Query regarding AR5 memory usage (Mac)

[Bertrude]

Thanks for the tip Robert. I couldn't find anything that worked in Snow Leopard (unfortunately a side effect of sticking with an OS dinosaur) but I appreciate the recommendation - I'll do some looking around.

[HwyStar]

Sorry, I didn't see the "Leopard" portion of your post. I have zero issues with the latest and current version of OS X. But everyone's computer is different including the installed software that may not like an upgrade. You should be fine with 8Gb remaining. The ArtRage team can confirm that better than I can. ArtRage does love memory. But, even really large canvases don't seem to eat up really anymore memory. I tried it when I upgraded my iMac to a current 2017 5K version. I ordered it with the default 8Gb and installed Amazon memory after the fact (24Gb now). Purr's like a kitten. It runs my Wacom monitor that I paint on too. It's a nice setup.

[HannahRage]

Okay, this shouldn't be happening to this degree, but also 10.6.8 isn't officially supported (we can't test on it or create fixes for it), so this might just be an unfortunate compatibility quirk.

ArtRage will slowly use up data as the undo history gets larger and larger over time - if you are working on a single painting all day, this might be the issue. Closing and reopening that painting should clear things out. Can you try leaving ArtRage 5 open without making any changes, then compare the memory usage after it has been left open with nothing happening? That will tell us if you're just building up a large undo history or if there is some kind of memory issue going on.

ArtRage 5 should generally be better memory-wise than ArtRage 4, but if you are using multiple documents or very large custom brushes, or much larger canvas sizes, you might be pushing the limits. Are you doing anything different to ArtRage 4?

[Bertrude]

I'm not really doing anything different to what I've done in ArtRage 4. The document is 510mm x 260mm @ 300dpi and I only really use the default brushes along with some sticker sprays from AR4, nothing too big to the best of my knowledge. I do tend to faff and rework things though so there could be a lot of undos building up, I just wouldn't expect the RAM usage to be that high.

I'll do as suggested and open the file and leave it in AR5 for a couple of hours and see if any memory increases occur with it untouched. I'll post back my findings.

If it is a compatibility quirk then that's OK - I took a chance on AR5 knowing that there could be issues with Snow Leopard. After all, it's my choice to stick with 10.6.8 for now (I still need access to Freehand for some old files). I can always quit it every few hours or just go back to ArtRage 4. I'll also try and spend a similar time in AR4 doing the same things to compare memory usage in it.

Thanks for the help thus far.

EDIT:

I've left the file open in ArtRage 5 for over 3 hours now and the memory use has not increased. But...

When I opened it the memory use was 1.66GB, it went up to 1.67GB after opening the 'resize painting' dialogue to see what the canvas size was. Interestingly, I've just opened the 'resize painting' dialogue again and it's gone up to 1.68GB immediately after. Going to 'Crop/Expand Canvas' has also resulted in it rising to 1.69GB use. I haven't done any cropping or resizing, just accessed them via the menu then closed the dialogue box. Going to 'view > colour samples' twice in a row has resulted in the memory going up a further 0.01GB each time which is curious.

Opening the sticker sheets palette repeatedly seems to cause the RAM usage to increase everytime. It doesn't get freed when the palette closes but opening it again continually causes more RAM usage.

It seems that opening certain menu items (even if they've been opened before) increases the RAM usage every time which might explain how it's slowly gobbling it up in my case. I hope that helps.

[HannahRage]

That's definitely helpful! At least we know where it is coming from now, so there may be a chance of fixing it.