4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory!

Page: < 12 Showing page 2 of 2
Author
Post
Essentials Only Full Version
brendantownsend
Max Output Level: -85 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 279
  • Joined: 2005/01/12 19:23:55
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 15:10:09 (permalink)
Hello again.

My apologies for not replying before - work getting between my play centre and myself

I'll try to clarify some of the questions above...

madfloyd wrote:

Are you sure it's not EastWest plugins warning about low memory? I've noticed that since I upgraded to Sonar 7, any EW plugin is always ****in' about low memory when I have plenty (I also have 4 gb).

Btw, what do you mean about loading PLAY.VST 'manually' - does that solve a particular problem? I noticed that I can't really use it without a crazy amount of snap, crackle & pop....


On reflection it could have been an Eastwest plugin, and if so then probable issues with interaction between Eastwest's RA instrument and Sonar 7, although the denominator being Sonar 7 though as Sonar 4, 5, and 6 have never had issues with them on the same system and no recent updates to suggest anything else.

Regarding the Play V.I. (engine supplied with EastWest's Voices of Passion), this created massive headaches in Sonar 6 as I discovered that I could backup all I wanted and all would be good, but the next time I re-opened the project then Play would cause a crash. I didn't even resort to using Sonar's safe mode on reboot as I had lost all confidence with the synth as it was so buggy and risky, particularly with memory leaks also evident in Task Manager after shut-down. I'm not sure whether this might have something to do with the iLok dongle security though.

I hit the SoundsOnline forum with this problem but no-one replied with similar issues, so I sent a technical enquiry to the developers who confirmed that they were actually working to address this particular known bug with Play in Sonar 6. The recommended workaround was to not simply add the instrument to the rack in the usual way, but to manually create an audio track and then add Play to the FX bin. The instrument will then appear in the synth rack and can be plugged to a MIDI track in the conventional way - just that you can't freeze it though You might like to give this a try to see if it helps reduce your audio artefacts?

To be fair, the 64-bit Play engine is very new and with most software developers competing in a fickle market, it's invariably that "time-to-market" thing. Also, to be fair to Cakewalk, it's never possible to identify all possible anomalies before hitting the market of-course, though I'm sure my in-depth report will help to close off this issue in the next update (assuming it's nothing else that's more elusive and coincidental).


MWD wrote:

bentleyousley, madfloyd, SH, brendantownsend

Is your pagefile on or off ?


Initially my pagefile was on, as I have two boot drives (one for XP32 and one for XP64), where the pagefiles respectively exist on the "other" drive to the system boot - just belt & braces stuff for a flowy system really. Just to clarify, I have two WD Raptors, each containing the separate 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and both connected as conventional drives, and three more Raptors as a triple striped (RAID-0) array for sample reads only.

Realising that the /3GB switch had never done anything for me, and on the understanding that Windows uses the available 2-3GB memory portion, I figured that it was of little benefit having it turned on. Others in the forums have also suggested disabling the pagefile in optimising bandwidth when buffering large samples and streaming audio, suggesting that Windows will create a pagefile if permitted - irrespective of the memory available. This also reflects what Silence Dogood has said here.

EDIT: Incidentally, before anyone should ask, I haven't used XP64 for quite some time due to (a) limited driver support and (b) fear of updating my RAID driver firmware for compatibility with 64-bit drivers (Promise TX4200) and then finding that it has issues with XP32. There's only so much PC-related hassle I can take in one go


All the best,

Brendan.


post edited by brendantownsend - 2007/10/08 15:54:33

______________________________________________
S6Pro; P5v2; XV-5080; V-Drums+SPD11; 2x Delta 1010; Soundcraft 24ch; TC M3000 Reverb; Keystation Pro88; Alesis M1Active 620; Dual 3.2GHz 2+2MB; 4GB 800MHz XMS-2; 5x 10krpm HDD; RAID-0; XP PRO & 64
#31
Maneswar
Max Output Level: -84 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 332
  • Joined: 2006/01/11 11:16:06
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 16:34:08 (permalink)
Auricle,

Sadly, I can't figure out what's causing the problem on your end, but now that you mention you are using Vista... I don't think you even need the 3GB switch... but maybe you do. You should check the Microsoft support site to see if Vista can already allow applications to use up to 4GB of memory... the 3GB switch is for XP to allow applications to use up to 3GB of memory.

