I have a scene which I have tried rendering 4 times now.
The three first times the render was very big. It statet with the GI prepass, I turned of my monitor, went to work and when I got back home Terragen 2 wasn't running anymore. It looked like I never even opened the program.
I thought this was a RAM issue and went for a smaller render size. This time, I had the chance of wathing over the render from time to time. It finished the GI prepass and started the rendering. It looked all good so I decided to go sleep. When I woke up today I got this message on the screen:
"Unable to allocate memory for subdiv cache. You may be able to avoid this error by reducing the size of the sudiv cache in your render settings."
and this error:
Hi,
Hard to say exactly with having the project file, but I would say this is a problem with running out of RAM even at the smaller size.
Regards,
Jo
The render is only 1600x640 and I have 4 gig with ram. I am not sitting on a 64 bit windows, but still.
There are two populations in it as well, but they are not big.
I could send the project file, but what do I do with the populations?
- Terje
you can use senduit to upload a package with the project file and all objects.
Quote from: Goms on March 21, 2009, 09:57:32 AM
you can use senduit to upload a package with the project file and all objects.
Yeah, but the models/trees that I have are stuff I have paid for.
I forgot to mention that ::)
- Terje
how big are they?
Ca 36mb.
- Terje
you said you were using 32 bit? do you have the /3gb switch on?
What do you mean by that?
I'm not very good with computers.
When I right click on "My computer" it says 3,25 GB RAM.
- Terje
about /3gb and how to turn on:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5818.msg60839#msg60839
Also thats to be expected with 32bit, if you have 4 gigs of ram only part of it will show due to how the os loads ram. I suggest moving to 64bit if you can to get the use of your other .75gb of ram, I have yet to find a program that doesn't run 32bit wise while on 64, its quite compatible with both with the advantages of 64bit.
Also, how big is your subdiv set to right now? Also try checking the "preallocate subdiv", will speed up the detection of errors.
Also what quality in quality and such are set?
I have windows 64 bit on my computer, but I wanted to have 32 bit also. So when I start my computer I can choose. There is a problem tho. I must have the cd in the drive if I want to start windows 64 bit. I have also tested Terragen 2 on windows 64 bit and the sky had lot of black spots on it so I thought there was a problem and whent back to 32 bit.
My subdiv cache was set to 400, but is now set to 200. I'm doing another test right now.
Below are my other render settings:
Image width: 1600px
Image height: 640px
Render detail: 1
Anit-aliasing: 15
GI relative detail: 2
GI sample quality: 2
GI blur radius: 2
Supersample prepass: On
Preallocate subdiv cache: On
I hope it works this time, even tho I don't think it will.
- Terje
have you tried with like aa at 8, detail .8-.9 or something just to see?
Also you had render problems with tg2 in 64bit? really? I've had 0 problems. Must have cd in drive to do 64bit?? O_o.
The black dots in the sky are nothing to do with your 64 bit version "per se" but rather your video drivers. You should be able to do everything and more that you could in a 32 bit environment in a 64 bit environment.
As long as you can load your scene in 64bit then it "should" render fine.
good luck
richard
Quote from: neuspadrin on March 21, 2009, 01:43:16 PM
have you tried with like aa at 8, detail .8-.9 or something just to see?
Also you had render problems with tg2 in 64bit? really? I've had 0 problems. Must have cd in drive to do 64bit?? O_o.
I have not tried rendering with those settngs in this scene. I feel it's finished and want high quality :)
I will try fix up my computer so I don't need the cd in the drive to run 64 bit.
Quote from: cyphyr on March 21, 2009, 02:02:02 PM
The black dots in the sky are nothing to do with your 64 bit version "per se" but rather your video drivers. You should be able to do everything and more that you could in a 32 bit environment in a 64 bit environment.
As long as you can load your scene in 64bit then it "should" render fine.
good luck
richard
Because I need the cd in the drive to run it I have not installed any driver yet and have totally forgot about it so this is probably a problem ::)
I'll see what happens with the current render and get back here after that.
- Terje
15 seems a little high for aa, even for end render. Also .8-.9 are still very nice looking.
"Also thats to be expected with 32bit, if you have 4 gigs of ram only part of it will show due to how the os loads ram. "
Solution: Open an elevated Command Prompt, type BCDEdit /set pae ForceEnable and press Enter. PAE=Physical Address Extension. This is supposed to open up 4 (or more) gigs in Vista 32, but I haven't actually tried it yet.
I don't think 15 for aa and 1 for detail is to high.
I have used these settings for all my final renderings.
