Max is not using all of the available ram

[Anonymous]

I am using 3ds Max 2009 Design (64 bit), running in Vista 64 with 8gb of ram. When I render, the task manager shows only 3.35 gb of ram is being used. Is there something I am missing? Everyone says to install 8gb of ram on a 64 bit machine but mine doesnt seem to use it. Please help me speed up my renderings!

[Anonymous]

It depends what you are rendering, how mush ram is used. Is it a heavy scene, lots of poygons, objects, lots of hi-res maps Etc...?
A simple scene will never use that much ram, it will only use as much as it needs for memory.
Usually the processors run full hole when rendering, particularly with mr.

EDIT: reading back, using 3.35GB, that's a resonable scene. But you could handle more, not a bad thing, don't worry about it, don't expect to use all the ram all the time.

[Anonymous]

It is a fairly intense MR file; an interior scene with lots of chrome, reflective floors, etc. I was just under the impression that the more ram I had the more it would use. All of the processors are at 100%. I just wish I could get more out of the ram, especially if I am rendering overnight where I don’t need the extra ram of other applications.

I wonder if 64 bit computers are really worth the hassle . . .

[Anonymous]

Considering that 32 bit (windows) systems can only reliably address 2GB of ram (3gig switch gets you up to 3GB but that's kind of a hack), you are already taking advantage of the higher ram limits of a 64 bit system. Mental ray also requires some of the memory space it occupies to be un-fragmented, so if you get to close the your ram limit, it could crash mental ray.

Your scene having many reflective surfaces is processor-heavy because the reflection values are calculated on the fly. If you had a bunch of custom, hi-res HDR reflection maps for your materials, that would use more ram and less processor time (just an example). Of course, the maps would be less accurate and it would take quite a while to set all that up.

Hope that helps,

[Tim_Wilbers]

Here, try rendering this scene file.

It will use all your processors at or near 100%, but consumes almost no additional RAM.

If Max needs more RAM, Max will use more.
If your processors are running at 100%, putting more RAM in the system will not speed up the rendering. Putting in more physical RAM (and going to 64 bit which allows more than 2gb for applications) permits you to render more complex scenes which would crash on a 32 bit system.

My avatar when rendered at 800x600 did fine on Windows XP. But when I went to render for print at 3200x2400 I had to use XP 64 for the additional RAM requirements.

14455_1RULbbTnKyyBu1bWlEzr.zip