[3dsMax][Vray] Could not allocate buffer of size X
Hi. I've been trying to render my scene on and off for like a few months by now. And it (almost) always ends up with a message
[V-Ray] [GPU light cache] Could not allocate buffer of size 1865MB!
Or
[V-Ray] [GPU light cache] Could not allocate buffer of size 345MB!
One time it was just 14MB tho, but pretty much only those 2 messages above show up
You could say, purely by the message, that my card just lacks RAM (since I render on GPU), but I believe it's something else
Stats in Vray log tells me, that I still have over 3GB of free RAM still ready to use, and then those error messages pop up
(VrayLog - https://pastebin.com/raw/Lzt50jrs)
I've tried lowering the image resolution, the textures resolution, the sampling and subdv values, and no matter what, it always ends up the same, the same message, with the same values
Scene poly count is around 2 mil. Textures are all 4k. Overall a pretty simple scene
Specs: i5-6600k / GTX 1070 / 16GB RAM
Vray, PhoenixFD, Max 2022 + 2023 are all updated to the latest version, along with the latest Nvidia drivers
Now what's interesting. The same messages show up even during trying to start an IPR render (at 50% quality), BUT sometimes it actually goes through, and it starts the IPR correctly
I've managed to render this scene correctly ONE time a few months ago, and it was purely by just pressing the render button over and over until it finally went through (But I forgot to update a few things, hence why I need to render it once again)
And another interesting thing, literally 4 days ago I casually pressed render on it, to see, if it will work, with the same settings as right now, and it started rendering first try with no problems, though, I had to cancel it because I had to do other things and use my PC at that time
I literally have no idea anymore. Any thoughts?
Replies
Hey there, Did you find a solution?
Get more RAM. 16gb for rendering is really really low and will cause these kinds of errors to occur often.
The official min spec is 8gb, but that will only allow you to launch Max and render an empty scene. https://docs.chaos.com/m/mobile.action#page/60096786
V-Ray eats RAM like crazy, especially with 4k textures. Better min spec: https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/rendering-workstations/v-ray/hardware-recommendations/#ram
Oh also, the OP joined the forum just to post this one thing, and has not visited since. It's unfortunately unlikely they will come back to share a solution. :(
I just rendered on CPU, pretty much ditched GPU rendering altogether after that
Are you using a laptop? Laptops usually have a motherboard integrated GPU which sometimes takes over in 3D apps instead of the dedicated NVIDIA card. You can use your NVIDIA control panel to force Max to use the dedicated GPU.