Improve SFM performance, renderspeed, and stability!

[ConfederateJoe]

For some reason they made SFM a 32bit program, and as such you will most likely run into memory issues from time to time.

Try LargeAdressAware, a little tweak that will allow SFM to use more RAM, thus improving all of the three things i mentioned in the tile of this thread.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/large-address-aware.112556/

You're welcome.

[EmperorFaiz.wav]

thank you, good sir.

[R234]

Originally posted by ConfederateJoe:

For some reason they made SFM a 32bit program

The fact it runs on a ten-year-old game engine comes to mind :P

[ConfederateJoe]

Originally posted by R234:

Originally posted by ConfederateJoe:

For some reason they made SFM a 32bit program

The fact it runs on a ten-year-old game engine comes to mind :P

Ah, that's it then, forgot about that.
psst... I heard that with the release of HL3 (whenever that is) SFM will be updated with Source Engine 2.0

[raptornx01]

indeed.

Though I do fear it will render alot of users unable to use the program. I hope they stream line in such a way to maintain its current accessibility. doubt it, but one can hope.

[raptornx01]

Let me rephrase. I want to be able to use it, but i know i probably won't because my comp is borderline as it is. XD

source games are about the only thing my comp can run well. and when i'm rendering, my comp becomes practically unuseable for anything except really laggy browsing.

[raptornx01]

how big of an impact did it have on your system? how much ram/cpu usage, etc?

[ConfederateJoe]

Let me explain why it makes a difference...
Rendering requires lots of RAM. SFM can only use so much, and normally, it has enough. But when rendering and moving around in larger scenes the demand for RAM goes way up, so the more it can use the faster it will be able to accomplish the task. SFM has a tendency to become unstable when it approaches its RAM limit, but when it can use more, it should not run into this problem.

Your welcome.

[ConfederateJoe]

Originally posted by raptornx01:

how big of an impact did it have on your system? how much ram/cpu usage, etc?

Originally posted by Dr. Cooldude:

Originally posted by raptornx01:

how big of an impact did it have on your system? how much ram/cpu usage, etc?

Unfortunately, I didn't monitor the RAM and CPU usage while rendering. In fact, I intentionally didn't touch the computer at all during the tests, to avoid it being biased.

But here's my computer specs, if it helps. It might have an impact in the increase of speed I think:

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge (3.4GHz)
RAM: 16GB, 1600MHz
GPU: Nvidia GTX560 Ti, 1GB

The video clips were rendered on an SSD drive.

Let me explain why it makes a difference...
Rendering requires lots of RAM. SFM can only use so much, and normally, it has enough. But when rendering and moving around in larger scenes the demand for RAM goes way up, so the more it can use the faster it will be able to accomplish the task. SFM also has a tendency to become unstable when it approaches its RAM limit, but when it can use more it should not run into this problem. Like I said, it improves all of the three things I mentioned in the title of this thread.

You're welcome.

[ConfederateJoe]

Originally posted by Vintage:

You don't have to post the same thing twice, but with 2 quotes in the second message.

Quoting notifies them that I responded.
And it was not the same exact thing though I will admit it was not an entirely necessary post.

[raptornx01]

steam notifications are iffy. some times it does, sometimes just posting will. sometimes neither will trigger a notification.

as for the topic. will this make the program run smoother on weaker systems? or cause more problems?

[raptornx01]

Amd A6-3620 2.20ghz
integrated radeon HD 6530D
Radeon HD 6450 with 2gb running in dual graphics mode
8gb ddr3 ram

[Vincent]

Wich file did you put to the "Large Adress Aware" guys ?
I try this one C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\SourceFilmmaker\game\sfm.exe
but after few test, that didn't change anything, It's even a bit longer than before to make a poster (57s instead of 54s for 1080p..)
Any solutions ? or Tips ? Thanks.

[episoder]

nice corpse. and... large address aware is not a parameter you can use. trust me when i say sfm is compiled with it. it works like that already.

now dig that back in.

[Anyar]

If this works...
god bless you.

EDIT: Which file do I choose?
If I choose

Originally posted by Vincendre:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\SourceFilmmaker\game\sfm.exe

then it says LAA is already enabled.
Is that right?

[Vincent]

Honestly, I didn't think it's gonna works, but I was curious because my SFM crash A LOT when I searching models or maps.

You're right, it's enabled. Before and after doing the patch.
That's probably why LAA didn't change anything, so I guess i'm going to copy my sfm.exe backup instead.