France
Joined: Nov 7, 2005
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Re: File and settings for expanding memory - anyone know how?
On a 64 bit system, the reasonable limit should be a little less than the total amount of RAM of your computer. But I'm not sure that using very large values like 16 GB or more will really make a difference. Feel free to report your findings about this.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator
Denmark
Joined: Jul 7, 2013
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Re: File and settings for expanding memory - anyone know how?
My report:
The project was teaching my new neighbor SH3D. He has just bought the house next to ours, and he is planning a major make-over. So I showed him how I had modeled my own house for the same reason, and when he offered me a weekend with an unlimited supply of chilled prosecco if I would guide him thru the program and reveal some of my tips and tricks… well, I accepted. Basically he is a man who doesn't even know how to compose a palette. He is a physician– a gynecologist, and has never done any 3D before. He uses Photoshop to edit his family albums, on a powerful PC with Xeon 8 core and 32G ram – a bit heavier than your standard home computer, and no doubt perfect for SH3D. We set the memory to 16384M. The program started – as did our first problems. I had been busy, prepared some files, copied everything to a memory stick, and made shire is was formatted for PC – I had a plan.
But the files from my Mac only produced a message: File damaged, "delete – replace – don't load". I tried opening them with my 5 yr old old Macbook, and that was no problem, even with only 4G ram and a standard memory configuration. But there was no way my pre-prepared lessons would open on his PC.
So I decided I might as well to go from scratch – which in the end turned out to be just as well. I constructed an ugly cabin, placed it in the norwegian mountains, opened a bottle of prosecco and called our week-end seminar "Smoke & Mirrors".
Things I found quite irritating: In the photo-renderer, for some reason the Create and Close buttons have changed place in the Windows-version, and when you close the renderer, all your settings are lost. Having worked with this program for 2 years, I have developed a set of habits, so of course I closed the renderer all the time, and lost my settings, but of course I didn't know they were lost, so I rendered mostly with standard settings, and was not too happy with the result.
Another thing about Windows: In the Windows-version, closing your scene shuts the program down completely. Very annoying. Opening two big files at the same time, makes the system extremely slow.
A third thing: The Windows-version tends to get slower and slower the longer you work. Restarting the machine and re-opening SH3D, everything is back to normal. That never happens with the Mac-version.
Okay, here are some views I got from my pupil:
"Why do I have to resize my texture-window all the time? Shouldn't the program remember?"
"There should be shortcuts for the align-tool. Saves a lot of time."
"Keep proportions - it should remain in the state I left it. Normally I want it on, since most models are in perfect proportion already when I load them. At least it should be turned on by default."
"And the handles; yours are red and quite easy to see, while mine are dark blue, and almost invisible."
"I really miss constraining re-sizing to only one direction. A modifier, like holding the shift button, could keep the width when adjusting the length, and vice versa. "
" The interface is very bright. I can feel my eyes getting tired. It could be a lot darker, like Photoshop. There's a reason why a lot of time-consuming programs have a darker interface. Don't you get tired? It's even brighter on your machine. "
(Or maybe the prosecco had something to do with getting tired after twelve hours work…?)
But all in all he was very impressed, and even more impressed with the Mac-version.
Well, part from me being a bit frustrated with Windows, I think the "seminar" turned out quite nice in the end. I'm thinking maybe I should hot-link some of my renderings in the Gallery.
Joined: May 12, 2013
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Re: File and settings for expanding memory - anyone know how?
Sounds like a brilliant training seminar, and many interesting observations. Several have crossed my mind too, maybe especially "..constraining re-sizing to only one direction...".
Were you successful in finding out a good setting for max memory...? ..not to mention a sensible max setting for the Prosecco (how many glasses to increase SH3D / planning performance)?
Denmark
Joined: Jul 7, 2013
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Re: File and settings for expanding memory - anyone know how?
Yepp! We left the memory config at 16G ( like i have on my own machine), and kept the prosecco ( Ca´Vittoria - Prosecco Superiore Brut) flowing at a rate of half a bottle an hour.
