Does TG2 use the virtual memory in Windows or does TG2 prefer RAM?

[DVA99]

Hi all,

I've checked the forum but I can't find anyting similar to my problem but, I can't be the only one?

Recently I've been adding more and more populations of trees at, of course, ultra quality.

What happens is that after adding more than two populations (1000m2) crowded with trees, I'm in the land of syrup.

I can barely move around using the mouse so I have to use the navigation control. And I almost never use the navigation gadget!

When I check how much RAM TG2 use at the moment it's not much at all - 800MB. The size of the virtual memory is set to max 4GB.

My system:

Windows Vista 64bit (sorry for the bad language)
CPU: I7 965 3,2GHz (oldie but goldie)
RAM: 12GB DDR
HDD: over 100GB free space on both the Vista partition and the TG2 partition.

So what am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

[jo]

Hi,

The OS controls where an application's memory is, whether it's in RAM or VM.

Are you using wireframe to view the populations? That can be slow especially if you're close in the populations. Bounding box mode should be quicker.

As an aside, when you say you've set the size of virtual memory to 4 GB, do you mean to say you've set your paging file size to be 4 GB? I'm not an expert on the Windows paging file but that sounds too small to me. I may not be understanding what you're saying though.

Regards,

Jo

[DVA99]

Thanks for the quick reply Jo,

You're correct, I meant the paging file. Normally it works great having a small paging file but not this time. Will increase it and see what happens.

But first I will try to use the bounding box mode instead of wireframe. Thanks for that advice.

Kind regards

[DVA99]

I thought I should come back and tell, if using the bounding box mode or increasing the page file in Windows, would make things better.

Using the mode bounding box instead of wireframe didn't make it easier to move around after adding multiple populations.

Letting Windows handle the size of the page file didn't change anything either.

I really don't like having Windows as a backseat driver slowing me down 

This is not a real problem for me but it would be easier not having it.

Anyways, thanks Jo for trying.

Kind regards

[jo]

Hi,

It's still a bit of puzzle why you would find things so laggy. It sounds like you have a powerful enough machine. Obviously we've added some new object preview capabilities in recent releases and so it would be interesting to figure out why you're having problems.

What graphics card do you have?

On my machine I can create 8 populations of the default size and object spacing before it starts getting a bit laggy in bounding box mode, although it's still fine to work with. If I change the 3D Preview object display mode to wireframe then it does get slower quite quickly, especially when I'm close to the populations.

If you find the user interface is also getting a bit slow when you're finding the 3D Preview is slow then you could try changing the 3D Preview object display mode (the button at the top of the preview with the blue box icon) to "Hide objects".

Regards,

Jo

[DVA99]

Hi Jo,

I have a Geforce 9600 GT.

I tested to populate another scene with 10 populations (10000m2 each) and at ultra quality. This time from bird view and I could fly around without any problem at all (no lag).

Having a few millions of instances and trying to move around between them isn't such a good idea.

I blame it on the newbie factor because, why have big crowded populations when I'm trying to do a close up 

Thanks

[DVA99]

Forgot to say that I tested to switch to "Hide objects" in the 3d preview. Works perfectly as you said.

Many thanks Jo

[Dune]

You can also switch off the trees and grasses that are not really important to navigate around. Only leave the important trees, and switch the others only on to check sometimes when standing still. If you get my point.

[DVA99]

Thanks Dune,

I've never tried to use that option before or changing mode from wireframe to bounding box/hide.

Thanks