Mental Ray locks up while Rendering. Please Help

#1

Hey guys,

I’ve been having some problems while rendering. Sometimes I get an error along the lines “mental ray has encountered a problem and will shut down for the remainder of this XSI session”… then when I click ok, I get a second message along the lines “could not render “insert big number here” bytes.”. Then XSI locks up.

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it happens. I started a render last night. It happened 200 frames in… and then didn’t happen again until 4000 frames in.

Any ideas what may be causing this?

Thanks,

Matt

#2

Seems a memory issue.

#3

I thought so too. Any ideas on how I could fix the problem?

Matt

#4

What’s your max memory limit in rendering options? Try lowering it.

#5

I didn’t have a limit turned on.

I have 4 Gb of ram in the computer, although, since I’m running XP, it’s only recognizing 3.25 Gb of that.

I just tried making a limit of 2048… I didn’t notice significant (if any) difference in render times… so hopefully that fixes the problem.

Matt

#6

Lower than that. If you’re on XP 32, then each application has access to even less RAM than you’ve indicated…even if you have the 3GB switchenabled.
I’ve read some who recommend setting the limit to half the amount of system memory that is free when XSI with the scene is loaded. Perhaps that’s over-cautious, but on a 32-bit system, setting the limit <1GB would be wise.

#7

Ciaran is right…you’re not getting access to anywhere near what you think in 32bit.

Go to 64. That’s the only advice I’ll give, and its good advice. It will solve all memory problems, granted you can buy 8GB of ram. I’ve never had a memory problem since getting rid of 32bit OS. Not even once.

#8

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