Memory ALLOCATION

[slickcoder]

Hello everyone. is there a way to allocate more memory to 3ds max 2016? It seems that my computer is using roughly 2G when my comp has 12G. I change the paging size/virtual memory to the windows recommended 5G, but is there way to specifically make 3ds max use more than the scant 2G,? Thanks for any replying...

[Brock_Lafond]

If all that is required is 2GB, then that's all it will use. You can't force it to use more as it won't serve a purpose. You should be happy that you're not running out of RAM.

But, I'm in the mood to answer questions, so I'll tell you how to use more RAM.

• If using mental ray use BSP instead of BSP2 and set Depth to 120
• Subdivide or tessellate every object
• Use global illumintation and caustics; set photon emission to 5 000 000
• Use final gather; set quality to high
• Use 8K sized textures or higher on every object
• Change lights to use shadow maps and set the shadow map size to 8 192 or 16 384

[dgorsman]

A shorter version for the OP: is there a reason *why* you think it should be using more?  Is something slower than you think it should be, or...?

[slickcoder]

Thanks for the replies; I certainly appreciate them. The reason I believe I need more memory allocated to 3ds Max is because 3ds Max is admittedly an intense application, and the application loads a lot of data from models etc. Since that's the case, I can assume that I would need a lot of memory. I don't see how a scant 2Gigs of memory would be fine in such a robust and intense application that needs lot of memory to run efficiently. Let's look at Photoshop for example. In the Photoshop settings, you have to option to allocate as much as memory you want, perhaps because the Photoshop engineers know that Photoshop would need a lot of memory to run efficiently, especially with it's 3D capabilities. So, back to my issue, I'm not having memory issues with 3ds max most of the time, but sometimes the program slows down when I have multiple programs opened, such as Unity, and Maya, Autocad at the same time. So too, when I open a new 3ds max file, a new instance of 3ds Max opens, as opposed to just having another tab open like as if I was in Photoshop. Thus, that new file opened would require more memory for 3ds Max of course. In short, with more memory allocated to 3ds max, the program would run more smoothly without lag, especially when I want to open a few more 3ds max models at the same time. Thanks for the conversation.!

[PROH]

Well, with all those application opened RAM is only one crucial thing - another is the CPU. What CPU do you have?

[slickcoder]

Intel Quad-Core i7-4790 3.60 GHZ

[dgorsman]

The thing is, such a setting doesn't improve performance settings on better hardware as much as keep lower-end hardware from slowing down.  By setting a lower limit to match limited RAM availability the program can re-organize operations such that the program doesn't resort to paging data to the hard drive (which is a huge time-suck in repeated operations) and instead defers those operations to when there is sufficent RAM to carry them out.  This type of setting won't have an impact if you have enough RAM that it will never be used up.