hi i need some help in rendering a huge scene

i ill give my scene & computer details 1st

scene detials :-

poly count :- 1,420.449

materials used :- chrome , huge amt of glass , high resolution maps for wall paintings ( 4000 * 4000 )

lighting :- daylight ( 14 : 30 pm ) 20 omni ( may be i,ll remove them all ) 5 spot

computer
details :- motherboard :- ASUS M2N-SLI-DELUX ( OVERCLOCKED TO 2.6 GHZ FROM 2.1 GHZ )

PROCESSOR :- AMD ATHELON X2 DUAL-CORE 3600

GRAFIC CARD :- XFX N-VIDIA 7600 GT 256 MB

RAM :- TRANSEND 2 GB 667 MHZ ( 1GB * 2 )

HDD :- 120 GB SATA

CABINET :- ZEBRONICS 400 W SMPS ( 4 EXTRA COLLING FANS )

NOW MY QUERY :-

HI I WANTED TO ASK U GUYS THAT I M MAKING A SHOPPING MALL OF ELECTRONIC’S

LIKE TV’S , MUSIC SYSTEM , KITCHEN APPLIANCE , LAPTOP , PC’S , PHONES

THATS Y MY SCENE IS HUGE .  MALL IS GROUND + 1 ALL BOTH SIDE & FRONT SIDE WALLS R ACTUALLY TRANSPERENT GLASS , ETC. 

MY SCENE IS ALMOST DONE . DOING CAMERA WORK NOW .  I WANT TO RENDER IT WITH 1024 * 768 MINIMUM .
& MINIMUM DURATION IS 1 MIN. 30 SEC. 
SO IF I PUT IT ON RENDER CAN MY MACHINE HANDLE OR IT WILL JST CRASH. 
RIGHT NOW 1 FRAME IS TAKING 1 HOUR TO RENDER WITH ABOVE RESOLUTION.  SO FOR 2250 FRAMES IT WILL TAKE 93 DAYS.
SO I M USING FINAL GATHER MAP SAVING METHOD.........
WITH THIS TOO IT WILL TAKE ATLEAST 20 DAYS MINIMUM..........  NOT SURE MAY BE LESS 1 ST TIME RENDERING AVI IN THIS
RESOLUTION & WITH THIS MUCH OF DETAILS…
SO DO I HAVE TO KEEP MY MACHINE ON FOR WHOLE TIME OR I CAN DO IT IN PART BY PART...................
PLZ SUGGEST ME ............... & ALSO WILL MY MACHINE HANDLE THIS MUCH OF LOAD............
I M SCARED COZ I M WORRIED ABT MY HARDWARE......... LIKE GPU HEATING PROCESSOR BURNING & ALL...........
PLZ HELP ME GUYS ...............

First, please turn off your caps lock. That is really hard to read.

Second, DO NOT (yes I am shouting to make a point) render directly to a movie format. If you do and you are on the last frame after 21 days of rendering, and it crashes, all of your rendering is now gone. Poof! 21 days down the drain and nothing to show for the effort.

Render instead to a sequence of still images (NOT JPG) such as PNG or TGA which use a lossless compression.

You did not mention your OS or version of Max.
I will assume a 32 bit OS and a 32 bit version of Max.
With that scene, and only 2gb of RAM, you may indeed have some issues when rendering.
Look up Bitmap Pager in the Help. That will help resolve issues with the large bitmap textures.

The graphics card is not used during rendering, so its specs do not really matter in this case.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

ok i got it .

i m buying more 2 gb ram then it will solve my problem right..........

but i noticed many times that 3d max design 2009 with windows xp never never occupies whole ram....

in task maneger i hardly see max taking 600 mb ram… even after giving it high priority..... what u think.......

& 1 more thing i read in 1 forum that we can give a whole hdd partition as a page file do u have any aide abt it & how t do it....

thanks for suggestions..

Adding 2gb of RAM will help to some extent.

If you are using the 32bit version of XP, not the XP64, then the most you can gain is 3gb of RAM but you will need to activate the 3gb switch.
Search the Discussion Forum for 3gb switch, such as this one: http://area.autodesk.com/for...dering/not-enough-memory/
If you are using XP64 then you want to install the 64 bit version of 2009 and then Max will use every byte of RAM and virtual memory you can throw at it.

Is Task Manager showing 600mb RAM with Max at idle, or when rendering your scene? I watch the Performance tab: Total Commit Charge. On a 32bit OS, when you get up to about 1.95gb, hold your breath, because Max is going to pop. Others know this subject much better than I do. Check out the Hardware/OS forum.

I usually set up my systems with 2 hard drives. Here is a typical configuration for a single boot system:
Drive 0:
-C:\Programs
-D:\Source
Drive 1:
-E:\Working
-S:\Swap - this is the one I use for the OS Virtual Memory and Photoshop’s Swap file.

I do not know how to repartition after the initial setup of the system. I always do it when I’m doing a clean install of the OS. I create all the partitions at that time.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

Tim_Wilbers 18 August 2008 12:47 PM

I do not know how to repartition after the initial setup of the system. I always do it when I’m doing a clean install of the OS. I create all the partitions at that time.

GPartED - bootable Linux distro specifically for managing partitions. (free)
Norton Partition Magic (Symantec, therefore anything but free)

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.