How much memory and what O/S are you using?

[Rcnewcomb]

I'm running Windows ME with 512MB of memory. I still get "out of memory" errors when I try to toolpath some intricate designs with a small bit and small stepover.

What are other people using?

I'd like to do the dish view of the pheasants on a 36" piece of bloodwood with an 1/8" or 1/16" ballnose at an 8% stepover.

[BrianM]

Windows 98 and Me has many memory limitations with regards to resources and handles which do not increase no matter how much memory you add to the machine. 98 and Me still have a number of 16bit limitations under the surface and were just not designed for modern processors and amounts of memory. Unless your job is extremely complex, I doubt you are running out of 'main' memory but rather one of the Windows 64kb internal resource heaps are being exhausted.

If you are doing complex work you would be much better off using Windows 2000/ Xp /Vista which were designed to handle large amounts of memory from the start.

Brian

[HayTay]

Hi Randall,

I'm running Microsoft Windows XP Pro, Version 2002, SP2 on a PC with an Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz CPU, 2 GB of memory and a 200 GB hard drive. I haven't experienced any memory (or other) errors while using several applications and versions of Vectric's fantastic software.

I would definitely think about moving beyond MS Windows ME. While it isn't exactly painless, I think you'll be more than happy with the results.

Here's a Microsoft KB article that may help explain what's going on with memory allocation in Win9x/Me and offers steps to alleviate the problem. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Seriously though, you should invest in your business and purchase a newer computer. You can still use the Windows Me machine as a back up.

Consider that architects, graphics designers, video game programmers, and many other people that earn a living running CPU/memory intensive applications SHOULD SERIOUSLY consider purchasing a new computer EVERY 1 - 2 years! The increased productivity (less time spent waiting) for redraws, recompiles, program loads, boot ups, etc. more than makes up for the $1500 - 3000 expense. Purchasing a business class PC with a 3-year, next business day repair warranty also helps to minimize the stress that a non-booting PC can cause.

An architect I knew didn't want to give up on his Windows 95 PC even though I'd been trying to get him to get rid of it for around 5 years. He spent much more than two new PCs in that time on repairs and upgrades. When it finally died, even with all the repairs and upgrades it was still an old machine running Win95. He was forced to purchase a brand spankin' new computer running Windows 2000 (right before WinXP was launched). He hadn't had the new PC for more than 3 hours and he called to tell me "what an idiot" he had been (his words) by not listening to me when I told him to buy a new PC the first time. It seems that he had completed in 3 hours what he had scheduled for the WHOLE WEEK. He finally realized that he could have earned much more (and had some more personal time to play guitar or ride his Harley) than he 'saved' by not purchasing several computers over the 5 years.

I hope you find something to help you in the above. I got carried away... as usual.


L8r,

[Thkoutsidthebox]

2.16 Ghz Dual Core processor with 2Gb RAM and a 512mb graphics card. I think in modern terms 512mb RAM (If you were referring to RAM) is really not good at all. Even with my system it takes a while on some processes now that I've started using a 3D modelling program!

[mrBOND]

I'm running Win2000 on a P4 3,0Ghz. Size of RAM is 4GB