1, Bryce is a 32 bit application. It cannot use more than 4 GB of memory…but that is more of a theoretical maximum than a practical one. For all practical purposes, it can’t use more than between 2 and 2.5 GB. Often it is stuck with much less than that. So right off, discard 12 to 14 GB of RAM. What else is running?
1a. Because of it’s 32 bit nature, it doesn’t get along well with later versions of Windows…some of the instability you mentioned is probably due to Win7 not particularly liking it very much. XP is pretty much where it ‘peaks’, as far as stability/performance is concerned.
2, How many/how big/what are you trying to duplicate?
Your 16Gb of RAM is about 13Gb more than Bryce will address. (and that’s if you’ve forced it to address 64bit, if not it won’t go beyond 2Gb)
The crashing will depend on what you are trying to multi-duplicate, if it’s something really complex or even something simple with a high resolution texture mapped onto it, then my suggestion would be to not multi-duplicate so many in one go… build them up slowly one or two at a time, then save before repeating the process.
How to make it more stable; Bryce crashes out for many reasons, mostly related to memory issues.
It also eats memory in it’s own ‘undo buffer’, so regularly saving and quitting, then restarting will help a bit because it clears the undo buffer.
Ideally, the instancing lab would be best for this… I say “ideally” because not many people have actually got it to work properly as it tends to just make copies instead of creating instances. There are some threads on here about it, but I’ve not really had time to look in to it in any depth.
Bryce is a 32 bit application and has a limit of 2 GB. Bryce does everything in memory, therefore 2 GB is all there is. If your system sports at least 4 GB, you can make Bryce large address aware and then you get around 3.4 GB that can be used. There is a free tool, which is very simple to use, with which any program can be made large address aware. In fact, there is only a flag that has to be set, and it can be reset again with the same tool. http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556
Find laa_2_0_4.zip a bit down. A free process monitor is also featured on that site. I recommend to install it as well. It shows memory and processor usage for any selected program, e.g. Bryce, only. The task manager shows the total and is not always helpful. I tested LAA for all Bryce versions from 4 up to 7.1 and it works fine.
Just to add I’ve been running Bryce on Win7 64Bit for over a year now and have zero problems so don’t feel you need to go back to XP. In fact the only real problem I’ve ever heard about Bryce relating to Win7 is that when you first try to install it some people get an error called “side by side configuration error” which is caused from Win7 not shipping with a certain .dll that some 32bit programs require. Once one downloads and installs that .dll the problem is gone. Of course since you’re actually able to run Bryce you’ve already made it past that problem.
Just to add I’ve been running Bryce on Win7 64Bit for over a year now and have zero problems so don’t feel you need to go back to XP. In fact the only real problem I’ve ever heard about Bryce relating to Win7 is that when you first try to install it some people get an error called “side by side configuration error” which is caused from Win7 not shipping with a certain .dll that some 32bit programs require. Once one downloads and installs that .dll the problem is gone. Of course since you’re actually able to run Bryce you’ve already made it past that problem.
It’s more how you have Win7 ‘tamed’ than any particular 32 bit program….configured as MS ships it, it’s very hard on most 32 bit programs, but Bryce was particularly rough going (even leaving out the ‘side by side’ issue). So rough, I decided to remove it from that particular machine.
Is it me or is the first ‘droid, in the second row, in the back out of line?
As to Bryce and Vista and upwards, it’s more how you configure the OS. With UAE and all the new ways Windows does things now, Bryce and Windows just don’t get along all that well, any longer…and it’s mostly Windows’ fault.
No need to go back to XP. Forget about replicating, you need to use the Instancing Lab. The IL DOES work. You just need to take the time to understand how it works and why. I have created a must read tutorial on the IL and how to use it with groups as you will require for your scene above (which is very nice btw).
Here is the link. It is most certainly worth your time and much less trouble than going back to XP. Once you get the hang of the IL you will not even think about replicating again. Best of luck.
The IL can be used for many things even for complex modeling. Kine Magik has made several follow up tutorials that explain less obvious but quite clever uses for the IL, but to grasp them you must have the basic understood first so start with my tutorial above.
Just to add I’ve been running Bryce on Win7 64Bit for over a year now and have zero problems so don’t feel you need to go back to XP. In fact the only real problem I’ve ever heard about Bryce relating to Win7 is that when you first try to install it some people get an error called “side by side configuration error” which is caused from Win7 not shipping with a certain .dll that some 32bit programs require. Once one downloads and installs that .dll the problem is gone. Of course since you’re actually able to run Bryce you’ve already made it past that problem.
It’s more how you have Win7 ‘tamed’ than any particular 32 bit program….configured as MS ships it, it’s very hard on most 32 bit programs, but Bryce was particularly rough going (even leaving out the ‘side by side’ issue). So rough, I decided to remove it from that particular machine.
I didn’t do anything special, I’ve never been one to really get in there and try to tweak the OS. Perhaps it depends on which version of Win7? I have Win7 Ultimate. The side by side error was the only issue I had other then the memory limitations of Bryce but that wasn’t Win7’s fault.
Now one thing also that is different on my machine then alot of people is I have a total of four drives and Drive D: (a 2GB drive is dedicated exclusively to Bryce, Studio, Poser and eventually carrera (when I finally get around to installing it).
