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Re: Increase memory
ssandison, please read again the FAQ. You probably run Sweet Home 3D with Java 8, in which case increasing the max memory requires to modify another file.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
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Re: Increase memory
ssandison, please read again the FAQ. You probably run Sweet Home 3D with Java 8, in which case increasing the max memory requires to modify another file.
Perfect thanks that sorted it. I must have missed that bit of the FAQs somehow.
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Re: Increase memory
I have been trying to increase the memory by following the steps of the FAQ but I am stuck. I'm using the installer version on macOS 12.1.
The FAQ says to "edit the Info.plist" and "change this number by udpating the value of the -Xmx". This is what tried to do. I followed the following steps : Show Package Contents > Contents > Info.plist. However, once the Info.plist opened, nowhere in the lines of the code could I find an "-Xmx" value.
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Re: Increase memory
Please, read again the FAQ, there are 3 different cases for macOS and you probably didn't follow the option matching your case.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
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Re: Increase memory
In the FAQ: "...and the installer version uses 1 GB or 2 GB at maximum,..." Does this mean that I can't give SH3D more than 2GB? I have plenty of memory and can easily give SH3D 32GB of memory to use. Would it do any good? Does more more memory (above 2GB) increase performance?
---------------------------------------- Dodecagon.nl 1000+ 3D models, manuals, and projects
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Re: Increase memory
I don't think that writing a FAQ about increasing the maximum memory would be interesting if its purpose wasn't to let users increase the default maximum You can choose any value for this maximum but don't select a value close to the RAM size of your computer, because it needs some memory for other tasks too. Choosing a large value like 32 GB won't probably increase performances, except if your home design uses many very large 3D models and texture images. You should think about it the opposite way: a too small value may prevent Sweet Home 3D from computing photos or slow down a lot other tasks. If needed, you may follow how much memory Sweet Home 3D actually uses in Activity Monitor application available in macOS utilities (but the displayed memory is not easy to interpret because Sweet Home 3D is a Java application).
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
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Re: Increase memory
Thank you Emmanuel. I'm on Linux and currently have 64GB of memory (soon to be 128) so 32GB is a realistic possibility.
For your information: I can see in the Linux system monitor that SH3D never uses over 2 GB while I have set the -xmx parameter to 3g. No matter how many heavy projects I open and manipulate, the max memory usage remains 2GB. It's only when rendering a photo of a large estate on a 200mx200m terrain that the memory usage goes over the 2GB limit to 2.4. The thing is, after closing all but one project, including the one I used for the photo rendering, the used memory remains at 2.4GB where I would have expected it to decrease again. For example Firefox does free up memory when you close tabs or a second instance, SH3D and/or Java apparently don't. What I can determine is that the processor is more important for better performance, probably because of the heavy calculations involved. That is, as long as there's enough memory so that doesn't cause a bottle neck. Very soon I can start on my new machine with a Ryzen-7-Pro-5750G compared to my current Intel Core Haswell processor. That should make a difference.
An idea that could help a lot of users with performance problems: have a switch to temporarily suppress 3DView updates while drawing in the 2D plan. When I have the 3DView completely hidden because I'm in the 2D plan the 3DView still requires system resources while I don't need it at that moment. I read about the way to only have a 2D SH3D version but that totally eliminates any 3DView.
How much does a graphics card help in the overall performance? One with faster or more memory?
---------------------------------------- Dodecagon.nl 1000+ 3D models, manuals, and projects
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Re: Increase memory
Sorry Keet for the misunderstanding about the OS.
For example Firefox does free up memory when you close tabs or a second instance, SH3D and/or Java apparently don't.
Firefox isn't a Java program. Java is great for many things including its memory management, but once a Java application allocates more memory to work, the way that memory is released once not not needed anymore is less predictable or may vary from a Java Virtual Machine implementation to an other. It's released without problem internally for other tasks in Sweet Home 3D, but even if the Java application doesn't need that internal free memory immediately, it won't be released for the OS during a long time.
have a switch to temporarily suppress 3DView updates while drawing in the 2D plan.
That switch already exists even if it's not so handy: hide the 3D view by moving the separator between the plan and the 3D view, close your home and reopen it. Then, the resources required for the 3D view will be requested only once you view the 3D view again. But keep in mind that 3D resources are still needed to create top images of the furniture in the plan (unless you didn't select Top view option in preferences pane).
much does a graphics card help in the overall performance? One with faster or more memory?
Sorry, I don't know. When comparing the performances of the 3D view in the Java version and the JavaScript Online version on a given computer, I wonder if the bottleneck might be more in Java3D layer than in the graphics card.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