As for something else... check the FAQ section of the Asus site, and enter your product data and read through some of those.... there is one about 4GB and limits, and there is another about a fix for Vista at MS... Can't link directly to the specific items because they used Flash or some other crap.

http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Q: Installation of Windows Vista is slow or unable to install when using more than 3GB DDR memory


A: Please use no more than 2GB DDR memory during installation and then go to the URL below to update Microsoft Patch KB929777 to solve the problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777


Q: I have install total 4GB memory on my motherboard. However, it can only recognize around 3.1GB or less. My friend's SLI board even less than 3GB. What's up? How should I do to recognize 4GB totally?

A: If you installed total 4GB memory, the system will detect less than 4GB of total memory because of address space allocation for other critical functions, such as:

- System BIOS (including motherboard, add-on cards, etc..)
- Motherboards resources
- Memory mapped I/O
- configuration for AGP/PCI-Ex/PCI
- Other memory allocations for PCI devices

Different onboard devices and different add-on cards (devices) will result of different total memory size.
e.g. more PCI cards installed will require more memory resources, resulting of less memory free for other uses.

On a SLI system, since PCI-Ex graphic cards will occupy around 256MB, another 256MB will be occupied after you install a 2nd PCI-Ex graphic card. Hence, 2.75GB memory left only if two SLI cards installed on A8N-SLI Premium while 3.0GB memory left with one graphic card without other add-on devices.


This limitation applies to most chipsets & Windows XP 32-bit version operating system.

If you install Windows XP 32-bit version operating system, we recommend that you install less than 3GB of total memory. If more than 3GB memory is required for your system, then below two conditions must be met:
1. The memory controller which supports memory swap functionality is used. The latest chipsets like Intel 975X, 955X, Nvidia NF4 SLI Intel Edition, Nvidia NF4 SLI X16, and AMD K8 CPU architecture can support the memory swap function.
2. Windows XP Pro X64 Ed. (64-bit) or other OS which can address more than 4GB memory.

You can check below URLs for reference:
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/4GB_Rev1.pdf
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/cs-016594.htm


Also check these to see if they apply:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929580/en-us

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/08/14/699521.aspx
#32
mwd
Max Output Level: -78 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 627
  • Joined: 2006/05/18 22:05:07
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 17:16:45 (permalink)
ORIGINAL: brendantownsend ~ ...I figured that it was of little benefit having it turned on. Others in the forums have also suggested disabling the pagefile...


I do believe you have an good hard drive strategy.

XP is a page based system. Personally I never bought into disabling the pagefile on a page based system but that's a whole different thread.

I would at least temporarily turn on a "system managed" pagefile while you are dealing with low memory problems.




#33
kenschr36
Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 34
  • Joined: 2005/06/08 10:57:03
  • Location: Massachusetts, USA
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 18:14:12 (permalink)
The /3GB switch is more about "address space" than about actual physical memory. Normally, the address space of a process is divided as 2GB for user mode address space (where Sonar lives) and 2GB for kernel address space. This will give SONAR and any other user mode process 2GB of memory to work with; regardless of whether this memory is actual real RAM or virtual memory backed by the page file. With the /3GB switch, Windows re-aligns this as 3GB for user mode and 1GB for kernel mode (driver space). This can cause BSODs (system crashes) if a driver runs out of memory because it is now limited to 1GB of linear address space. The actual physical memory can be divided amonst all processes and driver allocation and Window can address 4GB of physical memory with or without the /3GB switch. So using /3GB gives SONAR a little more room to work with and is really only useful if you have 4GB of physical memory.
#34
brendantownsend
Max Output Level: -85 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 279
  • Joined: 2005/01/12 19:23:55
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 21:22:58 (permalink)
Hi MWD.

