Houdini and RAM usage, help!

[Akabane]

Hey guys!

I'm having some memory problems when using Houdini.

If I perform some heavy calculations (hi res volume creation, heavy renderings etc..), houdini obviously eats up a fair amount of ram, and that's fine.

The problem is that when it finishes doing that, it doesn't free up the used RAM!

Example: i'm isoOffsetting something at a pretty big res (and saving to file), houdini goes up using 3gb of RAM, then my system starts swapping (I'm on 4gb).

After cooking and saving the file, houdini is STILL using the 3gb of ram.

And I don't know how to free that memory up. If I then do some other operation, system goes to swap again, so that RAM is actually bound to something.

I was thinking that it is the cache, so when it cooks something it puts into ram. But how to clear that after it finished? Is there some specific command?

The only solution I found is close and reopen houdini.

Thanks!

Akabane

[DanBode]

You can check the cache manager by hitting alt+shift+m or by going to Windows->Cache Manager from the top menu. From there you can clear the cache.

[hopbin9]

I'm having the same problems in H11. Running a DOP simulation with ODE on 200 spheres uses up 10GB of Ram (I have 12GB). After clearing the cache it's still using about 2GB. Seems each time I do a simulation it eats up a little more.

[LaidlawFX]

I'm having the same problems in H11. Running a DOP simulation with ODE on 200 spheres uses up 10GB of Ram (I have 12GB). After clearing the cache it's still using about 2GB. Seems each time I do a simulation it eats up a little more.

un check the auto-update to manual at the bottom right corner of the screen.

[Macha]

Yes, I noticed the same thing, clearing cache doesn't always seem to work completely. Moreover, there are temp files that don't get deleted and you have to do it manually. You don't notice it with regular harddrives but when you have a small SSD and suddenly wonder why on earth Houdini and Chrome take up 140GB then it's time to check out those temp folders!

Edited November 22, 2010 by Macha

[bunker]

Same problem here, even with 12GB or RAM, memory is a big issue in Houdini 11.

The cache manager doesn't show all the memory being used by Houdini !

Also, I would rather get an error message saying "out of ram" instead of

filling up the all RAM, then the SWAP, then freezing the whole computer and having to reboot...

Yes, I noticed the same thing, clearing cache doesn't always seem to work completely. Moreover, there are temp files that don't get deleted and you have to do it manually. You don't notice it with regular harddrives but when you have a small SSD and suddenly wonder why on earth Houdini and Chrome take up 140GB then it's time to check out those temp folders!

[pclaes]

Also, I would rather get an error message saying "out of ram" instead of

filling up the all RAM, then the SWAP, then freezing the whole computer and having to reboot...

I keep another session open (CTRL+ALT+F4) with in the terminal:

ps -A | grep houdini

followed by: kill -9 #PID

to avoid the reboot - also save a lot. It is annoying though. Whilst one houdini is going down a new one is launching. It seems like the only way to truly get rid of the cache. Sometimes I will have two houdini's open, one sitting idle, simply to be able to the scene quicker when the other one is closing.

I agree a more graceful decline would be preferable. When the ram is gone, the vopsops won't compile and a fork error is imminent, then I generally hope for 'just' a houdini crash rather than a system freeze. Makes you wonder where all that data goes.