Not enough

[CBZ]

Hi everyone,

I have a problem trying to make a render. I receive the following error message:

"Not enough memory for frame buffer"

when Lightwave is in the rendering process i.e. F10/render status/dialog box allocating frame buffers.

This is the image (as an example) I want to render.

http://www.dreamimageco.com/Morgan/small.jpg

Actually I can render the same scene to a low resolution file 1200 x 900 but my goal is to render the big one. I also try to render with a dual athlon computer, 4 gigas ram memory and... nothing, same history... ScreamerNet II don't render too when normally it does the trick.

any ideas? any clue?


My scene is an external architectural render. Relevant info is as follows:

Objects: 271

Points: 6.173.897
Polygons: 5.971.143
Object memory: 443.2 M
bones: 0
ik chains: 0
lights: 4
cameras: 1
surfaces: 446
images: 20
render memory: 176.8 M
free memory: 97.6 M (RAM) + 2054.8 M (page file)

render resolution is: 2560 x 1920, antialias low, segment memory 128.

ray trace shadows is on, ray trace reflection is on, ray trace transparency is on.


System Information report written at: 08/20/2003 03:37:23 PM
[System Summary]

Item Value
OS Name Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Version 5.0.2195 Service Pack 3 Build 2195
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer VIA TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
System Model 8753-8233
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 4 Genuine Intel ~2019 Mhz
BIOS Version Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG

Total Physical Memory 1,572,340 KB
Available Physical Memory 79,016 KB
Total Virtual Memory 5,086,964 KB
Available Virtual Memory 2,074,296 KB
Page File Space 3,514,624 KB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

[txbob]

There are a few other ram sucks you might want to check. Are you using any shadow maps? Keep in mind that when you double the size of a shadow map, it quadruples the amount of ram needed.

Are any of the objects in the scene NURBS? If you have the render subdivisions cranked way up, this could be causing there to me 100s of thousands of polys happening in the scene. Don't crank the divisions up unless it's making a difference in the render.

Your segment memory sounds good. You need that set to 197MB to render in a single pass at that res. If the problem continues, try lowering the seg mem even lower. This will cause LW to render in more segments, but uses less RAM.

Does LW try to render the scene and just bail out right away, or is it trying to render for a while and then crapping out?

Why do you have all those raytracing options on? I'm not seeing where reflection or transparency is going to do a lot for the scene.

Image looks cool!

Hope this sheds a bit of light on your problem.

[CBZ]

First of all thanks for your input.

Now.

Are you using any shadow maps? NO

Are any of the objects in the scene NURBS? NO

Your segment memory sounds good. try lowering the seg mem YES, I already try to lower the segment but nothing... same history.

Does LW try to render the scene and just bail out right away YES, just when the render status flags out some "sorting polygons..." or "allocating something..." then... toooing! "Not enough memory for frame buffer" It's almost immediately after render status goes on.

Why do you have all those raytracing options on? Because I'm covering more then one camera angle, shooting to a pool (water reflections), close-ups to glass windows... etc... It's pretty rich on some dramatic angles... but I can take rid of it if necessary.

[richpr]

Try doubling your segment size...

[txbob]

RichPR: I have to disagree with that suggestion. Since the scene renders ok at a lower resolution, it seems to me that you DON'T want to up the segment memory, as that allocates a higher amount of memory. Using a lower amount will require more segments, but use less memory per segment.

CBZ: The only other thing I might suggest is that you might use one of the object replacement plug-ins to swap out objects that aren't visable in the scene with super low res versions. The "replace object sequence" plug-in is really easy to use. If you have, let's say the pool, but you don't see it untill frame 100... Make a flat poly to uses as a place holder, and save it as object.001.lwo. Save the actual object as object.100.lwo. They have to be in the same directory. At frame 100, the low count object will automatically swap out for the other.

Once again... hope this helps.

[Mylenium]

Try lowering segment mem to an extremely low value like 3 MB or so. This will help. You could also try to render several segments and then put them together in Photoshop. There are several tools that will help you setting this up. Look on http://www.flay.com. Also check your surfaces. Turn off texture antialiasing if you don't really need it 'cos mipmaps also consume RAM (even though very little).

Mylenium

[CBZ]

hello! thanks again to everyone helping me on this matter.

segment mem don't work niether ways.

object replacement works! :cool:

render region works :cool:

[Wade]

Keep your image maps small you do not need a 20meg tree map when your total image when done will be half that. I try to keep all my leaf, brick, pavement, .... paterns to less than a half meg.

Images maps give Ram one of the biggest hits when rendering large.

Wade