Memory Leak

rivalsrapture

So, I had a computer with a Nvidia 1080 and about 32 gigs of ram. And with that computer, the longer I used Daz without restarting the PC, the amount of ram Daz would use started growing. As that ram usage went up, Daz would become more and more laggy, in terms of me manipulating objects or scenes. And if I pressed through long enough, it wouldn't show me Iray previews or render (it would instead just immediately render an all black image). For awhile, I found that closing Daz, then going to the task manager and force closing Daz (since even after it was closed and no longer an open app, Daz was still runningaccording to the task manager) worked. (it still does this ghost Daz after closing thing, but it doesn't seem to alleviate the issue of lag or failure to render any longer)

In my frustration, I was like, alright DAZ, I'm going to buy a PC where the anount of ram you're using when you bloat, would still me a fraction of the total ram. So I got a 3080 Ti with 132 gigs of ram.

But after having made that purchase, that ram bloat, which used to raise up to almost 20 gigs (when I had 30 something gigs) has now raised to 70+ gigs, if I don't restart my PC. Remember this is an entirely new computer with no shared parts. When it reaches that gigantic number, it again becomes sluggish and will refuse to render or preview. 

Is this a problem Daz knows about? And why hasn't it been fixed in the last year or two? Is there anything I can do on my end to correct this issue? 

 

 

SofaCitizen

Can't say whether there is a actually a leak or not but force-closing Daz is not going to help since after it has closed it still runs to tidy up memory and so if you kill the process it cannot do that.

Also, only the VRAM on your card matters for rendering and so adding more system memory is not going to help with the Renders terminating with black screen due to insufficient resources.

rivalsrapture

Well, I have 24340 VRAM -- Theoretically I could have more, but assume that's a reasonable amount. 

And the actual system Ram is rising in number, as I mentioned before. So Daz is doing something with it. And given the numbers use on the two different computers, it seems to be a percentage of whatever I have, and not a steady amount used by the program. 

TimberWolf

I'm a bit puzzled by these numbers. A 3080Ti has 12GB of VRAM. No more, no less and that is all that is available for rendering, despite what Windows may report re. shared VRAM etc. It's entry level these days but more than up to the job.

Where I'm really confused is about how much system RAM your new PC has. Try as I might, I cannot create a configuration in my head that would come to 132GB and, anyway, most mainstream motherboards only support up to 128GB.

I'm going to assume this then - you have a 12GB GPU and 128GB of system RAM (astonishing overkill, but why not!)

If you're getting useage of 70+GB of system RAM during rendering then the only thing I can think of that would cause that is a lot of strand-based dForce hair which can have huge memory overheads during the compilation stage.

There *is* a memory leak somewhere in Iray or Studio that causes the GPU's VRAM to eventually fill up causing a render failure if you do several complex scenes in a row without restarting but I'm not aware of any system RAM leak in the application. I think this is the most likely culprit. 12GB is not *that* much VRAM these days unfortunately.

rivalsrapture

Sorry it's a 3090 TI

 

 

rivalsrapture

Also, to be clear. The PC's ram (not talking about the VRam) starts out at a very reasonable number like 10-30 gigs. It's only after prolonged use where that number grows. 

AgitatedRiot

TimberWolf said:

I'm a bit puzzled by these numbers. A 3080Ti has 12GB of VRAM. No more, no less and that is all that is available for rendering, despite what Windows may report re. shared VRAM etc. It's entry level these days but more than up to the job.

Where I'm really confused is about how much system RAM your new PC has. Try as I might, I cannot create a configuration in my head that would come to 132GB and, anyway, most mainstream motherboards only support up to 128GB.

I'm going to assume this then - you have a 12GB GPU and 128GB of system RAM (astonishing overkill, but why not!)

If you're getting useage of 70+GB of system RAM during rendering then the only thing I can think of that would cause that is a lot of strand-based dForce hair which can have huge memory overheads during the compilation stage.

There *is* a memory leak somewhere in Iray or Studio that causes the GPU's VRAM to eventually fill up causing a render failure if you do several complex scenes in a row without restarting but I'm not aware of any system RAM leak in the application. I think this is the most likely culprit. 12GB is not *that* much VRAM these days unfortunately.

I have 128 GB of RAM, but if I run CPU-z, I get 131.072 GB of memory. 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

TimberWolf said:

...

