Running Out Of Texture Memory

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Michelle Mananguinne wrote:

 

You are not alone with this supposition, however, but so much i do understand now from the operating systems, that in fact the required texture memory size should be automatically set by the game according to size of the dedicated graphics memory.

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It is, but with a maximum of 512MB. Anyway, as I said, I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvements. However, if you ask me, the big issue here is the fact the viewer crashes when memory use is too high, not the fact that the limit is low. I have never encountered the issue myself btw, not on my current GTX670 with 2GB and not on my previous EN9600GT with 512MB.

About the supposition, SL builders are terrible. In the past it was possible to upload 2048x2048 textures (taking a whopping 16MB of VRAM). I've seen textures that big which would look just as good as 512x512. We all know about the 200 sculpted prim boots, we all know about those boots having 200 scripts. If people are allowed to use x amount of resources, some (understatement of the year) will use just that.

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The other problem is that Windows can not properly administer total memory of more than 3 GB. If I run, however, the Windows-viewer under linux 64 bit with wine, the memory consumption goes up to 864 MB and remains there stable, while Windows regularly produces a memory overflow.

I think the main source of all problems is the architecture of Windows itself, who was and is an incomplete botch-up, where the krux is the whole texture files will be "stored" on disc instead in the ram as on linux. Then these regular crashes would stop.

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the 3GB limit is a 32 bit issue, not a Windows issue. I run Windows 7 Pro and can use all the 16GB I have when necessary. Texture files need to be stored on disk, as cache. If everything was only loaded in RAM and discarded after use, it all had to be downloaded if the texture came into view again.

Why would you run a Windows viewer under Linux in the first place if there is a Linux viewer available?

[Michelle Mananguinne]

 

Why would you run a Windows viewer under Linux in the first place if there is a Linux viewer available?

The linux viewer is not a real linux it is a windows with wine functionality. Anyway, im finished here.

[PaulM Dagostino]

Same issue here. Michelle is right, on linux perfect, with unfinished botch-up (lol Michelle) aka window$ lots of troubles. My comp is not underscored, its a 2x hexacore xeon X5660, 32GB of reg. ddr 3 1600 and a nVidia GTX 680 with 4GB memory, main os fc18_x64. I agree that window$ can not handle memory sizes over 3GB even you have more installed I maded THE TEST and window$ hung up and even slowed down with over 48GB, linux is able to allocate the maximum of 192GB ram without any speed decreasements my mainboard can handle.

ciao window$

@Kwaki, don't mixup facts who have been already explained.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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PaulM Dagostino wrote:

Same issue here. Michelle is right, on linux perfect, with unfinished botch-up (lol Michelle) aka window$ lots of troubles. My comp is not underscored, its a 2x hexacore xeon X5660, 32GB of reg. ddr 3 1600 and a nVidia GTX 680 with 4GB memory, main os fc18_x64. I agree that window$ can not handle memory sizes over 3GB even you have more installed

I maded THE TEST and window$ hung up and even slowed down with over 48GB, linux is able to allocate the maximum of 192GB ram without any speed decreasements my mainboard can handle.

ciao window$

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With 16GB installed, my Windows 7 uses about 2.5GB without any applications running. Why is it then that I see no slowdowns as soon as I open anything, which would push memory use over 3GB?

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@Kwaki, don't mixup facts who have been already explained.

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Which facts would that be and could you explain them again?

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Michelle Mananguinne wrote:

 

The linux viewer is not a real linux it is a windows with wine functionality.

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That's new to me. I haven't heard that before and I can't find anything about it.

[maleja0213 Andretti]

 

 

What is???????????

[RubyBeauregard]

Hiya!

Unfortunately i'm a 'Discarded Textures Club' member too.

My environment is: CPU Pentium® Dual-Core E5200 2.50GHz RAM 4GB - OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit Service Pack 1 - Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 – 2GB (GDDR5).

I’m not very used with all these PC thingies but I can say my comp surely cannot be a monster but imho is good enough to handle SL.

For what I can remember I never had this issue before the FS 4.4.2 version and funny thing is…I never seen that cursed message with my previous GC, a simple ATI Radeon 4300 Series with only 512 MB … LOL!

[AXLE Munro]

After months of tests, the solution I proposed still works for me : if you go to a very crowdy region, just decrease the LOD factor down to 1 or even 0. The max RAM on your PC used by SL will immediately decrease, and you will not have discarded textures any more. In Firestorm viewer there is a quick access menu for that.

[Vivienne Schell]

Sorry, but that´s a not always working workaround, niot a solution. And this workaround will fail finally and forever once creators start using excessive bump maps as materials. This is a showstopper bug, and nothing less, and it should be fixed ASAP, and if it cannot be fixed: Fire the developers. End of message.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Vivienne Schell wrote:

And this workaround will fail finally and forever once creators start using excessive bump maps as materials.

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If people would use 512x512 textures instead of 1024x1024 ones, they could add both a normal and specular map and still use less memory.

[Vivienne Schell]

"If people would use 512x512 textures instead of 1024x1024 ones, they could add both a normal and specular map and still use less memory."