This is the only render that have caused these problems.
- Terje
Quote from: arisdemos on March 21, 2009, 02:49:34 PM
"Also thats to be expected with 32bit, if you have 4 gigs of ram only part of it will show due to how the os loads ram. "
Solution: Open an elevated Command Prompt, type BCDEdit /set pae ForceEnable and press Enter. PAE=Physical Address Extension. This is supposed to open up 4 (or more) gigs in Vista 32, but I haven't actually tried it yet.
I don't use Vista.
- Terje
PAE won't help any in most user desktop situations, as it's usually gets limited by the hardware/bios and not the os. Both the hardware and the OS need to support pae for it to work.
In fact, most versions of windows run PAE mode automatically due to DEP by default being on, which requires PAE. Assuming windows xp sp2 or later. But then there still is a chance pae wont fully be enabled sometimes unless you define the switch... so its worth a try, but wont guarantee results.
Also, /pae is ok with xp too, not just vista.
About those AA settings again...
Have you noticed any difference between a render with AA at 8 and AA at 15?
As far as I know the difference is minimal, while the render time increases drastically...
Thats also what I was thinking, AA 15 just seems... excessively over needed quality. 6+ usually is very good for a final render.
Thanks Neuspadrin for the further info on PAE limitations and considerations.
I have rendered images with AA 15 before and I still think I could have used more.
Of course this also depend on the image it self.
- Terje
I had this problem before. I couldnt get a straight answer. I think the answer is dont attempt to use really high quality or really high resolution settings even though it appears as though you can. Terragen cannot actually handle it.
But I want to render it big and with high quality :'(
- Terje
Hi Terje,
I'd try dropping the AA setting. Have you compared a setting of 8 to your setting of 15 to see what the difference is? With an image which renders of course.
I've rendered a few problematic scenes for people and it often turns out they've gone overboard on certain settings. In a several cases the higher settings would render on OS X but would be taking forever. When I dropped the settings the render completed without problems, was much faster and when the results were compared the images were a bit different but you wouldn't say the lower settings were appreciably lower quality. Of course there is a point where the quality would start to diminish, but if you just go right for the highest setting you are asking for trouble a bit.
When you're using 32 bit XP without the /3GB switch turned on you are basically using TG2 in the most resource constrained situation you can run it in. You only have 2 GB of memory available to the application. Unfortunately by the time you've added a few populations and cranked the settings up it's not hard to blow through the 2 GB limit. It is a bit of a balancing act to get certain scenes to render in that case.
Regards,
Jo
Hi jo
Ok.... I give up. I will try reducing the AA and see what happens.
I'll post the result if it finish.
- Terje
Quote from: jo on March 21, 2009, 07:45:13 PM
When you're using 32 bit XP without the /3GB switch turned on you are basically using TG2 in the most resource constrained situation you can run it in.
Unless you are running with 512mb ram or something ;) :P That's a little resource constrained ;)
But yeh, some of the qualities you can set don't matter too much after certain values, except addition to render times. Generally AA stops becoming as useful around ~8, detail at .9 and 1 are very close, etc etc. Sometimes a few compromises are needed.
Just wanted to say that when I reduced the subdiv cache from 400 to 200 and turned Preallocate subdiv cache on, the render has made it a little bit longer :)
It seams a little slower, but maybe it will finish this time.
- Terje
Another thing to consider is that use of different AA filters can have a much more dramatic effect on the final scene quality in terms of edge sharpness and blending than the difference between for example AA of 8 and 15. It is a somewhat different effect depending on the AA filter, of course, but I find use of the right AA filter to be more critical for the best resulting scene quality than really high levels of AA. There are exceptions, like vegetation-heavy scenes with lots of fine, sharp objects (grasses or conifers), but for the most part that holds true.
- Oshyan
AA filters are the same as Pixel filters right?
I use Catmull-Rom and I have conifer populations. I like this filter best in most cases.
- Terje
Yes, correct.
- Oshyan
By the way, I know we have a post with examples of every AA filter type. But is there a list that shows all pro's and con's of each filter?
Well... the render didn't make it.
I decided to reduce the AA and I added another object to the scene. Also, I reduced a lot of other settings so I could do a crop render, but the render takes forever to start. It finishes the GI prepass and then whaits forever to start rendering.
I took a look at the CPU usage and it only uses about 30%. Then it starts rendering and goes up to the nomal. After rendering a little bit, it stops and drops down to about 30% again and waits a long time before start rendering.
EDIT: I also noticed the logo that is supposed to be in the top, left corner of the program is not there anymore.
