continue working on created temp files

[Z C]

Hi, 

I am recently stitching massive amount of photos (in the order of thousands). I am working with a i5 8600k and 4070ti with 32gb of ddr4 memory and a load of m.2. ssd attached. I know its an old system  and its not perfectly stable. Sometime the system becomes unresponsive after creating a massive amount (last night about 1.5T) of temp files and i have to restart. At that stage PTgui did not save my work to some kind of pts files that it can continue working on.

When I launch PTgui after my PC restarts, PTgui creates a set of different temp files from scratch. Is there anyway that PTgui can continue working on the temp files it generated before without having to start all over again? 

Zichao

[PTGui Support]

Hi Zichao,

No I'm sorry, that's not possible. The temp files are related to other
data still in RAM.

I've seen these kind of things happen with cheap SSDs. They can be fast
at first, but after writing a couple of GB they become unbearably slow.
That might be a reason for the crashing.

I would also see if the RAM can be upgraded to 128G but I guess you've
considered that already.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

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[Z C]

I am using 4T 990 evo plus from Samsung. What model would you recommend?

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[Z C]

I also plotted the total size and number of generated temp files against their created times, the line looked linear. 

[PTGui Support]

The Samsung Evo Plus should be fine.

I've seen this happening myself with QLC flash drives, which store 4
bits per flash cell (quad level). Initials writes are done to a fast
write cache, but the actual QLC writes can be as slow as 100MB/s.

I would then look into expanding RAM.

If you are using Optimum Seams, try if it works without that, or reduce
the precision for optimum seams. Seam finding uses a lot of memory, disk
space and CPU time.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 8/27/25 09:09, Z C wrote:
> I am using 4T 990 evo plus from Samsung. What model would you recommend?
>
> On Wed, 27 Aug 2025 at 08:03, 'PTGui Support' via PTGui Support
> <pt...@googlegroups.com <mailto:pt...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Zichao,
>
> No I'm sorry, that's not possible. The temp files are related to other
> data still in RAM.
>
> I've seen these kind of things happen with cheap SSDs. They can be fast
> at first, but after writing a couple of GB they become unbearably slow.
> That might be a reason for the crashing.
>
> I would also see if the RAM can be upgraded to 128G but I guess you've
> considered that already.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Joost Nieuwenhuijse

> www.ptgui.com <http://www.ptgui.com>

> <mailto:ptgui%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > <mailto:ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:ptgui%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>>.

> > To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/

> ptgui/ <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/>
> > ce248adb-000a-408d-a67e-7841b391d876n%40googlegroups.com
> <http://40googlegroups.com> <https://
> > groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/ce248adb-000a-408d- <http://
> groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/ce248adb-000a-408d->
> > a67e-7841b391d876n%40googlegroups.com?
> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <http://40googlegroups.com?

> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
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[PTGui Support]

This looks like expected. PTGui allocates small files first, and when
more is needed during stitching, the size of the temp files doubles a
few times.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 8/27/25 09:16, Z C wrote:
> I also plotted the total size and number of generated temp files against
> their created times, the line looked linear.
>
> On Wednesday, August 27, 2025 at 8:09:53 AM UTC+1 Z C wrote:
>
> I am using 4T 990 evo plus from Samsung. What model would you recommend?
>
> On Wed, 27 Aug 2025 at 08:03, 'PTGui Support' via PTGui Support
> <pt...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Zichao,
>
> No I'm sorry, that's not possible. The temp files are related to
> other
> data still in RAM.
>
> I've seen these kind of things happen with cheap SSDs. They can
> be fast
> at first, but after writing a couple of GB they become
> unbearably slow.
> That might be a reason for the crashing.
>
> I would also see if the RAM can be upgraded to 128G but I guess
> you've
> considered that already.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Joost Nieuwenhuijse

> www.ptgui.com <http://www.ptgui.com>

> > To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/
> msgid/ptgui/ <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/>
> > ce248adb-000a-408d-a67e-7841b391d876n%40googlegroups.com
> <http://40googlegroups.com> <https://
> > groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/ce248adb-000a-408d- <http://
> groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/ce248adb-000a-408d->
> > a67e-7841b391d876n%40googlegroups.com?
> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer <http://40googlegroups.com?

> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
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> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Jan Steinman]

> Z C <zicha...@gmail.com>: Aug 26 07:07AM -0700

>
> I am recently stitching massive amount of photos (in the order of
> thousands). I am working with a i5 8600k and 4070ti with 32gb of ddr4

> memory… Sometime the system becomes unresponsive after

> creating a massive amount (last night about 1.5T) of temp files and i have
> to restart.

RAM is so cheap these days! Stuff that puppy with every byte of RAM you can afford!

If you're using smallish sticks of RAM (under 16 GB), you may have to eBay them, in order to max out your RAM with bigger sticks.

> … a load of m.2. ssd attached.

Is your SSD external? Are you booted from spinning disk?

If so, get the SSD as close as you can to the CPU.

I recommend a minimum of TWO SSDs — one for your system, and one for your data. If you have more than one, but they are arranged as a RAID, I'd split them into two logical volumes on at least two physical drives for system and data.

With only 32 GB of RAM, you're probably swapping RAM to disk during stitching, which REALLY slows things down (even with SSD), but it also wears out the SSD faster. (SSDs have a limited number of writes in their lifetime.) You DO NOT want to swap! Going over SATA is at least an order of magnitude slower than going to RAM, even with SSD!

I have 128 GB in a sixteen-year-old computer, and have never experienced what you describe. In fact, I continue using the computer for email, web browsing (with tens of pages open), and even editing the resulting ~30,000-pixel-wide images — all while stitching even more pans!

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 4,1, with:

* eight 16 GB sticks of DDR 1333 MHz RAM, for 128 GB total
* two Xeon 6-core processors, at 3.46 GHz
* two internal Micron 2TB SATA SSDs, one for the OS and programs, and the other for images, movies, music, etc.
* one 16 TB spinning disk for incremental backup (Apple Time Machine)

With that setup, the only practical implication of large stitches is that the fan is louder, and the attached watt meter goes from ~300 watts to ~500 watts.

> At that stage PTgui did not save my work to some kind of pts
> files that it can continue working on.

That would slow it down even more. You want things to stay in RAM.

If you're doing large panoramas, just bite the bullet and get as much RAM as your computer can possibly take. You've invested in PTGui when you could have been using hugin for free, so it's time to back that up with hardware!

Jan