laptop running windows vista 32 bit has 2GB RAM and 4GB pagefile.
Both 3ds max 8 applications run and start rendering frames, but first app hangs after one frame is done. Second app is running fine using 1 core.
Task manager shows that 49% of physical memory is being used.
CPU is Core Duo T2500, thats 32bit, so i don’t think it would handle 64bit OS (am i wrong?)

I also tried running 2 applications on my another desktop PC.
Windows XP 32bit, 1GB RAM and 4GB pagefile.
Celeron 1.7GHz CPU
This time, second app did good as always, but first was working with ‘sleep times’.

What do i mean saying ‘sleep times’?

1. Both apps completed 1st frame;
2. then first app stopped at 100% of ‘Preparing Lights’ (i call it, entering into sleep mode), second app continued work;
3. second app completed 2nd frame and started 3rd frame;
4. when second app started to render the scene (not hair and fur), first app returned from sleep and also started to render it’s 2nd frame
5. End result is: first app did 2 frames, second app did 3 frames.

repeating 2-4 tasks we would get
total number of frames completed by app2 = 1 + n
total number of frames completed by app1 = 1 + n/2
----------------------
It seems that size of pagefile did nothing. So you think that 3GB of RAM would do the job?

Sorry if its hard to read what i wrote.

All new Intel multi-core are 64-bit processors. So yes you can use xp64 (fair bit of warning avoid using Vista64, for the time being, wait until it matures a little more)

For your other PC try just running one instance of max instead of two, seems like you may be trying to do too much at once, max is a heavy application and requires a lot of resources compared to a lot of other applications.

Try render with one instance of max on your celeron pc and see how it does. Watch the task manager and note how much ram usage is going on (watch the PF Usage and Physical Available in the performance tab and the Mem Usage in the processes tab) this should give you an idea if you need to buy more ram.  It is good have as much physical ram as what is being used by the 3dsmax.exe process at peak usage.

As a rule of thumb more ram is always better, less caching to disk.

particle mechanic

I agree, new multi-core are 64 bit, but Yonah is 32 bit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core

Also i didn’t tell, i took celeron as a 1core CPU comparison to a 2 core CPU.
And difference was that, 2 application that were working on single core processor worked almost fine, but on dual core processor one application always hangs.

I know, its not a good idea to run 2 applications on single core (it just takes 2x time to render 1 frame, but virtually 2 frames are being rendered at same time), but that was just a test.

Ok, now i know that with my current hardware i cant run 2 applications at same time, so ill have to live with it :)

Main thing is, now i know that scene rendering process it self is multi-threaded, but rendering fur and hairs is single-threaded.

how do you turn on the 3gb switch.
I recently added 1gb Ram (totaling 3 gb) hoping to never to see an out of memory message. but still i get the message/ by the way i get it while working on maxscripts: maxscript has run out of memory. i tried increasing in preferences but i still get the message.Help

Here’s a document explaining how to set the 3GB switch, though it says it only works with server editions it will work with XP Pro, not sure about Home but possibly.
Normally, you should copy the first line after the timeout settings (multidisk, etc.), then paste that line below the original line adding the “/3 GB” after the pasted line.
Upon startup choose the new 3GB line, test to see your computer runs stably and if so, you can move the new line you pasted into the setup recovery section at the top of the first line, having the first line move to the second line. To recognize the difference between the two on startup put 3GB in between the quotes where Microsoft windows in typed in the line.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-...bf-b877-e14ae443ecbf.aspx

Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1