Anyone using current Maya 7 on 64 system?

[John-S]

I use a mac so I'm not much help, however I've been talking to alias about the whole ram thing. You will still have to modify the program (or however you want to say it) to access more then the 1.7 GB limit. Then you can access close to 4 GB or ram. I'll be glad to post the links if need be. Otherwise, as far as I know the program will work the same as on the normal version of XP. I have no experiance with XP x64 though, just been reading about it : )

I really hope the 64 bit version comes soon so we can knock our socks off with ram : )

[ZippZopp]

i'm using Maya 7 on a 64 bit system. It has been working fine for me. I had a few crashes, but i'm not totally sure it can be attributed to 64 bit windows.

John-s: how do you modify a program to take more than 2 gigs of Ram. I've got 4 in my system now.

[John-S]

Autodesk

"There is the option of the /3GB switch that can be added to the c:\boot.ini file on Windows machines to allow you to exceed the 1.6 Gig limit. This should be done with caution though as it can cause your machine to not boot correctly.

Under Windows 2000/XP, the normal application memory partition is 2GB for system and 2GB for applications. For Maya, this means that the largest virtual memory that can be obtained is 2GB. Portions of this address space are used by MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes), as well as graphic card drivers. The effective virtual memory size of Maya is approximately 1.6GB.

Under Windows XP SP2, there is a system boot option that partitions the memory into 1GB system and 3GB user. This option is /3GB.

Microsoft Reference:

www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
Windows XP SP1 may have problems starting if /3GB is used. See Microsoft knowledgebase article: 328269

support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;328269
Maya 7.0 is linked with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE linker option. This effectively adds approximately 1GB to the virtual memory that Maya can grow to when used with the /3GB boot option.

There is a known issue that mayabatch.exe does not have this bit set to make it /LARGEADDRESSAWARE.

A workaround would be to use editbin (if you have it) to mark it as such.

editbin /LARGEADDRESSAWARE mayabatch.exe"




*****later added*****

"For a 32bit application to access the 4GB virtual address space, it does need to be linked with LAA even on XP x64 If not then it is limited to 2GB virtual space. Maya is linked with LAA so the OS will give the full 4GB VASpace. What was probably being thought of was the /3GB boot option, that is not used for XP x64

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888732/en-us "



Hope this helps : )

[John-S]

Apple OS X users don't need to worry about changing these things or problems. You should be able to access close to the full 4 GB.

(not said with any sarcasim whatsoever, just wrote that for clarification)

[vintagetone]

Thanks for the good answers!

[meagane]

John-s,

what the heck is this editbin and how do you use it??
do you say that mayabatch cannot access the 3GB if editbin was not started before?
for a long time now I added the /3GB to the boot.ini, but this says I never could use it with mayabatch?????

argh!!

[John-S]

meagine, sorry I forgot to respond to you. I was just thinking about putting more ram on this dell laptop I'm using and for some reason this thread popped into my head that I forgot to respond too....LOL (wierd, i know)

Anyways, I'm afraid I don't have the best answer for you here. All of my post was from a statement by Autodesk. I was asking because I wanted to know the difference of how Apple worked with ram vs Microsoft. I am a dedicated Apple user (although I have many pcs) but I like to know the advantages of each OS and Computer in case I decide to buy another PC (well equipted) and run Maya on both so that I can have the advantages of both. However, personally I'm going to wait until Vista comes out so that I don't have to deal with this Ram crap that Microsoft is putting you though. Plus, modifying these options on the PC is not recommended and can screw things up. To me that just doesn't sound like something I want to deal with if I don't have to. Plus, now that the intel Apples will allow me to install Windows on them, hopefully by the time Vista and Apples Leapard OS come out, I will just have the best of both worlds on a Mac : )

Back on topic,

As far as I can see the editbin is only available if you have Microsoft Visual Studio. If I am right then it sounds like something you wouldn't want to chase after. If you do want to try and look into this feature then go here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/

There is a free trial of the software. I would google more into this before trying that because thats all going off my own research and I could be wrong. However I think development software may be a bit far for maya batch.....

Anybody Feel Free to correct me PLEASE. I think I'm right on this one though : (

Hope this answers you question : )

[DrakeGuan]

so, how to overcome 1.7GB in Linux?

[Gremlin]

One thing to note, is that Windows XP SP1 is the only way you can allow windows to see 4gb of ram, using the /PAE (physical address extension) line to your boot.ini.

Microsoft apparently disallowed more than (approx) 3gb of ram to be visible to windows, due to security issues and memory hacks? none the less, since I've been forced to use 32-bit windows XP in order to have Zbrush function properly--I'm using SP1.

I have not tried to the /3gb switch yet, I'm still dealing with "device failure" issues and stuff--SP1 is pretty primitive compared to dual-processor quad-core setups with 4gb of ram, and nForce 4 chipsets... I wish Zbrush and Maya ran without the incompatibility bugs on x64 so I could go back.

[John-S]

Linux, I don't know much about. I skip over that one becuase it seems to be a developers OS and a bit over my head to ever understand. Sorry : (

As for SP2, Yes windows holds on two 1 GB or ram. So you would want to have a full 4 GB of ram installed to see much of a difference. I don't think the x64 is this way though. I'm not bothering to go back and look through my posts but I thought the x64 will look for the 4 GB.

I can't wait to get zbrush on the mac. It is 64 GB, and the OS (OS will run 64 bit apps natively that is) and Powermacs are 64 GB.....I just got to save a few more dollars : ) The new system killed me, plus i want to get a tablet when I buy zbrush.

[Darkseal]

Maya 8 now avail for a 64 bit system, 64 bit arcitecture!!

[Sharky0815]

so, how to overcome 1.7GB in Linux?

Running a standard kernel, without doing anything else, each process can access 3GB of memory before you hit the limits of the i386 architecture... You can use some (often gruesome) methods to push this, but in the end only the x64 architecture will change this.

Please correct me if I am making a fool of myself :)

[SaveFerris0330]

I'm using Maya 7 on 64 bit windows...with a 64 bit processor...

No problems what so ever.

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