| Re: Xinteranimate "Unable to create pixmap" error [message #17635 is a reply to message #17628] |
Thu, 04 November 1999 00:00   |
Joe Means
Messages: 44
Registered: November 1996
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Member |
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Here is more info on this problem. The last two times I ran it, in response
to David's comments, it hung on 106 and 107 frames. Regarding memory, there
is 1Gb of system RAM and 1Gb of swapfile [virtual memory] space. Performance
monitor showed that there was still 630Mb free RAM and 910Mb free swapfile
space when it choked, and it had used up ca. 3000Mb of RAM when running. This
works when I try to create smaller animations. Interestingly, when, in the
IDL Devel Env., I hit the Reset button [includes Heap_GC, /Verbose] this
recovered about half of the memory drawdown from the run, ca. 160Mb. Killing
IDE recovered the rest, ca., 140Mb.
I'd sure like to find that it is just a programming error.
Can I program around this by specifically putting the pixmaps in system RAM
and animating from there by loading them into the IDL window just as they are
needed?
Joe Means
-----Original Message-----
From: Randall Frank [mailto:frank12@llnl.gov]
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 1999 5:37 PM
To: Joe Means
Cc: davidf@dfanning.com
Subject: Re: Xinteranimate "Unable to create pixmap" error
You've run into one of the interesting things about Windows NT.
Under NT, device dependent pixmaps are allocated against the
video driver. The video driver can choose to place them on the
card or in system RAM. This is driver dependent. Now, under NT
(unlike the Mac and Unix) driver graphics resources cannot page
so you are limited to system memory no matter what (virtual
memory cannot be used for these pixmaps). I would like to see
the commands you are using to create this movie. I have seen
1/2 GB movies run just fine in boxes with that much RAM. I am
interested to see if any of the frames are allocated or if it
fails with the first frame (some drivers place restrictions on
device dependent pixmaps). Also, you might want to watch the
system with the task manager to see what the memory state is
when the failure occurs. If there is not enough free swappable
pages, you can also run into a problem.
So, you can make big movies under NT, you may be running
into a driver limitation (suprising w/an nVidia card), a separate
system limit (swappable pages) or user error.
Hope it helps.
rjf.
Randall Frank | Email: rjfrank@llnl.gov
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory | Office: B4525 R8019
P.O. Box 808, Mailstop:L-560 | Voice: (925) 423-9399
Livermore, CA 94550 | Fax: (925) 422-6287
David Fanning wrote:
> Joe Means (means@fsl.orst.edu) writes:
>
>> I run IDL 5.21 on a PC under WinNT.
>>
>> While running Xinteranimate.pro I got the error:
>> % WINDOW: Unable to create pixmap.
>> % Execution halted at: CW_ANIMATE_LOAD 652
>> c:\win32apps\RSI\IDL52\lib\cw_animate.pro
>>
>> This animation used about 15Mb of memory [according to Performance
>> monitor] before giving me this error. I understand the error comes from
>> running out of RAM on my video card, right? My video card is a Viper
>> v770 with 32Mb ram.
>>
>> My PC has 1Gb RAM, much more than is needed to run this animation. I
>> got this much RAM specifically to be able to run large animations in
>> IDL. How can I get this animation to run? I also need to be able to
>> get animations to run for which the file containing the stored images is
>> about 60Mb up to 300Mb. Do modifications need to be made to
>> Xinteranimate and its subroutines to use regular RAM instead of video
>> RAM?
>
> I'm on some shaky ground here, because I don't know
> the details as well as I would like. But my understanding is
> that most operating systems will swap video RAM memory
> with disk memory when the video RAM fills up. I would
> have thought you were running into a virtual memory
> limitation here. Do you know how much virtual memory
> you have? (System control panel under the Performance
> tab.)
>
> Also, what frame is this that you choke on? Is it
> always the same? Can I see the code used to load
> the XInterAnimate pixmaps?
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting
> Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
> Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
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