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What does RAM do for me with Iray?

2busy4render2busy4render Posts: 81
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Apologies in advance if this is already explained somewhere, but I just upgraded my DDR4 RAM from 4 GB to 16 GB and I'm not sure what is "supposed" to be different in DS. 

I'm running Windows 10 so having more than 4 GB of RAM seemed pretty much necessary. But DS still takes the same amount of time to load with 16 GBs as 4 GBs. I haven't noticed any changes in how DS responds during scene set-up (using texture shading). I noticed that Iray renders don't crash like they did before, which is nice but I have render settings set to use the GPU. 

So if during Iray renders, the memory demands overflow the GPU and go to CPU, does the extra desktop RAM actually make a difference? Are the other ways the added RAM should be improving work in DS but I'm just not noticing it? 

basically I'm trying to get the most out of what I have. Thanks in advance for any input

p.s.---I have tested the 16 GB of RAM and it's working just fine. 

 

 

 

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,848

    I assume your version of Windows is itself 64 bit? Extra RAM doesn't inherently affect speed, though going from 4GB you should notice a difference from reduced swapping to a page file, rather it affects the amount of data (for DS, complexity of scene) that can be loaded.

  • 2busy4render2busy4render Posts: 81

    Thanks, Richard. Yes, it's a 64 bit version of Win 10. That makes sense, I probably just haven't noticed that benefit yet because I'm keeping my scenes simple. 

    So am I just imagining that Iray rendering seems to have improved? Not sure it matters, as long as the renders actually complete, but I'm just curious. 

  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,706
    edited May 2018

    With modern machines these days, you are more than likely to get booted to CPU render due to VRAM limitations, long before you would notice anything to do with regular RAM limitations. When I went from 16 to 32 gb RAM, the only things I really noticed a difference in is photoshop in large paintings, and zbrush, when I am in the millions of polygons.

    Post edited by TheKD on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,848

    With only 4GB it's posssible-going-on-likely that the preparation stage was spilling into paging to disc before and isn't now..

  • 2busy4render2busy4render Posts: 81
    Richard Haseltine said:

    With only 4GB it's posssible-going-on-likely that the preparation stage was spilling into paging to disc before and isn't now..

    Okay, that's it! I went back to some older logs comparing crashed renders (at 4 GB) to successful renders (at 16 GB) and that seems to be the difference. With 4 GB, the logs show memory allocation errors that led to an abrupt crash. Those aren't happening anymore. Thanks for the explanation!

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