Where I'm really confused is about how much system RAM your new PC has. Try as I might, I cannot create a configuration in my head that would come to 132GB and, anyway, most mainstream motherboards only support up to 128GB.

Computers reckon in base 2 because a bit has two values, and humans in base 10 because we've got 10 fingers. For example, 1K is not 1000 but 1024. 1M is not 1000000 but 1048576. The 132GB figure is probably just the base 10 orthographic representation of 128GB.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

SofaCitizen said:

Can't say whether there is a actually a leak or not but force-closing Daz is not going to help since after it has closed it still runs to tidy up memory and so if you kill the process it cannot do that.

That hasn't been true for decades, since the 16-bit Windows days. Nowadays, when you kill a process, all of its resources are freed up. The only case where that doesn't happen is with a device driver, but a memory leak there is exptremely unlikely.

Olo_Ordinaire

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

SofaCitizen said:

Can't say whether there is a actually a leak or not but force-closing Daz is not going to help since after it has closed it still runs to tidy up memory and so if you kill the process it cannot do that.

That hasn't been true for decades, since the 16-bit Windows days. Nowadays, when you kill a process, all of its resources are freed up. The only case where that doesn't happen is with a device driver, but a memory leak there is exptremely unlikely.

I'd be a bit careful about force-closing DAZ Studio as it does exit cleanup tasks.  Keep in mind that it also has database connections open to the PostgreSQL subsystem that is used to manage content.  Force-closing the application may leave the product database in an undefined state.

 

rivalsrapture

Alright, I won't force close Daz anymore, thanks for the info there all. I definitely appreciate it.

But any guidance on the PC ram usage getting progressively higher would be great. 

Richard Haseltine

I haven't noticed this, but I don't often get that kind of extended run. Have you tried using http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/scripting/api_reference/samples/plugins/plugins_load_config/start to disable all non-Daz plug-ins, and see if it still does the same (assuming you can run a sutiable test session without the plug-ins, of course)? You cabn reeanble plug-ins through Help>About Installed Plug-ins. A restart is needed to have any changes take effect.

rivalsrapture

I don't know enough to know what you mean by plug-ins? I have lots of assets, like models, props, and attire. 

crosswind

Hmm...do you use multi-instances of Daz Studio, and have you checked the RAM usage status with Resource Monitor ? 

I've been using multi instances of DS for 2+ years, 3 - 4 sessions opened at the same time at least, have never met RAM leak from DS. The increase of RAM consumption mostly come from big / complex scenes (esp. there're many high SubD objects, LAMH, SBH,  dForce items with simulated results, etc...) , as well as other big applications, e.g. Photoshop...

I have 256GB RAM, most of the time the usage is always under 30% (less than 70GB) though I work on big scenes. After closing DS sessions completely, RAM will be freed with no problem. BTW, I myself haven't found any issue from 'killing DS process' (thousands times at least), as well as cms as I'm an in-depth user of PostgreSQL.

So, pls monitor the status of RAM usage and release with Resource Monitor (may open it from Task Manager), see if there's any problem after launching / closing DS and clearing scenes....

Richard Haseltine

rivalsrapture said:

I don't know enough to know what you mean by plug-ins? I have lots of assets, like models, props, and attire. 

Help>About Installed plug-ins will show what you have - there are a lot for the core functionality, look for ones that don't start dz for the file name.

mmdestiny

It never ceases to amaze me how horribly optimized and resource hungry DS is lol.  I swear what brings DAZ to its knees on monster machines C4D will run whistling dixie on a fraction of the horsepower. 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Olo_Ordinaire said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

SofaCitizen said:

Can't say whether there is a actually a leak or not but force-closing Daz is not going to help since after it has closed it still runs to tidy up memory and so if you kill the process it cannot do that.

That hasn't been true for decades, since the 16-bit Windows days. Nowadays, when you kill a process, all of its resources are freed up. The only case where that doesn't happen is with a device driver, but a memory leak there is exptremely unlikely.

I'd be a bit careful about force-closing DAZ Studio as it does exit cleanup tasks.  Keep in mind that it also has database connections open to the PostgreSQL subsystem that is used to manage content.  Force-closing the application may leave the product database in an undefined state.

Oh, sorry, if Olo_Ordinaire meant that DS needs to tidy up and would be prevented from doing so if you force quit, then what I said is not at all relevant :) I thought they meant that Windows itself would be prevented from reclaiming resources, which is not true anymore.