This is true, but not a valid excuse. Linden Lab allows people to upload, use and abuse all kinds of resource killing things and iintroduced a lot of resource killing shinies all by themselves. The logical result is that it´s totally up to Linden Lab to keep things going.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

If people add too much detail to their builds (which they do, I'll be the very first to admit that), you have the option of turning down a lot of detail yourself. Turning off advanced lighing for example, would (should?) stop all normal and specular maps from entering memory.

[Vivienne Schell]

"..you have the option of turning down a lot of detail.."

Hard to explain to someone who spent some money on a PC or a Mac which can run every high end game on high prefs while simultanously processing win 8, 3Ds and a bunch of background apps without such kind of hassle.

No, this is an exclusive Linden (coding) problem. And with the users... it´s like with the hen and the egg. While LL is the hen.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Vivienne Schell wrote:

 

No, this is an exclusive Linden (coding) problem. And with the users... it´s like with the hen and the egg. While LL is the hen.

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It's an exclusive Second Life problem, sure. I would put it in the policy department before the coding department though. Every restriction LL suggests can count on nothing short of outrage. I can't blame LL for allowing some terrible content if that means we all get to keep SL as it is. I rather face some lag than having to walk around in some generic world only a handful of people can contribute to.

[Vivienne Schell]

"I rather face some lag than having to walk around in some generic world only a handful of people can contribute to."

Well, if everyone turns down graphic performance to minimum level only to escape the annoying "bad memory allocation" bug, what´s the difference then?

Linden Lab must fix this, fix it soon and fix it reliably, otherwise this will stop the show sooner or later.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

I don't have to escape this problem and I never turn down my graphic settings either.

[squashy Beeswing]

I don't find this to be an acceptable solution at all.   Sculpted items should be rendered in as much detail as possible or they don't look right.  Seeing them as they're meant to be seen, ie, without missing *a lot* of detail requires LOD factor of at least 3 and preferably nearer 4. 

I don't wish to gain on the 'swings' only to lose on the 'roundabouts' !

Eta: Your solution may work fine using a very short draw distance of, say, 52 but what about us landscape photographers?  Busy clubs aren't the only environments where one experiences texture memory problems.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

I don't have to escape this problem and I never turn down my graphic settings either.

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Are we getting a little side tracked from the issue/problem here?

True, poorly done texturing can cause lag.  They add more burden.

But Bao Linden explicitly stated in the JIRA that we should never need to use more than 500MB for texture memory.  I've got a one gig card.  So I've got double of what he has said is needed.  And yet somehow I am running out of texture memory.

(I'm not certain if this problem is exclusive to SL.  Googling "World of Warcraft Memory Problems" turns up many threads in their Forums.  I however don't know if "texture discard" specifically gets brought up.)

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

As I said months ago in this very thread, I'm sure LL can optimise things on their end. But as long as the general attitude towards detail is the one as seen in the post above yours, there's only so much LL can do.

The 500MB is a limit for textures, not VRAM as a whole. More importantly, although I never looked closely at this issue, it appears to be a viewer issue, not a graphic card issue. So even a 6GB card could cause problems.

[Aethelwine]

I was getting similar problems and viewers would crash regularly 3 or 4 times a day with graphics problems, until I went from 4gb of onboard ram to 8gb

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

As I said months ago in this very thread, I'm sure LL can optimise things on their end. But as long as the general attitude towards detail is the one as seen in the post above yours, there's only so much LL can do.

The 500MB is a limit for textures, not VRAM as a whole. More importantly, although I never looked closely at this issue, it appears to be a viewer issue, not a graphic card issue. So even a 6GB card could cause problems.

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I'm not sure what general attitude you are reffering to?  I absolutely support and encourage best practises.

Also I understand that VRAM is used for other things.

I'm really not trying to be argumentative here.  I'm just trying to get to a solution.  I go once a week to one event that averages 30 Ava's.  Of those 30 I am the only one who crashes regularly, and it's gotten to be a joke with everyone.  So yes, I'm a little frustrated with this. 

[squashy Beeswing]

I think he/she was referring to *my* attitude, Perrie, not yours.  :matte-motes-bashful: 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

That's correct:)

I'm not going to tell people how to run their SL, but sculpties should be built in such a way they look correct from a distance. Cranking up your LoD is a workaround, higher than 2.0 is out of the "normal" range. Higher than that is buried in the debug settings for a reason.

@Perrie

If I had a solution I'd post it of course. "System overload" is a user/creator issue, so LL can't do anything about that without limiting our (building) tools. I suspect LL should be able to prevent the crashing though. Let's hope they find a way.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

 

@Perrie

If I had a solution I'd post it of course. "System overload" is a user/creator issue, so LL can't do anything about that without limiting our (building) tools. I suspect LL should be able to prevent the crashing though. Let's hope they find a way.

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Thank you.

I do what I can do on my end to ameliorate the problem.

Once we start seeing (as Ebbe has said) Linden's In World again and they start having to deal with the problem perhaps they'll figure something out.

[JessicaPhilips]

I had the same issue when I was at a sim with lots of people in, I fixed this issue by incresing the size of my viewers cache and it stoped showing that message.