(computer!) Memory Problems

[JonathanEngr]

I'm having a time at my office trying to figure out what to do about insufficient system memory, and thought someone might have some suggestions.

We're trying to manipulate an AutoCAD (drawing) file that is 30 MB in size on a new (less than 1 year old) PC running XP Pro and has 4 gigs of RAM. The system is using a dual-core Phenom processor, in case that matters.

Anyway, the drawing file is fairly large for an AutoCAD file, but not the biggest we've worked on. When we try to do any major change in the file, it gives an "insufficient system memory" error and crashes, forcing AutoCAD to close. We've tried tinkering with the virtual system memory, etc., but with no luck. Is it possible to be eating up all 4 gigs of memory and then the shared memory? Any suggestions on how to get around this?

 

[JogaBonito1502]

It maybe be dealing with the graphical memory. What graphics card are you running?

 

[dude_56013]

I'm having a time at my office trying to figure out what to do about insufficient system memory, and thought someone might have some suggestions.

We're trying to manipulate an AutoCAD (drawing) file that is 30 MB in size on a new (less than 1 year old) PC running XP Pro and has 4 gigs of RAM. The system is using a dual-core Phenom processor, in case that matters.

Anyway, the drawing file is fairly large for an AutoCAD file, but not the biggest we've worked on. When we try to do any major change in the file, it gives an "insufficient system memory" error and crashes, forcing AutoCAD to close. We've tried tinkering with the virtual system memory, etc., but with no luck. Is it possible to be eating up all 4 gigs of memory and then the shared memory? Any suggestions on how to get around this?

Okay, now, I don't have experience with AutoCAD, but I do with photoshop, and I know that there is a setting that tells it how much RAM it can use from the system. This is a feature found on a few other RAM hungry programs. Check the settings in AutoCAD to see if you can allocate almost all of the system RAM to running the program (~3.5GB if your OS is 64bit, 3GB if it's 32bit). You should have no problem manipulating a 30MB file with 4GB of RAM. I've done much larger (~0.5-1.0GB) files in photoshop (granted, they aren't the same) with 2GB of RAM.

 

[JonathanEngr]

Well, the graphics are on-board, but they are pretty good graphics despite that fact. The motherboard is an ASUS M3A78-EM. The link is here:

http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=KjpYqzmAd9vsTM2D

It has the Radeon HD3200 GPU, with up to 256 MB shared memory. Maybe that's it, and I guess I could try oading it on my machine (I have a 9800GX2 with 1 GB of memory, but it's over 2 GPU's.... so would that be the same as 512 MB video memory?). If it is memory, should he try turning down his on-screen resolution? Would that do anything?

As for setting usable memory, can you do that in system settings or program settings, or is that application specific? It sounded like the latter.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

I am pretty sure the problem is not RAM, but video memory. Turning down the resolution might help. It wouldn't hurt to give it a shot. Your system at home (I assume) should definitely run it with 1GB of memory. Give that a shot too.