- Terje
Hi Terje,
Wow, sounds like you are having a tough go at this scene. I've had a few of those myself and it is very aggravating to say the least. I'm wondering if you have installed 64 bit and have dual boot on your machine yet? If so you should have access to more that 2 gig of memory for TG when booting to 64 bit. Another thing I haven't noticed you mention is if you have high sampled clouds and high quality atmosphere setting applied to the scene? That with some of the other settings could be the problem. But my guess is something is messed up with your Operating system. I think I would (if you haven't already) do some research on dual boot operating systems. I'm no geek either but it sounds like you can boot into 32 bit without a CD, but then you need the CD to boot to 64 bit? Not sure but that doesn't sound normal. If your BIOS is set to boot from the hard drives that your operating system is on then you shouldn't need the CD. Just thinking out loud here and someone with more knowledge than myself may be able to suggest the correct solutions.
Good Luck Terje,
Hi buzzzzz,
Yeah. I'm almoast giving up the whole thing.
I have high quality for both cloud and atmosphere, but nothing to violent.
About my operating system. I had a friend setting it all up and he really knows his stuff. He is really good with computers. I know he has done this thing many, many times and he didn't understand why it woudn't work on my computer. My computer just wouldn't let me have both 32 bit and 64 bit.
Right now I just want to format the whole thing and make my computer run on 64 bit only.
I'm really frustrated right now. I finally have something I want to render out with some extra pixels, but I can't. Wtf ???
- Terje
Quote from: sjefen on March 22, 2009, 12:56:23 PM
Hi buzzzzz,
Yeah. I'm almoast giving up the whole thing.
I have high quality for both cloud and atmosphere, but nothing to violent.
About my operating system. I had a friend setting it all up and he really knows his stuff. He is really good with computers. I know he has done this thing many, many times and he didn't understand why it woudn't work on my computer. My computer just wouldn't let me have both 32 bit and 64 bit.
Right now I just want to format the whole thing and make my computer run on 64 bit only.
I'm really frustrated right now. I finally have something I want to render out with some extra pixels, but I can't. Wtf ???
- Terje
I was going to suggest going with just 64 bit but didn't want to push it since you were already frustrated. I went 64 bit a while back and have no regrets. I do have 8 gig of ram but even with 4 gig and background apps and services running that you only need you should be fine. With 64 bit I have only seen the memory usage by TG go up around 2.5 or so and not many problems so far. I usually do my final renders at quality 1, AA at 6 mostly using catmull-rom or mitchell-netravali, GI at 2/2 with both boxes checked. Render most scenes at 1680X1050 resolution. Render times are so far very acceptable. Yeah, I say 64 bit is the way to go! Just be patient, save your scene and render after the re-install, I think you will be much happier! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Cheers,
Jay
Just a small addition, almost all 32 bit apps will work just fine under a 64 bit OS, they just wont be optamised for the added performance 64 bit gives you. The only issues I have had are that 32 bit plugins for lightwave wont work in a 64 bit version of lightwave so to use them I have had to install both 32 and 64 bit versions of lightwave, you may have similar issues but as you see theyre easliy worked about. :)
richard
Since switching to 64bit on my desktop (as soon as I built it ;), only put 32bit on it for 2 days while i waited for my 64 cd), no regrets, and I have yet to find something that won't run (well, won't run due to 64bit).
Yeah. I will switch to 64 bit only, but not right now. I am really a noob with computer so I need some help and right now I'm not in the mood for something that may cause me some more troubles.
It is good to hear Terragen runs fine on 64 bit and it is also good to know Planetside will work on a 64 bit version after the gold release.
I guess, for now, I'll just have to sit my ass down and be patient.
- Terje
See, now I switched to Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64 and after a couple of days the processor started making a pretty high pitched screech on performing the slightest task and also blue screens. I went into XP which is still x86 and nothing, switch back and I have the same screeching. So I change the CPU and RAM, format the hard drive and reinstall both Vista and 7 and it still happens. So I put the 32 bit disc of Vista in and installed that and it works fine.
That's incredibly odd.
Just curious...
How often have you restarted your pc since this problem occurred?
Many times ::)
I have even reinstalled Terragen 2.
I just installed a driver on my Windows 64 bit and the sky now looks normal, but I also just noticed Terragen can only find 1 of my 4 cores.
How can I make it use them all in 64 bit?
- Terje
For a permanent fix, go to Edit->Preferences->Startup and check "Override automatic number of cores detection" then set preferred number of cores to 4. You can always customize this per Render node as well if you want to use less cores in a particular case.
- Oshyan