Maya Crash Course
Namuncura Mckoy
Hi everyone!
So after testing maya fluids for a long time, I've realized that it seems like maya fluids have not evolved to 64 bits. Everytime I create a cache, maya crashes if the .mcx file exceeds 4gb. The same happens if I just hit the play button and let it simulate, at the same frame. Same thing if I just put a resolution that will exceed the 4gb limitation without the auto resize option, withouth even hitting play or cache. With autoresize same thing happens when it hits the limit.
It's really confusing to me that no one is talking about this. Maya Fluids are really powerful and great, and I don't understand how or why it doesn't get any updates for such a simple but important thing. It's sad that you can get such complex and elaborated simulations, and then see that the output quality is going to be capped.
Anyone knows if this is going to be solved anytime soon? I think sadly this memory limitation is pushing me to turn to another software, just because of a 32bit memory limitation in 2017.
Thanks in advance!
My machine is 64 bit, and it has 112 gb of RAM right now, so I don't think it's a RAM available or hardware limitation issue.
Every simulation that I've done at high resolution has never reached more than 30-40 gb of RAM.
It's just that when the cache .mcx single file is more than 4gb, maya crashes giving its famous fatal error. I mean, it might take a lot of RAM to simulate, and of course Maya can crash if it requires more RAM than your machine has. But it's not the case, so I think that what makes it crash is the frame size. Because it never goes beyond 4gb. And no matter if you cache it or if you just hit play. Most times it will crash at the same frame that goes beyond 4gb.
Sometimes ncache will crash before maya would crash if I just hit play.
And so I can disable some stats from ncache, like everything but density and tempetarue for example. And it will go further, but not beyond the frame it crashes at if I hit play. So it seems to me like there is some kind of memory cap.
Sure Sean,
This one attached scene will crash at frame 20 as it passes the 4gb written .mcx cache file. It has a resolution of 400. All cache channels were turned on: (density, velocity, temperature, fuel, color, texture coordinates, falloff). The RAM used with just the project opened on my machine is 5.7 gb.
Also if you turn the resolution to 900 it will crash instantly without caching or hitting play, because frame one passes the 4gb apparent cap if it was written without auto-resize. Because seems like maya writes it to RAM by just having the grid there, even if there is no simulation happening. Also without auto-resize every cached file will weight the same from the begining to the end if there is a fluid there or if there isn't. With a resolution of 900 maya goes to 58 gb of RAM used on my machine and then crashes.
With very high resolutions, maya would crash (if the first frame went beyond 4gb) even if you turned auto-resize on because maya writes the first frame without the grid being resized. And if it didn't, maya would crash anyway when the grid keeps spreading and passes 4gb, as it happens with this attached file.
Thank you!
Caching the animation lead to about 15-17gb of RAM being used and I was actually only able to render one frame. That said, I'm not sure if this is an issue with fluids or just a limitation like you mentioned. I'm going to ask the dev team about it and some of my peers but with the holidays coming up it may be a bit of a delayed response.
Hi,
I used a lot of voxels in that scene, a resolution of 400 and also a couple of fields, so it is understandable to me that maya will ask for a good ammount of RAM. Just like other softwares do if you do the same. The RAM used can be high if the simulation is complex but the cached frame can only weight 2gb, for instance.
And it is true that it is an issue that maya will ask for high RAM depending on the grid resolution, even if you're not simulating.
But I think the real issue and what brought me here is that it will crash, as soon as the grid needs more than 4gb to be written on the hard disk if you cache it, but also if you only hit play, with more RAM on your machine than maya needs. I think it's just a matter of the grid resolution, not the simulation or maya asking for high RAM to simulate. And I think that's why if you just put a resolution of 900 in the scene I attached, maya will crash instantly or as soon as you hit cache or simulate, even if maya has more RAM available than it needs.
Thanks for checking it out. Happy holidays!
Hi Sean!
When I cache the simulation, the cache files never passes 4/4.2GB because Maya crashes. What does go beyond 4gb is the RAM used for the simulation, but never the cache file written to the hard disk. Actually that scene took me over 50gb of RAM so it is possible that's what your co-worked really meant.
