I keep getting this error now along with not being able to click on the render settings button.

Max 2009
Vista 32-Bit
Intel Dual Core

"If I see that damn teapot one more time....”

3ds Max 6.5 - Max 2012
Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.13 GHZ
64-Bit, 8 GB RAM

Video Card: Galaxy GeForce 210 (Nvidia)

My Website: http://drmoore3d.com

Ok, found out what the problem was. Apparently Vista doesnt use all of the 3GB of RAM I have or not as much as it should. Its called the 3GB switch. Ive heard about this but have always ran 2GB and never needed to worry. Well, just bought a Vista Laptop with 3GB RAM with Dual Core CPU with each running at 1.73 Ghz.

Here’s the fix. Run your Command Prompt DOS window with Admin privileges. In Vista, go to Accesories in the startup menu and then right click on Command Prompt and choose “with admin priviliges”.

In the command prompt, enter this :

bcdedit /set increaseuserva 3072

Then hit ENTER. It should say something about “process has completed successfully”.

Then restart your PC.

This assumes that you have 3gb of ram and want applications that can address 1 GB of additional virtual address space above 2 GB to use this ram. Some Adobe products can address this memory space among other apps.

I have not had a crash since.

"If I see that damn teapot one more time....”

3ds Max 6.5 - Max 2012
Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.13 GHZ
64-Bit, 8 GB RAM

Video Card: Galaxy GeForce 210 (Nvidia)

My Website: http://drmoore3d.com

That’s good (no crashes)!
The switch can also be added manually with a little text in the boot.ini file,
though this may be simpler and do more (couldn’t say).
Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

From what I have read, this is the way to do it in Vista. Yes, I have modified boot.ini in XP and was looking for it. Definitely easier! I hope this helps someone else out.

"If I see that damn teapot one more time....”

3ds Max 6.5 - Max 2012
Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.13 GHZ
64-Bit, 8 GB RAM

Video Card: Galaxy GeForce 210 (Nvidia)

My Website: http://drmoore3d.com

Yeah, never tried it in Vista having only run 64 bit.

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

I can get about 4 or 5 renders out of the scene before I get an error. I wonder if SP1 for max 2009 is going to fix this. I just installed it, we will see. I did read something about a problem about max not freeing memory on sequential renders though.

"If I see that damn teapot one more time....”

3ds Max 6.5 - Max 2012
Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.13 GHZ
64-Bit, 8 GB RAM

Video Card: Galaxy GeForce 210 (Nvidia)

My Website: http://drmoore3d.com

what kind of scene is it?
is there alot of displacement going on?
what kind of lighting set up you got?

3Ds Max 2012+Sp2 +SAP, Vray 2.2, Photoshop CS5.1
OS - Windows 7 Pro x64 Sp1
sys1: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 580 (3GB) (295.51), OCZ vertex 2 120GB SSD, Wacom Intuos 3
sys2: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 560 (1GB) (295.51), wacom bamboo

It has many polys. Ive built Bumblebee from Transformers. Using mr Physical Sky and Sun. reflections and soft shadows on. Sampling settings for AA on low, FG on draft. Just seems like RAM or Virtual Memory is not being efficient on sub-sequent renders. No displacement.

UPDATE:
Heres another error I get now. I dont get the memory one anymore:

mental ray has encountered a fatal error and the application will now shutdown. The error is:

DB 0.3 fatal 041008: attempt to access null DB tag

I bet “DB” means Distributed Bucket? Hm, something wrong with DBR network config I guess.

"If I see that damn teapot one more time....”

3ds Max 6.5 - Max 2012
Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.13 GHZ
64-Bit, 8 GB RAM

Video Card: Galaxy GeForce 210 (Nvidia)

My Website: http://drmoore3d.com

We have been having the same errors on three different machines here two are intel quad core and one is a intel dual core and all three have 3 gigs of ram. We have been getting the errors all the time on a multitude of different projects. Have to give this a try and hope it works THANKS!!