Memory Crash (bluescreen)

[Raykoid666]

Hello, all!

First of all, i'm loving terragen, but when i try to render bigger images, it looks like it runs out of memory...

though i have 3gigs of RAM, on a Vista 32 Bit, but it seems like once TG exceeds about 1 gig, i get a bluescreen and it crashes.

I had the same happening to me with 3D studio max but never really bothered to ask since there were a lot of memory-saving options in there.

So yeah i'd love to get some help here, even though it might be my hardware causing this.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: i have a small theory, hear this out. i have one stick of 2gig ram and 1 of 1gig, both DDR2, now, my guess is that everything is running on this 2gig stick, but when it tries to get to the 1gig, it crashes. again, just a theory

[Henry Blewer]

Each memory slot (bank) has it's corresponding lot on the mother board. The memory controller's logic expects everything to be balanced. So, it looks at the size of the first slot, and says cool 2 gigs. Then it does not check the second slot, but tries to address memory which does not exist.
The only fix for this is to drop the 1 gig stick. If you need the memory, buy a matching 2 gig stick.

[Oshyan]

Hmm. As far as I know the memory is accessed contiguously, regardless of how many separate pieces of memory (hardware) there are, or their size. The OS surely deals with some of those complexities, as does the underlying memory controller hardware, but ultimately I don't think apps need to worry about it.

In any case how are you measuring memory use? Be sure you are viewing total, I believe "Working Set" or "Commit Size" (they will differ) on Vista for example. Use the larger of the two. Also check available memory. If it is crashing at 1GB *and* you have additional free memory, then it may be a problem, otherwise it sounds like a simple memory limitation on your system. Remember that on a 32 bit OS, only 2GB of memory can be used by 32 bit applications (like TG2). On a 64 bit OS a 32 bit app can use up to 4GB, so that is an improvement. TG2 will ultimately be made 64 bit as well, and on a 64 bit OS it will then have access to all system memory available.

- Oshyan

[Henry Blewer]

On Vista there is a new feature called 'Ready Boost'. It uses to 2 gig USB flash drive. I'm am not sure how/what it does. It did boost my disk index from 4.2 to 5.8.
This may not help, but it won't hurt.

[Raykoid666]

problem solved, problem was my CPU not being able to handle the memory due to it being overclocked. :-)