Vista 32 bit to Win7 64 bit...

[choronr]

Having recently upgraded from Vista 32 bit to Win7 64 bit; and, 4GB of RAM to 8 GB of RAM, my system runs great except for two issues: printer didn't work (resolved); and, after a day of WIN7 use, my 1000 watt power supply failed. I swapped out the 1000 watt unit for a 650 watt unit (temporarily) until Antec replaces the failed unit. Again, all works fine.

Now the question: During my last render with the updated system which took 27 hours, I kept my eye on both the CPU usage meter and the RAM usage meter. As before the update, the CPU meter was at 100% during render. However, the RAM meter read from 38 to 41% during render whereas with the 32 bit/4GB of RAM it would read almost 100% when passing over plants and displacements. I thought that with the 64 bit/8GB of RAM, I might be seeing more of a higher usage than only 38 to 41% of RAM. Any thoughts on this? How is progress on making TG2 64 bit efficient?

Bob  

[jo]

Hi Bob,

It's only going to use as much RAM as it needs to. I'm not sure exactly how your RAM meter might work. However let's say with 32 bit Windows you didn't have the /3GB switch on. That means that the most RAM TG2 can use is 2 GB. Perhaps your scenes were running close to that 2 GB limit and that meant you were seeing 100% RAM usage. On your 64 bit OS TG2 is able to use 4 GB RAM so if the same scene is using close to 2 GB then that could look like something around 40-50% on your RAM meter. It might also be the case that your RAM meter sees all your installed RAM ( 8 GB). However TG2 is a 32 bit app and the most it can use is 4 GB of RAM. So it could be TG2 is around 3 GB and that is looking like 40%.

To sum up, I wouldn't worry about it. RAM utilisation isn't the same as processor utilisation. If renders aren't failing because TG2 is running out of memory then that's the most important thing.

I would like to emphasise that as it stands TG2 is only able to use a maximum of 4 GB of RAM on a 64 bit OS, because it is a 32 bit app.

As to 64 bit support, we're starting to ramp things up. The addition of the ray tracing stuff in the last release did put us behind schedule a bit with that, but the quality and speed improvements make it worth it, I'll hope you agree. I've been able to get my test application for the GUI stuff up and running as a 64 bit application on the Mac. I was able to allocate over 100 GB of RAM with that. If I'd done anything much with it probably would have got pretty slow, but it was pretty cool watching the memory usage go up past 100 GB.

64 bit and the animation module will be the main thrust of our work over the next few months.

Regards,

Jo

[choronr]

Hi Bob,

It's only going to use as much RAM as it needs to. I'm not sure exactly how your RAM meter might work. However let's say with 32 bit Windows you didn't have the /3GB switch on. That means that the most RAM TG2 can use is 2 GB. Perhaps your scenes were running close to that 2 GB limit and that meant you were seeing 100% RAM usage. On your 64 bit OS TG2 is able to use 4 GB RAM so if the same scene is using close to 2 GB then that could look like something around 40-50% on your RAM meter. It might also be the case that your RAM meter sees all your installed RAM ( 8 GB). However TG2 is a 32 bit app and the most it can use is 4 GB of RAM. So it could be TG2 is around 3 GB and that is looking like 40%.

To sum up, I wouldn't worry about it. RAM utilisation isn't the same as processor utilisation. If renders aren't failing because TG2 is running out of memory then that's the most important thing.

I would like to emphasise that as it stands TG2 is only able to use a maximum of 4 GB of RAM on a 64 bit OS, because it is a 32 bit app.

As to 64 bit support, we're starting to ramp things up. The addition of the ray tracing stuff in the last release did put us behind schedule a bit with that, but the quality and speed improvements make it worth it, I'll hope you agree. I've been able to get my test application for the GUI stuff up and running as a 64 bit application on the Mac. I was able to allocate over 100 GB of RAM with that. If I'd done anything much with it probably would have got pretty slow, but it was pretty cool watching the memory usage go up past 100 GB.

64 bit and the animation module will be the main thrust of our work over the next few months.

Regards,

Jo

Thanks Jo for getting back to me and appreciate your information. The 'CPU' and 'RAM' usage meters 'gadgets' comes with Vista and Win7 I keep these on my desk top. In your comments, please explain "...you didn't have the /3GB switch on." Thanks,

Regards,

Bob

[Oshyan]

He's referring to your previous system setup, before you had Win7 64 bit. So he means that, in that case, if you did not have the Windows configuration switch enabled that allows use of up to 3GB of RAM for applications (the /3GB switch), then TG2 would have been limited to only 2GB of RAM. This was just an assumption for the sake of argument; his points are useful regardless of whether the assumption is correct.

- Oshyan

[choronr]

He's referring to your previous system setup, before you had Win7 64 bit. So he means that, in that case, if you did not have the Windows configuration switch enabled that allows use of up to 3GB of RAM for applications (the /3GB switch), then TG2 would have been limited to only 2GB of RAM. This was just an assumption for the sake of argument; his points are useful regardless of whether the assumption is correct.

- Oshyan

Thanks for this explanation Oshyan. I am pleased with the results I've made; and, looking forward to the work you folks are doing to make TG2 a 64 bit application.