and also considering to the last message from "dgorsman" he is speaking about rendering on the machine, perhaps as shown in some lines above (3ds Max) this Videocard setup is hard enough, but what you are using for a Videocard, are you rendering?

 

So sorry for the massive  writing here to a so easy part, (RAM) perhaps you sould look in the mainboard manual of your machine, count the real cpu cores, what kind of ram maximum and sort (DDR1,DDR2 or DDR3) your mainboard is supporting and you can go and buy "cheap" RAM modules and let us know what is going on after the RAM upgrade.

 

I hope it was helping you a little bit

 

Chears and good luck from Germany

Raoul 

Let the colors shine.
Message 9 of 12
fenglei70
in reply to: RaoulM

That is great technical writting! I think I understand more of this issue with the help from you and other helper who make comments on this thread. Either me or our IT guy will look into the mainboard structure, and maybe add more RAM if applicable.

 

The thing that I am still stuggling with is why Windows shut down a software like AutoCAD, even if we run out of RAM, that only means OS will have to do more "context switch" between hard drive and RAM, which will slow the system down for sure. I can understand the "slow down", but why "shut dow"? 

Message 10 of 12
pendean
in reply to: fenglei70

About the only time I've seen plots shut down is due to the content of the files (dense hatching, renderings, image files etc. that bulk up each plot file size during processing) and not the number of files: RAM is the short term may fix it until you hit the next level of limitation.

What is the typical PDF size output from one of these publish functions?

Do you use background publishing at all?

Message 11 of 12
fenglei70
in reply to: pendean

PDF is typically 2-3M, not huge. And these are electrical scheme, no hatch, no image.

 

I am not sure what is "background publishing". Basically, I use cute-PDF to print the drawing to PDF. Typically, for one project, I will creat 10 to 20 drawings under this project. I will use "plot project" to plot all the drawings together. It will generate a PDF file containing 10 to 20 pages.

 

All these were working fine when I was using Windows XP 32 bits.

 

Message 12 of 12

I can sympathize with what is happening as it has happened to me quite often since the 2012 products were being used.

 

I found that the only thing that finally elimintaed this was going to ECC ram - I would suggect that its not the quantity of RAM thats causing your crash, it some issue with the RAM related parts and possible motherboard itself causing the crash.

 

Look at eliminating your PAGE file first and then rebuild it - this can be corrupted.  And don't just turn it off - turn it off - restart then reset it to zero - restart and then go to a fisxed number like 8000 or something do that it stays a fixed size.  I've found these PDF and Plotting crashes can be due to this corruption.

 

Second test your RAM if you can - I do very large complex 3D machinery designs with only 8GB of RAM in W7 Pro - its enough for the most part but it must also swap to the disk - so maybe a disk getting corrupted as well.

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report