Check Render RAM?
 

Hi Using Maya 8.5 on Precision 690, OS XP Pro x64, 8 gig RAM

I have just switched from XP x32 to XP x64 and added more RAM to my PC but don't think Maya is accessing it for rendering.

I know there is somewhere you can see how much RAM Maya's Mental ray render uses and also you can customize this but I don't know how to locate it.

Anyone?

Thanks, T

haven't used xp64bit (heard it doesn't play well with maya) but is there a folder program files and program files (x86) that you can install to?
if there is make sure you install to program files

i think you can change the limit of memory you assign to a render in the render options
render > render current frame > []
and
render > batch render > []
in the box titled Memory

is that what you're looking for?
also, when i render i notice the ram doesn't shoot up but the processor speed does, perhaps your renders aren't memory hungry as you expect? *shrug*

Hi. Well, I had the same scene on a computer with 4 gigs of RAM (a Mac) and Mental ray accessed it fine and the renders were faster and could handle the full scene without crashing, so I figure RAM must be relevent.

Thanks for the info on therender memeory settings.

I checked those and sure enough Mental ray is only using 1.2 gigs of RAM even though there's 8 available. when I told it to calculate the RAM it didn't go up. Any idea why?

T

Just an idea, but did you install the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Maya?

I think that's what Chirone was getting at with the program files??

Hi. Right, the Maya 64-bit is the one I installed. I should add that since my earlier post, I went in to render cuurent frame options and manually set the memory limit to 6144 (6 gigs RAM) and rendered a dense scene and it worked. Took 69 minutes, but rendered fine.

I still don't know why Maya couldn't calculate the available RAM on it's own, but I am still investigating. At least now it's rendering with the available RAM.

Thanks to both of you.

T