I think that you're right in that it's doubtless safer to permit the expected HDD pagefile space than run into problems or perhaps even a BSOD - particularly during times of issues such as this.

I do however believe the low memory report to be false, particularly as the ****ing that bentleyousley, SH, and madfloyd have reported which reflect my findings as-well. I can also continue loading around another 1GB of VST's without issue after the warning first arises.

Incidentally, unrelated to this particular problem but a quick mention for Delta 1010 owners... Update your sound system drivers to the latest from M-Audio. My early experience is that they are more stable and somehow related to the memory leaks that I reported with the Play engine. Too early to say whether this has helped overall stability with that particular VST though but now no memory leaks whatsoever in evidence (yet).


ALl the best,

Brendan.

______________________________________________
S6Pro; P5v2; XV-5080; V-Drums+SPD11; 2x Delta 1010; Soundcraft 24ch; TC M3000 Reverb; Keystation Pro88; Alesis M1Active 620; Dual 3.2GHz 2+2MB; 4GB 800MHz XMS-2; 5x 10krpm HDD; RAID-0; XP PRO & 64
#35
ba_midi
Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 14061
  • Joined: 2003/11/05 16:58:18
  • Location: NYC
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 22:39:46 (permalink)
ORIGINAL: auricle

I have tried the /3GB command in XP, even with the /userva switch and it didn't work for me It got 2Gb even though I have 4Gb in my system.


Is it possible you previously made a change to the Paging File size? (ie, windows swapfile).
That would explain the low mem warning if, for example, you set a static value that no longer is correct.

Also, if you've swapped out any drives (like the main boot/OS drive), the paging file may have become corrupt.
post edited by ba_midi - 2007/10/08 22:50:28

Billy Arnell (ba-midi)

http://www.ba-midi.com/music/files
Music gives me life, so I give life Music.
Thanks for listening - Let's Dance to the rhythm of life! :)
#36
Maneswar
Max Output Level: -84 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 332
  • Joined: 2006/01/11 11:16:06
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 23:33:05 (permalink)
Billy, I don't think Auricle has the low memory error, he just wanted help with the /3GB switch. I could be wrong though.

Brendan started the thread with the memory error, but auricle simply added his problem when he saw /3GB recommended.
#37
auricle
Max Output Level: -81 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 492
  • Joined: 2007/02/25 09:36:32
  • Location: English expat in Moscow/Russia
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/08 23:43:15 (permalink)
Hi, yes, I did sort of hijack - please accept my apologies OP.

You're right, I didn't have a low memory warning. I just tried squeeze more out of my system and wondered why I could never go above 2Gb. I WAS using Vista64 but changed to XP because of performance issues. I posted a thread about it here

Maneswar, your explanation about PCI cards consuming memory resources rings true. I have 4Gb from when I used Vista64 and I thought it would make sense just leaving it in there now I am using XP. My post above about turning the bios memory setting seems to have worked although now the bios reports 3008Mb but XP reports 2.96Gb - I am happy with that. At least I know now why the /3Gb switch didn't work.

Thanks for your help maneswar - very much appreciated. And yes, Asus website is crap - they're good at motherboards but terrible at webdesign! I don't know why they think that using flash for everything makes them a more 'hip' company but I have noticed a lot of Asian based technology companies do the same. Grrrr!
#38
Maneswar
Max Output Level: -84 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 332
  • Joined: 2006/01/11 11:16:06
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 05:03:50 (permalink)
Auricle,

If it makes you feel better, my main workstation has 8GB of RAM (4-2GB sticks) and I can only see 4GB in the BIOS (freaks at the mapped memory above 4GB but shows 8GB which I don't trust), and I can only see 3.25GB in the OS. I had hoped to switch to a Server OS that would allow me to use more, but any of the "affordable" ones are also crippled, so I just live with the injustice of the whole thing :) . I paid what it would have cost to get 4GB at the time, plus a small premium, so it wasn't terrible, just sad. :)

Glad you think you have a workable situation... see how it works for a few days and you can always revert it back if it does weird things. Good luck.


