OOM! (Out Of Memory)

I handel if not big files (around 2-3MB if cleaned properly) then files with loads of x-refs (anywhere from 1 to 20 is common) and I quite often want to have two or more of these files open at the same time, and quite often I get this message:

[ATTACH]22937[/ATTACH]

Now my question is two-fold.

A) what does this mean?

and B) am I right in thinking that this could be helped with running Windows 64bit and AutoCAD 64bit?

I think you need to increase your system's Virtual memory

A tweak of the virtual memory might help short term but in the long term a change to 64-bit software and a 64-bit OS might be in order.

How much RAM do you have installed? That info is blocked out by the version of IE my company is running.

A tweak of the virtual memory might help short term but in the long term a change to 64-bit software and a 64-bit OS might be in order.

 

How much RAM do you have installed? That info is blocked out by the version of IE my company is running.

3,5GB RAM

How does one tweak the virtual memory?

How big is your hard drive (capacity in GBs) and how much free space do you have?

There is one other option, since you are running XP, and that is to add the 3GB switch to your Boot.ini file. Normally this benefits users who work with large, complex drawings. Again, it is not a cure-all but it may help for the short term. One caveat with this approach. Some graphics card do not play well with the 3GB switch set so the only recourse is to put things back the way they were.

Tweaking Virtual Memory in Windows XP

Right click on My Computer.

Click on Properties.

Click on the Advanced tab.

Under Performance click on the Settings button.

In the Performance Options window click on the Advanced tab.

Under the heading for Virtual memory click on the Change button.

In the Virtual Memory window select the Drive your paging file (a.k.a. – virtual memory) is located on. In most systems this will be drive “C:”.

In the Paging file size for selected drive area of this window the default option is System managed size (controlled by Windows). We want to override this by selecting the Custom size option.

Warning: Do NOT turn the paging file off completely!

It is usually recommended that the Initial size (in megabytes) and the Maximum size (in megabytes) be set to the same values to “reserve” a contiguous block of space on the hard drive so that no other data is written to it.

Recommended values are in the range of 1.5 to 3 times the amount of installed RAM. I’d be conservative and use a value of 2 times installed RAM to start with. If you still experience “out of memory” issues you can bump this up to 2.5 or 3.

Suggestion: Start with a value of 6144 (roughly 3GB times 2).

After entering the new values click the Set button. Exit out of all windows. Close all programs, and shut off your computer. Wait 20 seconds and reboot. Hopefully you’ll encounter no further memory related errors.

How big is your hard drive (capacity in GBs) and how much free space do you have?

If I remember correctly its 250GB and a lot of that is free - I just got this comp a few months ago.

Thanks for the description of virtual memory, will try that when I get to work in the morning.

This 3GB Switch, whats that?

But you still say that 64bit is the way to go for the future? I am trying to build up a case to put forward to the IT-dep to let me get 64bit windows 7.

 

This 3GB Switch, whats that?

 

From Microsoft

/3GB

 

This switch forces x86-based systems to allocate 3 GB of virtual address space to programs and 1 GB to the kernel and to executive components. A program must be designed to take advantage of the additional memory address space. With this switch, user mode programs can access 3 GB of memory instead of the usual 2 GB that Windows allocates to user mode programs. The switch moves the starting point of kernel memory to 3 GB. Some configurations of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 may require this switch.

instructions...

http://dwf.blogs.com/beyond_the_paper/2009/04/enabling-3gb-switch-on-windows-vista.html

http://www.finitesolutions.com/Support/Enabling3GB/tabid/70/Default.aspx

I have upped the virtual memory -it was set to something around 3Gb so hopefully it'll help some. That switch-thing sounds scary though... But thanks all for the assistance

Yes, the switch thing does sound scary but even if it fails it is easy to undo.

I have not checked the links posted about it but if I recall correctly the user adds one line to his/her boot.ini file that contains the switch. About 95% of this line is an exact duplicate of what appears in the file. Upon boot up the user is presented with two choices. Either you can run your machine as you normally do or you can run it with the 3GB switch enabled. If you do nothing then the default is a normal boot. If you enable the 3GB switch and it does NOT play well with your graphics card you'll know it immediately in which case just reboot, do nothing, and let the computer boot up as normal. At this point you would remove the 3GB switch from the boot.ini file and basically be back where you started. I've used this technique on three computers and had it fail on only one.

From just upping the Virtual Memory the computer seemed to slow down and get even more sluggish. I can't say if that is from the uppety-action or not though, the network that we have at work is not the most reliable one. And the irony of this being one of Swedens leading techinal consultant firms, and one of the biggest is not lost on me

But I took your advice and got the switch-thing activated so we'll see if that changes things.

I am wondering about the side-effects though - is this something common to do? Does it affect other stuff as well?

No, it is not common. Most people would never do this because either they don't know about it or are afraid to do it.

In rare instances some users report their systems seem to become unstable and lock up.

To my knowledge it has no effect on programs such as Microsoft Office or OpenOffice nor does it affect your anti-virus or email programs.

At the first sign of any trouble you can always elect to save your work, close down your programs and reboot to your "normal" environment (i.e. - without 3GB switch enabled).

I currently use the 3GB at work (WinXP SP 3) in a networked environment and used to use it on my home computer until I swapped out computers and moved to Win7 Ultimate 64-bit and 8GB of RAM.

The 3gb switch helped me a lot. No side-effects..

Most of the Autocad users at my office have tried it with good results.

I can report that it seems to help my computer at least. The weird thing is that my co-workers computer doesn't like it at all. She has the same graphic card that I have, but when I start it with the switch active, it looks like the graphic card just switches off...

The 3GB switch gods have smiled on you and frowned on your coworker. Maybe it's a difference in drivers.

Drivers... right...will check that tomorrow