How much ram is to much, for 3dMax6?

[Aegis Prime]

No 32-bit app can utilize more than 2Gb of RAM - that's the limit. Putting 4Gb in a (32-bit) PC will allocate 1Gb to Windows & a pool of 3Gb that will be shared between your apps (with a max of 2Gb for any single app). That's still pretty cool though :) Oh, and you have to modify a "/3gb" registry setting to get Windows to work properly with it (XP Pro only I think).

[Error404]

oh, I'm running windows 2000, if that makes a difference.

So, the computer/programs would beable to utilize 4 gigs as a whole (not individually), and not be a total waste?

I do alot of very high detail mechanical modeling (and rendering) in 3dMax, so I imagine I could use all the ram I can get. I guess with that much ram, I could have a huge amount of "virtual memory", correct?

So, 1 gig for windows to run on (dang, that should be plenty!) 2 gigs for max, and the rest for whatever else is going on while max is open? I usualy don't have much more than winamp, "visualboo timer" and a temperature monitoring program running.

So, I would have 1 gig of ram left to use for anything else (photoshop, or something else to open up reference images in), and it would run with no problem?

[Aegis Prime]

and it would run with no problem?

Well we are talking Windows here ;)

I'm really not sure if it'll work with Win2k but I know it works with XP.

[Error404]

hm... maybe I'd better find out how windows 2k handles more than 2 gigs of ram. anyone here know?

[Ice Czar]

Breaking Through the 2 GB Memory Ceiling (http://www.workstationplanet.com/features/article.php/3294451) @ Workstation Planet

Excerpts:
These chips, however, and to a large degree the entire x486 architecture, are limited because they can deliver only 2GB of RAM per application. Although that is more than enough memory for the average computer user, the average workstation user requires more.

Caching large databases, working with large 2D image files, modeling building plans in a CAD program, rendering complex machinery in an MCAD program, and running weather simulations all require the manipulation of large files in real time. And that often requires more memory than a 32-bit system can deliver.

On a 32-bit system, any given application will be limited to an allocation of 2GB of RAM, and the CPU limits the amount of RAM in the system to 4GB. This doesn't mean that a workstation with 4GB of RAM is always going to have 2GB going to waste. This 2GB limit applies to the resources that can be drawn by any one application. With 4GB, two different applications could crank through operations with 2GB of RAM each with the swap space never getting touched. Still, many workstation applications require more than 2GB to efficiently complete a single task

The latest 64-bit chips, such as AMD's Athlon 64 and Intel's Itanium 2, have twice the memory registers of a 32-bit chip, but the total memory that can be accessed is much more than double. A 32-bit processor can access up to 4.3 billion memory addresses for a total of about 4GB of physical memory. A 64-bit processor could conceivably access over 18 petabytes of physical memory. If you are sorting a database with terabytes of information, than 64-bit addressing can make a big difference.

Some applications are limited to 2GB even on 64-bit systems. Adobe's Photoshop has a 2GB RAM limit and Adobe has no plans of increasing it, even though Apple's latest operating system supports 64-bit extensions; Adobe says 2GB is plenty for the image editor's functions. Plus, using a Power Mac G5 with 4GB of RAM does enable users to work in Photoshop to the limits of its RAM allocation while, in the background, Final Cut Pro works steadily through a file conversion without impacting the speed of Photoshop.

If you need to manipulate large files or work with models in excess of 2GB, migrating to a 64-bit processor and operating system is essential. And with a bunch of 64-bit chips reaching the market, a host of 64-bit-ready Linux distributions, and a growing number of off-the-shelf applications, it is increasingly affordable to break the 2GB memory ceiling"

W2K (and NT\XP\2003) can employ over 4GB if it employs PAE
(Physical Address Extentions) which is how 32bit Xeons do it
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/pae_os.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

however as mentioned above, the application will still be limited to 2GB, but memory in excess of that could be employed for other processes, or as a RAM Disk (http://superspeed.com/) (software) for your swapfile see >(Virtual Memory in XP (http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php))

I cant definitively state if 3DMax is able to take advantage of more than 2GBs of RAM (when available through PAE or a 64bit system) but Id be suprised if it isnt

If not it soon will be

[Error404]

hm... looks like I'll just get one more gig stick, and call it a day for my Ram.

thanks for the article! :)

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