#39
auricle
Max Output Level: -81 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 492
  • Joined: 2007/02/25 09:36:32
  • Location: English expat in Moscow/Russia
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 05:33:29 (permalink)
Maneswar,

Thanks once more.

What OS do you use for your main workstation?
#40
Maneswar
Max Output Level: -84 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 332
  • Joined: 2006/01/11 11:16:06
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 05:55:05 (permalink)
XP 32bit. It's 3+ years old now and needs replacement but I've spent way too much in other places, so I have to wait till summer I guess before I move to 64bit. I don't know if Vista will be supported fully by then, but if it is, I may try it... or I may just get a 64bit XP before they make it obsolete.

#41
boseyman1
Max Output Level: -81 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 487
  • Joined: 2004/10/15 10:18:45
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 11:42:51 (permalink)
I sent this thread to a DAW builder friend of mine. He just built me a Core Quad box and this was his response. I don't know if this will help.


"From what I have read in this case it appears to be users who do not understand the relationship between Sonar, the OS and hardware.

Your motherboard has 4GBs of memory and Windows XP can only see 3GB's

We use the 3GB switch to utilize this 3GB of memory as Sonar would normally only use around 1.5GB.

As long as a program is LAA (large address aware) the 4GB's of memory (3GB only being seen by XP) the program should benefit from the 3GB switch which has been implemented on your machine.

In the motherboard bios there is a setting called memory remap which when set to enabled will recognize more than 3Gb's of installed memory.

Unfortunately since XP doesn't recognize above 3GB the Bios will show 4'gbs of memory installed but the Windows Xp OS is confused by this and may actually under-utilize the memory.

Therefore the bios memory remap feature is disabled on your machine and 3 of the 4GB is recognized correctly by XP.

We set a userva=2800 to provide some system resource overhead so actual max Sonar usage (Windows commit charge shown in task manager) should be around 2.7GB's under Windows XP."

Just a thought.....

Intel Core i7 3.07Ghz, 12 Gigs RAM, 64 bit OS, Sonar Producer 8.52, RME Multiface II and PCIe interface, Maschine, Fractal Axe-FX, Sonic Implants Library, TC Fireworx, Voiceworks, BFD2, SD2, Stylus RMX, Trillian.


#42
Jose7822
Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 10031
  • Joined: 2005/11/07 18:59:54
  • Location: United States
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 11:59:13 (permalink)
boseyman1,

Not to sound mean or anything but your friend didn't say anything we haven't discussed here, plus Sonar 7 is already LAA so that's not it either. This problem the OP is having seems to be hardware related as I'm able to load more than 1 GB into RAM without getting any memory message in Sonar 7. I also use the /3GB switch everyday with no issues at all. Still, I will experiment with how much RAM I'm able to load in Sonar 7 just to see if I ever get that low memory message. I'll be reproting back later after I try this.

Peace!

Intel Q9400 2.66 GHz
8 GB of RAM @ 800 Mhz
ATI Radeon HD 3650
Windows 7 Professional (SP1) x64
Cubase 6.03 x64
Sonar PE 8.5.3 x64
RME FireFace 400
Frontier Design Alpha Track
Studio Logic VMK-188 Plus

http://www.youtube.com/user/SonarHD
#43
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Cakewalk Staff
  • Total Posts : 6475
  • Joined: 2003/11/03 17:22:50
  • Location: Boston, MA, USA
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 12:31:14 (permalink)
You are making a big assumption that its a SONAR 7 problem before we even know who is displaying the error message. What is the exact text of the error message? Your bug report doesn't list this info. I suspect that the error is from a plugin and not SONAR since we do not have any low memory warnings that I know of. Also your MSInfo file indicates that Windows is only using 2GB of RAM. Unless you use the /3GB flag 32 bit XP will NOT use more than 2GB so your extra 2GB is wasted.

