I have this one cabinet that I am working on that has been really dogging my computer down. Trying to add a few FF components and it will sit there and twirl the computer around for 4 minutes worth of rendering. I was watching the task manager performance displays and noticed what the page memory was doing. As the computer was chugging along the page memory was getting larger and larger. It finally tops out just below a Gig. Now I'm only guessing here because I know little about a more modern operating system. But I think this means that if I had one more gig of RAM that it would use this instead of paging the memory. Is this correct? I am running a P4 2.8GHz w/512MB RAM and an onboard video card that steals 128MB from the 512MB and I want to know if adding the 1 GB would solve THIS particular problem, I'm sure if I filled it to capacity to 4GB and got a premium video card I wouldn't be having these issues. But money is a factor so I'd like to start on the cheap and go with a memory upgrade. Thanks
Leo
Page Memory
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Leo Graywacz
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Adding more memory will help but not completely alleviate the problem Leo. Programs will always use virtual memory (paging space) regardless of how much RAM is installed on the system.
When a process is started in Windows it receives 4GB of virtual ADDRESS space. Windows does not directly allocate PHYSICAL memory to a process until it is requested by the application. The amount of physical memory allocated is always just enough to satisfy the request, never more (unless it is a very poorly designed program).
The virtual address space is neither physical or virtual memory. It is merely the number of memory slots, or addresses, that the program can use at the most. If a program only needs 200KB of physical memory at a time, that's all it will use. That same program though, might need 800MB of virtual memory to hold data that is not being acted upon by the program at the time.
Think of virtual memory as warehouse space--you are building a job and put the individual cabinet boxes in the warehouse until the entire job is completed. Conversely, think of physical memory, or RAM, as workshop space. You may have room in the warehouse to hold hundreds of cabinets but only room for five in the workshop.
The video card is a definite issue. Not only does it steal system RAM for graphics, it cannot process graphics as fast using system memory as it can with dedicated video memory.
To summarize, more RAM will definitely help and a video card will help the rendering even more. One problem you might run into with the onboard video is that even with another video card, the onboard card might STILL use system memory.
You might try using wireframe for everything until you are ready to do the final render. This will require less memory and video capabilities.
When a process is started in Windows it receives 4GB of virtual ADDRESS space. Windows does not directly allocate PHYSICAL memory to a process until it is requested by the application. The amount of physical memory allocated is always just enough to satisfy the request, never more (unless it is a very poorly designed program).
The virtual address space is neither physical or virtual memory. It is merely the number of memory slots, or addresses, that the program can use at the most. If a program only needs 200KB of physical memory at a time, that's all it will use. That same program though, might need 800MB of virtual memory to hold data that is not being acted upon by the program at the time.
Think of virtual memory as warehouse space--you are building a job and put the individual cabinet boxes in the warehouse until the entire job is completed. Conversely, think of physical memory, or RAM, as workshop space. You may have room in the warehouse to hold hundreds of cabinets but only room for five in the workshop.
The video card is a definite issue. Not only does it steal system RAM for graphics, it cannot process graphics as fast using system memory as it can with dedicated video memory.
To summarize, more RAM will definitely help and a video card will help the rendering even more. One problem you might run into with the onboard video is that even with another video card, the onboard card might STILL use system memory.
You might try using wireframe for everything until you are ready to do the final render. This will require less memory and video capabilities.