SW Process runs out of mem at 1.2GB

Aug 17, 2005 8 Replies
M

I have a rather large parasolid file (300MB) of an engine model that I am trying to open/convert. It is the X_T format, exported from UG I believe (or whatever GM uses).



When I try to open it, SW creates placeholder files in the directory for each file that will be created (~550). I have it set to automatically select large assembly mode upon opening more than 100 parts of an assy. At some point in the process of opening the assembly, SW reaches a memory usage of 1,200,140 KB, and then gives me an error indicating that it cannot obtain the required memory to continue. At this point, the total indicated memory usage is 1,517,356 KB. My system has 2GB of installed RAM and another 2GB of page file space. Task manager indicates 478,580 KB of available RAM (physical).



Does anyone have any ideas why SW is having trouble addressing more than



1.2GB of RAM. This has happened multiple times on different files.

Could I have bad RAM? Could it be a windows problem? I'm running win2000, on SP4.


It would be nice if SW opened files like this differently. Maybe they could open one at a time, resolve it, save it, and then switch to lightweight.



MHill


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W

It sounds like you need to turn on the 3GB switch. Depending on the user setting you choose, you can open up another gb or so.

WT

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T

This is a MicroSoft limitation which can be fixed by using the 3GB switch as Wayne has mentioned.

Your problem is repeatable and there is a simple test to check whether the 3GB switch makes a difference even if you don't have 3Gb or ram installed. Goto:

formatting link
and download Patbench. Run it with 12 iterations and watch memory usage in the task manager before and after the 3GB switch.

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N

He uses win2000. I don't think the switch works for that does it?

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W

No it doesn't - I failed to read his message carefully enough. Sorry.

WT

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T

Well then the obvious solution is to replace* W2k with XP. He is looking at a street price of about $200. For a few hundred more he could add another gig of ram.

formatting link

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D

Buying the RAM would also qualify him for OEM pricing on XP. YOu can get XP Pro OEM and a hard drive for cost of just XP.

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M

Dale Dunn wrote in news:Xns96B65A947373Adaledunnatjamestoolc@65.24.3.135:

Thanks for the responses guys. I doubt upgrading to XP is going to be an option, but I'll check it out with the IT dept. I have a laptop that I use with my digitizer running XP, but it only has 512MB RAM. Normally this is plenty for what it gets used for.

Someone mentioned more I could add more RAM to my PC, but looking at memory usage, I doubt that would help. Of course, its irrelevant because my motherboard is already maxed out at 2GB.

Perhaps I can use this as leverage for a new PC altogether....the AMD 64s are looking pretty good. As backwards as it may seem, its more likely than the XP upgrade.

MHill

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T

Even if you only have 2GB the 3Gb switch will help with XP. If you run the assembly on your laptop with the 3Gb switch you will not run out of memory, it will just take longer.

See the discussion in another thread on the advantage of upgrading and the desciption of a really fast, reliable system.

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