The only difference I can think of in SONAR 7 that might be relevent, is that the 32 bit version of SONAR 7 is now large address aware. This means that it will REALLY use addresses above 2GB if available (with a cap of 3GB on a 32 bit Windows OS and a max of 4GB on X64).
Its possible that some plugin is not properly anticipating this or displaying a bogus error message. We can't be sure until we know what the exact message is and who is displaying it. Also at what stage is the message displayed. When you load a progect, patch a plugin or attempt playback.

ORIGINAL: brendantownsend

On reflection it could have been an Eastwest plugin, and if so then probable issues with interaction between Eastwest's RA instrument and Sonar 7, although the denominator being Sonar 7 though as Sonar 4, 5, and 6 have never had issues with them on the same system and no recent updates to suggest anything else.

Regarding the Play V.I. (engine supplied with EastWest's Voices of Passion), this created massive headaches in Sonar 6 as I discovered that I could backup all I wanted and all would be good, but the next time I re-opened the project then Play would cause a crash. I didn't even resort to using Sonar's safe mode on reboot as I had lost all confidence with the synth as it was so buggy and risky, particularly with memory leaks also evident in Task Manager after shut-down. I'm not sure whether this might have something to do with the iLok dongle security though.

I hit the SoundsOnline forum with this problem but no-one replied with similar issues, so I sent a technical enquiry to the developers who confirmed that they were actually working to address this particular known bug with Play in Sonar 6. The recommended workaround was to not simply add the instrument to the rack in the usual way, but to manually create an audio track and then add Play to the FX bin. The instrument will then appear in the synth rack and can be plugged to a MIDI track in the conventional way - just that you can't freeze it though You might like to give this a try to see if it helps reduce your audio artefacts?

To be fair, the 64-bit Play engine is very new and with most software developers competing in a fickle market, it's invariably that "time-to-market" thing. Also, to be fair to Cakewalk, it's never possible to identify all possible anomalies before hitting the market of-course, though I'm sure my in-depth report will help to close off this issue in the next update (assuming it's nothing else that's more elusive and coincidental).


MWD wrote:

bentleyousley, madfloyd, SH, brendantownsend

Is your pagefile on or off ?


Initially my pagefile was on, as I have two boot drives (one for XP32 and one for XP64), where the pagefiles respectively exist on the "other" drive to the system boot - just belt & braces stuff for a flowy system really. Just to clarify, I have two WD Raptors, each containing the separate 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and both connected as conventional drives, and three more Raptors as a triple striped (RAID-0) array for sample reads only.

Realising that the /3GB switch had never done anything for me, and on the understanding that Windows uses the available 2-3GB memory portion, I figured that it was of little benefit having it turned on. Others in the forums have also suggested disabling the pagefile in optimising bandwidth when buffering large samples and streaming audio, suggesting that Windows will create a pagefile if permitted - irrespective of the memory available. This also reflects what Silence Dogood has said here.

EDIT: Incidentally, before anyone should ask, I haven't used XP64 for quite some time due to (a) limited driver support and (b) fear of updating my RAID driver firmware for compatibility with 64-bit drivers (Promise TX4200) and then finding that it has issues with XP32. There's only so much PC-related hassle I can take in one go


All the best,

Brendan.




that

Noel Borthwick
Senior Manager Audio Core, BandLab
My Blog, Twitter, BandLab Profile
#44
roughly
Max Output Level: -81 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 479
  • Joined: 2003/12/28 22:34:02
  • Location: Chi town IL
  • Status: offline
RE: 4GB RAM, 500MB used, Sonar 7 reports Low Memory! 2007/10/09 15:02:43 (permalink)
you will think i'm crazy, but empty your picture cashe'

this happen alll the time to me



www.callthecow.com
#45
Page: < 12 Showing page 2 of 2
Jump to:
© 2025 APG vNext Commercial Version 5.1