Allocating more memory

[adamchapman]

Hi,

Im trying to make an art model from a 2D vector picture.
Whenever I try to puff up the 2D art base surface, I get an out of memory error and mastercam art crashes.

The model is of a "green man" face hiding behind oak leaves, so it will be a pretty complex surface to be fair.Any low resolution art surface just looks blocky and rubbish.

I even upgraded my RAM up to 4GB to try and handle this problem to no avail. Are there some settings in mastercam that allow you to use loadsa memory?

Thanks
Adam

[mc-motorsports]

I know nothing about Mastercam, but I can tell you that I tried to bump my RAM to 4g, which the computer's manual says you can go up to 4g, my computer crashed left and right. I pulled a couple of sims and dropped it to 2.4g and it works good. The other thing is you might try increasing your "virtual memory". I'm not 100% sure if it's going to help in this application.
Still using XP, don't look forward to "upgrading" to Vista, goto the Control Panel => System => Advanced and check your "virtual memory". Mine was originally set at 1000mb, I bumped it to 2000mb. Restart the system and try it out, worked for me for similar issues, but I'm not running MasterCam.
MC

[ataxy]

i suspect also virtual memory, if for instance your vm is set to lets say min 512mb and max 1024 and your hard drive happens to have lower then 1024mb left of space available, then if windows try to use more vm then the hard drive space avialable it will crash and since the vm is set to two different value the pagefile.sys may vary in size, so by putting the max and min to the same value it will keep the pagefile.sys to the same value and prevent this type of error if this is what is causing you the error

[mc-motorsports]

Hmmm... I have mine set to a minimum of 2000, max 2800. Should I make them both 2800? Or 2000? Would that make a difference? Original setting was 1000 if that matters.
Please let me know,
MC

[ataxy]

actualy you vw pass 1.5 gig of mem can be set to the same amount so if you have 1.5gig of ram set your vm to 1.5 but you can also turn it of wich is said to prevent file swapping between the hdd and the mem as most computer wont really use the vm pass 1.5 but i would keep it on, so if you have 2gig leave it at max and min 2048

[mc-motorsports]

Whoops, I just looked and I'm at 1.37g of actual RAM, original was 512mb, tried bumping it to 4g but it crashed consitantly. For some reason I thought it was at 2.4g, my bad.
SO, what should I have my VM set at? 2G min 2.8g max right now. Too much? I still have the extra RAM SIMS, should I put them back in and try bumping the virtual RAM, would that help?

I do have problems sometimes when CAD drawings get complicated. I use Rhino, but when I try to split too many curves at the same time, or do a complicated boolean subtract or cut, the computer locks... I can pretty much guess when it's going to lock as it's pretty consistant and predictable at this point so I do a save of course. Any help is appreciated.
MC

[ataxy]

what pc spec do you have
i would set the vm at 1024 min and max also if you have to hdd not two partition allocate your vm on the secondary hdd

[cadcam]

By the way XP only sees 3.25 gigs of ram. you need to go to Vista SP1 to get a full use of 4 gigs.
But I can run my page swape at 512mb and not get the issues as I do have 4 gigs. I usally leave at the default of 1.5gigs

What version of Art are you using.

[adamchapman]

Yes I know Ive got vista SP1.

Im using mastercam X2 if it means anything

[ataxy]

no it should not try to swap your memory stick if the hard drive space and the vm is not the problem maybe its a bad memory module

[adamchapman]

The wierd thing is that it can handle very complicated "art surface from grayscale image" models no problem.

It crashes while creating "roam triangulation" for things that I puff up myself

[HuFlungDung]

I have my doubts that the out of memory message is due to a real shortage of physical ram. It is more likely a code problem where the software fills and fails to release certain addresses properly. Probably the program developers have some high tech software that will monitor the program in memory to find the problem as it happens. Best thing would be to send the particular file into support and let them attempt to do what you are doing with it.