Topical Rant - Hardware, software, and nightmares untold...

[IFixTheInternet]

I'm using Maya 2009 on my Mac Pro. One would think that a high end software package as such would be able to make use of the 10GB of RAM I have, fact of the matter is it dose not. It crashes round about every time I get in the 2.8 - 2.9 GB range. You may wonder how come I am using so much memory. I wrote a script that will deform a mesh based on the location of points in space. The script calculates the distance between the center of the face and move the face in the appropriate direction proportionally to its distance for the point in space. In short, multiple points in space to deform the mesh times thousand of polygon faces times the number of passes, equals a lot of calculations and numbers building up in cache. In trying to get past the RAM issue (or the lack there of usable ram), I found lots of articles noting that if you run the 64bit edition you can make use of more then 4GB of RAM. They don't make a 64bit addition for the OSX (You can only imagine the vocabulary I might use to articulate my thoughts on that particular situation.) In short I needed to install a windows 64bit, so I can install MAYA 2009 64bit, just so I can do my classwork. My research has led me to believe XP 64bit has issues and vista is the way to go, but I don't have vista 64bit so I opt to try Windows 7 64bit beta. (Mistake #1). I download WIN 7 Beta, burn it to a disc and open boot camp, make a partition, and await the WIN 7 installer. It never comes because it can not detect the partition, actually it can't detect any drive what so ever. In all my research I did not see reports of that happening, which is when I realized why. I am using a caldigit raid card with 4 western digital RE3 drives, in bays 1-4 as my primary bootable OS (1.4 TB Raid6). My 5th drive is the 320GB WD hard drive that came with the machine. Its occupying the extra optical bay and running on the spare SATA port behind the front fan module. Apple did not configure boot camp partitions to work with that particular port. It took me several reboots and multiple burns of the WIN 7 disc to realize that problem. I decided it might be a good idea to hook up an old IDE drive to spare connection in the extra optical bay. (Mistake #2) I was able to install WIN 7 Beta to the drive on the IDE channel with no problems. However, when I rebooted and held down the option key my Raided OS dosn't show up. Basically, I have the WIN 7 on its own HD and my Mac OS on the Raid car (which windows doesn't understand because there are no drivers for it) leavening me no option but windows. Lets just say that didn't sit very well with me. I had to reinstall my original apple drive to optical bay, boot it, and then in the system preferences have it reboot off the raid before I could get back to my primary OS and all my data. I killed lots of time physically moving drives, rebooting, researching, trouble shooting, and in the end I am still where I started, unable to do my classwork because Maya can't handle more then a few gigs of RAM on the OSX....

Any suggestions?

 

[Quu]

Let me give you some advice. If you use Paragraphs users who stumble upon your threads are more likely to read through what you are saying. It's easier on the eyes

 

[rylin]

Thank god for Services->Summarize.

I believe the rant is related to him spending too much time figuring out Maya doesn't support more than a few GB RAM under OS X

 

[irishgrizzly]

I'm using Maya 2009 on my Mac Pro. One would think that a high end software package as such would be able to make use of the 10GB of RAM I have, fact of the matter is it dose not. It crashes round about every time I get in the 2.8 - 2.9 GB range.

You may wonder how come I am using so much memory. I wrote a script that will deform a mesh based on the location of points in space. The script calculates the distance between the center of the face and move the face in the appropriate direction proportionally to its distance for the point in space.

In short, multiple points in space to deform the mesh times thousand of polygon faces times the number of passes, equals a lot of calculations and numbers building up in cache.

In trying to get past the RAM issue (or the lack there of usable ram), I found lots of articles noting that if you run the 64bit edition you can make use of more then 4GB of RAM. They don't make a 64bit addition for the OSX (You can only imagine the vocabulary I might use to articulate my thoughts on that particular situation.) In short I needed to install a windows 64bit, so I can install MAYA 2009 64bit, just so I can do my classwork.

My research has led me to believe XP 64bit has issues and vista is the way to go, but I don't have vista 64bit so I opt to try Windows 7 64bit beta. (Mistake #1). I download WIN 7 Beta, burn it to a disc and open boot camp, make a partition, and await the WIN 7 installer. It never comes because it can not detect the partition, actually it can't detect any drive what so ever. In all my research I did not see reports of that happening, which is when I realized why.

I am using a caldigit raid card with 4 western digital RE3 drives, in bays 1-4 as my primary bootable OS (1.4 TB Raid6). My 5th drive is the 320GB WD hard drive that came with the machine. Its occupying the extra optical bay and running on the spare SATA port behind the front fan module. Apple did not configure boot camp partitions to work with that particular port. It took me several reboots and multiple burns of the WIN 7 disc to realize that problem. I decided it might be a good idea to hook up an old IDE drive to spare connection in the extra optical bay. (Mistake #2) I was able to install WIN 7 Beta to the drive on the IDE channel with no problems. However, when I rebooted and held down the option key my Raided OS dosn't show up.

Basically, I have the WIN 7 on its own HD and my Mac OS on the Raid car (which windows doesn't understand because there are no drivers for it) leavening me no option but windows. Lets just say that didn't sit very well with me. I had to reinstall my original apple drive to optical bay, boot it, and then in the system preferences have it reboot off the raid before I could get back to my primary OS and all my data. I killed lots of time physically moving drives, rebooting, researching, trouble shooting, and in the end I am still where I started, unable to do my classwork because Maya can't handle more then a few gigs of RAM on the OSX....

Any suggestions?

 

[IFixTheInternet]

Let me give you some advice. If you use Paragraphs users who stumble upon your threads are more likely to read through what you are saying. It's easier on the eyes

You make a valid, logical, and might add good point.
However, what you assume is that logical ideas are readily available while ranting.

There is is a proven disconnect between ranting and logic. Given that ranting is derived from anger, where as logic requires rational thinking skills that are not available while angry. ; )

 

[sidewinder]

Maya on the Mac is a 32-bit program.....does that give you a hint as to why it does not use more than certain amount of RAM on the system?

Hint: 32-bit = 4GB

S-

 

[jrlcopy]

Maya on the Mac is a 32-bit program.....does that give you a hint as to why it does not use more than certain amount of RAM on the system?

Hint: 32-bit = 4GB

S-

That would be the main reason, you can't use more than 4gb for Maya, so the rest of that ram is a waste for that app. Also Maya on mac tends to be prone to crashes, it is buggy, hasn't been duct tape fixed for patches.

Depending on what you're making you should be able to write your script better so that it doesn't use so much ram, or dumps things to the hard drive instead.

So a solution is to buy X64 of Windows XP or Vista, and the X64 bit version of Maya.