VW2008 works better on OS X10.5? (More Virtual Memory Allocation?)

[Caz]

I have an office running mostly Power PCs/Mac Pros on OSX 10.4 (4GB RAM)

Like many other users, we have experienced very unstable performances since upgrading to VW2008.

It was recently noticed that when VW crashes, say when trying to open a large file with many references, that the virtual memory allocation is only around 600MB and CPU usage is at 100%.

However, when trying VW2008 on a couple of computers with 10.5 installed, there was 1.06GB virtual memory allocated to VW. (No crashing occuring)

Is there a way to edit and allocate more virtual memory? Perhaps this is a question for Apple.

Thanks

Edited August 27, 2008 by Caz

[RonMan]

There is no way to edit or allocate more virtual memory. This is a Vectorworks problem that "will be fixed in a future release".

Memory management in VW stinks and an would love to see it improve. We wait and see.

RonMan

[rDesign]

Unfortunately I can attest that I've gotten MANY MANY more crashes with VW2008 on 10.5.x compared with VW12.5 running on a G5 with 10.4.11.

I was told by NNA to upgrade to SP3, which did not fix the crashing problem. And that's with 4GB RAM on my Intel MBP, so lack of memory is not the cause.

Also as another discussion thread has noted there is a memory leak with VW2008 on 10.5.x.

Hopefully NNA will fix these problems for VW2008 and not just 2009, thereby requiring everyone to pay for an upgrade just to reduce crashes.

Regards,

Tim

[Caz]

OK, thanks very much guys, good to know we're not alone.

rDesign, I am alarmed to the crashing has got worse on 10.5.

WE'll see what happens in the next VW service pack.

[islandmon]

Over many years ... a few survival tricks have evolved to avoid or mitigate VW crashes.

The one that seems to work best is actually the easiest, but requires some discipline.

Prior to each significant Tool change ... Save the file.

For example, before Rendering ... or before initiating an ExtrudeAlongPath.

Always Save before starting any of the Modeling operations.

Another thing to remember... just because you can work at the speed of light doesn't mean that your brilliant inputs can be processed that fast.

Different procedural commands require different clock cycles... some take longer than others to finish and page-out.

One of the proven sources of crashes is excessive instruction queuing ... when wait states begin to time-out.

Save provides sufficient time to clear the threads , page-out the data, and zero the clock.

As dear olde Mummzy used to say, " Chew your food slowly and completely before trying to swallow it "

[C W]

I'm happy to (or at least willing) to stay mindful of constantly saving (in addition to my automatic) and to stay away from certain operations/combination of operations, but the crashes that occur when trying to open large files with multiple references is unacceptable... especially when the files aren't that large and don't have that many references. We have a file that every few weeks will just stop working (Attempt to open causes crash). I have to go off network, open file, then import referenced items or try to just re-reference (which causes annotation notes on vp issues).

[digitalcarbon]

islandmon, i could not have said it better.

[altoids]

Software that crashes because it is being used normally is so 90's. VW, get your act together. I've not had a crash in Photoshop in years.

The reason VW crashes is that they use legacy code calls, not the latest software techniques, which are less robust. This comes about because they do not (understandably) want ot rewrite all their old code, but at some point they need to, and that point was crossed a long time ago.

[rDesign]

I can't say that 10.5 increased VW2008 crashing for me: I used VW2008 for a short time on my G5 with 10.4.11 and was having the same number of crashes. It was just so dog slow that I bought a new Intel MBP hoping that it would at least run faster - which it did.

So I can say that going to 10.5 did not reduce the frequency of crashing over 10.4.x : I think the crashes are caused by VW2008 and not a factor of which OS you are on.

And I learned Islandmon's wise lesson a long time ago, I couldn't function in VW without hitting 'Command-S' religiously.

Regards,

Tim

[brudgers]

Software that crashes because it is being used normally is so 90's. VW, get your act together. I've not had a crash in Photoshop in years.

The reason VW crashes is that they use legacy code calls, not the latest software techniques, which are less robust. This comes about because they do not (understandably) want ot rewrite all their old code, but at some point they need to, and that point was crossed a long time ago.

Amen.

[Caz]

Great feedback, thanks will get users to Apple-S constantly and know that the fault is not with our setup, its with the faulty software. I now have a whole company screaming for AutoCad and Microstation. Shame Nemetschek, shame!

[mmyoung]

Thank you brudgers, yes, it's been so unstable since 2008 that large files (over 10 MB) ought to be archived at every major step (Save Copy As...). I like 2008, but it argues with itself very noticeably. This kind of instability is unacceptable in a tool where I make my living, to put it simply.

The instability does not show up in drafting very often, but the modeling functions have often become outright dangerous to my work, which is mostly modeling.

Edited September 11, 2008 by mmyoung