The end of the world comment was funny. Like of course it isn't, there are ways around. Like trying other software or making a short simulation with Maya Fluids. Or conforming with mid-resolution numbers after finding the exact quality in which Maya won't crash in the middle of a long simulation. And that means you'll be simulating several times adjusting max resolution on the auto-resize panel and of course the resolution to assure that and you'll be losing time.
So I thought I could kill two birds with one stone: contributing to the community talking about the issue and solving it for myself. So I know it's not the end of the world but I thought you guys would like to know about Maya technical issues since I read on the forums that a lot of people in the CG community are switching to other fluid solvers. I don't know the reason in every case but I just thought it could be useful to talk about my own case.
I tried caching it frame by frame and I get the same results.
I appreciated your attention. I'll let you know if anything changes.
Thank you!
Hi mspeer!
I made the test with the project I attached on this conversation and it crashed at frame 20 anyway. And yes, the cache single file exceeded 4GB and reached way beyond that. Yes, my system is NTFS and I have files larger than than 4GB.
So my hypothesis is that Maya Fluids have some sort of internal memory cap. Because it still crashes if you only hit play without caching, and around the same frame. And without hitting RAM limitations at all. That explains why a single frame can't exceed 4.2GB written on disk. Because it goes beyond what Maya Fluids can simulate and handle internally on each frame, so this is not about what maya fluids can write to disk or to RAM but about what it can handle.
I think that's why Maya crashes instantly if you put a resolution of more than 900 in the project I attached. Maya Fluids calculates and writes to RAM its current grid instantly, with or without voxels. Simulating or not. And if internally Maya Fluids reaches its memory cap, maya crashes. And as I just said, it's what happens instantly if you put a resolution of more than 900.
So my thoughts are: the simulated frames on your test didn't exceed 4GB separately (if you cached it with one file per frame). And that's why your Maya didn't crash.
PD: I also tried to turn off LOD visibility and execute batch render on command line, to make sure Maya isn't crashing because of a GPU memory issue.
My system specs:
CPU :Intel i7-5820k 3.30ghz
GPU: GeForce GTX 980 4gb
RAM: 112GB
SSD 480gb
Windows 10 64 bits
Maya 2017 - no updates
Let me know if you need more information. You can test the crashing project I attached if you want. It will crash at frame 20.
Thanks!
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Hi Sean:
I'm using a NTFS system. Because of all that I described above, it still looks to me that this is about a Maya Fluids internal memory cap issue.
Thanks.
Sean,
Yes, I did report it, many times. Is there something specific that you'd need me to do besides that?
I haven't done what Mike suggests. Do you think that I should or it's enough for now for the dev team to get the information, so that they will work to fix it?
Thanks.
Hi everyone,
It's been a while that I have this issue with different projects, I don't understand where it comes from but from time to time I managed to make it work (opening the hypershade or duplicating the panel view) by moving my scene around or selecting an element in my scene (?!).
I had to take the habit of saving my work everytime I am going to open the hypershade or duplicating my panel view as the crash doesn't autosave my work, so this was annoying but ok, I can manage it.
But now I am working on a project that really needs me to use hypershade and duplicated panel view, and I can't.
It's been 30min that I do try to move my scene around before opening the hypershade or duplicating my panel view and Maya continue to crash, and I can't work in these conditions..
If anyone have a clue about what is the problem ?
- I already changed the -iv "minorNodeTypesDisplay" from 1 to 0 in maya prefs
- I do have two screen, both drivers are up to date
Thank you in advance for your help.
Thank you @jordan.giboney , I'm gonna check that right away ! I am working on Windows, and do have the last windows updates.
Also thank you @Abdulla-Qaladzay for your propositions :
- New empty scene lead to the same issue
- I did change the project folder but nothing changed, I expected it as my scene only has phong basic materials but I had to give it a try
- And finally Arnold doesn't seem to be involved, I have to activate it most of the time when I launch maya (some plugin preferences doesn't save sometimes..), I also did the test again and it crashed
I'm gonna download the last update hoping it will solve the problem, I'll be back to you once it will be done.
Thank you again for your help
Edit : Sorry for the second account, I posted with my personal account and am currently working with my company account.