3ds Max Error
Hello everyone. While modeling I will occasionally run into an error saying "3Ds Max has run out of memory". It will attempt to make a back up of the file I was working on and will proceed to crash. When I reboot 3Ds Max it will load fine, however when I try to load my previously saved file or the back up another error pops up saying the file has been corrupted. I have looked everywhere on the internet for suggestions and haven't found anything super useful.
Specs:
Win 7
8 Gigs of ram
w/ a GTX 780
3.5 Ghz cpu
Hopefully someone has an answer to my problem so I can get back to work
Specs:
Win 7
8 Gigs of ram
w/ a GTX 780
3.5 Ghz cpu
Hopefully someone has an answer to my problem so I can get back to work
Replies
But you might be running out of hardrive space. Max uses an old technique that treats sections of the hardrive kind of like ram. Which is one reason why max runs a lot faster on SSD drives, the read/write speed on old platter drives really bottle necks things.
I think it uses a swap file on the C drive so check that drive if you have multiple, but it could be whatever drive you have it installed on.
Also what version of max are you using and did you get the latest service packs?
If this is the case, Max probably uses pagefile.sys as it's swap file. Not to be confused with swapfile.sys, which is used for Windows based (and I believe only WinRT based) applications as a swap file.
Though the file size for pagefile.sys is usually pretty high to begin with, it may be if you're using a laptop or something of the sort that it limits the size of this file considerably(I really have no experience with laptops, but it's a guess).
Here's some information regarding the file:
Understanding the Windows pagefile
But i doubt your scene content is really hitting this memory limit. Maybe there is some memory leaking going on with your graphics carsd driver - is that one up to date ?.
And of course install the latest SP for Max.
Other than that it might be an Max or OS installation issue, or even a hardware problem ( faulty memory module ? )
Right-click "Computer" and select "Properties". Select the "Advanced" tab, then click the "Settings..." button under "Performance". Again, select the "Advanced" tab (it's extra advanced!). The second box, titled "Virtual Memory", is what tells you what's current allocated. Click "Change..." to see more details or make changes. Be amused when you note that (in most cases) the recommended amount is much higher than the amount Windows has assigned. By default, XP and up (if 64-bit) will start at either 1 or 1.5 x the system memory and can grow to 3x your RAM. This is completely arbitrary. The size you really need depends most on how many simultaneous programs you're running that are managing things not already saved -- reading a text file without editing will not engage the pagefile, but several processes managing unsaved data will tax it.*
Here's what's generally your most-important consideration: Windows will (by default) put the pagefile on your C drive and only your C drive. What you want is the drive with the most space if your C drive is small or close to full, with drive speed as a secondary consideration.
Next, you need to test what's happening to your page file. Start with downloading Process Explorer. This is essentially the double-advanced version of Task Manager. Now open every program you're usually running at the same time. Do what you usually do. Then look in Process Explorer and find the "Peak Commit Charge" -- it should be in the System Information window if I remember correctly. Ideally, you'll want to grab that when you know you've hit the maximum. Now set your minimum size for your pagefile at that number minus your RAM (if that's negative, pick a number that will still give crash dumps). Then set the maximum to twice that number. Windows can handle up to a 16 TB (!) pagefile, and you can have up to 16 pagefiles if you have that many drives. Thus, you can make that maximum rather high if you really want to be sure you have breathing room.
* Windows will use the pagefile even if you aren't out of memory -- it's a rather complicated process and far too much to get in to here, but there's one fairly relevant detail that I'm going to oversimplify in the hopes of making it broadly comprehensible. Processes will ask to reserve system memory so that if they need it they'll get something contiguous. If you're running a number of programs at once, any one request for more memory can hit the limit of what the various processes want to hold on to. Even a 32-bit process can get virtual memory failures this way with or without hitting the 2GB limit.