Lightworks Renderings Crashing on PC

[Anonymous]

To all who use lightworks,
I recently went to the Lightworks in Archicad seminar, which was very informative (Thankyou Dwight!). I then proceeded to use the Lightworks package to render large perspectives for a competition that week . I was really interested to see what I could achieve in 2 weeks. They turned out well, but I had alot of trouble with the our PC's. I spent 40% of my time trying to get each of the computers to render without error.

The problem was as the file got more and more detailed and complicated through the design process the PC's started to give me more and more errors and eventually crash. They would often also produce blank screens instead of renders. The behaviour was inconsistent across different computers using the same file. The CPU capacity would always sit at maximum during the rendering process say 98% so this also convinces me it was not a modelling issue but a hardware issue.

I have spoken to Graphisoft Australia who tell me that the problem is due to the fact that Windows can only address a maximum of 1.7 Gb of Ram. (Apparently, Macs don't have this problem) .They say this is the limit of a 32 bit system. They have suggested that I should try a using a windows 64 bit operating system. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with these 64 bit operating systems using lightworks and what graphics cards/ ram etc they would recommend. It would be great if someone could suggest an ideal spec for a computer to do intensive lightworks renders and eventually animations on a PC.

I am really surprised and disappointed that I cannot use the lightworks package (without major grief) to do 2000x4000 pixel renders of a large building within a standard windows operating system. In my experience, Lightworks animations were also out of the question.

It was particularly frustrating as I finally worked out how make nice renders and spent time making materials and putting lights in , then I had to spend many more hours of precious time mucking around with the computers to produce the actual render.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

Anti

2GB Ram
NVIDIA graphics card
Pentium 4 CPU 3.2 Ghz

[Dwight]

But this amazing high limit is never addressed by just one application. Photoshop can now address four Gigulons. RAM packing lets you keep everything up and running at the same time.

In recent weeks, I notice that I am hitting the ceiling with only 3.5 Gb of RAM - mostly through large Photoshop files demanding everrything the machine has - I think that 16Gb will be a routine RAM amount in just months.

[Anonymous]

Is there a limit on the amount of ram ArchiCAD 10 can use on a MAC?

[Dwight]

In my most complex renderings, I NEVER saw ArchiCAD go over 1.8 Gb.

Perhaps someone knows the official limit.

[Mishi]

Hi,

we are having the same issue, due to the high number of polygons. There is is an easy work around to solve sometimes this problem. OpenGL eats up all the memory when the 3D is generated for viewing (you can clearly see on the right bottom of the ArchiCAD window) therefor not much ram left for actually genereating the rendering scene for LWS. Switch to Internal engine wireframe and than generate the rendering. I usually set up my camera in openGL switch to wirefram internal and render the scene. It's amazing that openGL cosumes so much ram. Either this is a bug in ARchiCAD or itself the OpenGL is like that.

We deal with extremely large models sometimes over 500K polygons, and i managed to even render movies in LWS with this trick. But time to time though it behaves odd, especially if the LWS lights are placed. (supernova effect and all kind of rendering problems)

Good luck

[AndorSzoke]

mtallen wrote:
Is there a limit on the amount of ram ArchiCAD 10 can use on a MAC?

Hi,

MAC OS offers applications 4 GBytes of addressable memory.

Regards,

[Anonymous]

At the end of the day, are we architects or illustrators? For me, the goal is the built work. It is great to have the capacity to present realistic renderings for clients from time to time but if the need is for large scale, photo-realism, buy a separate application or better yet, send it to Dwight so he can work his magic.

Rendering is cool but for me it is the means and the built work is the end. Just my opinion.

Gary Bley

[Djordje]

gbley wrote:
Rendering is cool but for me it is the means and the built work is the end. Just my opinion.

Fully agree

As some authorities require the rendering - often inserted in the site photo - as a part of the approval process, as is the case around here, it is an integral part of the process of getting something built.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
There comes a point where you need specialized (high end/expensive) hardware and software to do the job. This comes somewhere between our common architectural renderings/animations and Industrial Light & Magic.

Matthew,
Don't you mean "Industrial Dwight and Magic"?

Gary Bley

[Anonymous]

I am running Archicad 10 on an imac dual core intel with 2ghz with two gigs of ram and a 256mb graphics card and I am having the same problem... my models are highly complex and arhciad will either freeze or crash during rendering... I am not sure how to get around this. I am also having a crash issue EVERY time I select an object, right click and attempt to use one of the move commands. as soon as i specify the move command and click on one of the anchor points... the program crashes- this is happening consistently in every project... Does anyone have a solution for these two problems?

[Dwight]

gbley wrote:
Don't you mean "Industrial Dwight and Magic"?

Gary Bley

Can I have it? Please?

Sure beats my current public art studio name:

"ThingZ ON StiX"