I might try your suggestion. The problem is that in some
designs I have over 20 configurations that need to run as a batch.
We've tried running five of six configs overnight to then analyze
and make changes the following day and twenty or more configs over
a weekend to, again, look at the results on Monday. This, of
course, as an attempt to gain efficiency. However, it has backfired
in that it is rare to be able to do this due to crashing and
lockups.
I've been working with our VAR on this. The initial knee-jerk
reaction was "go to a 64 bit OS/machine). While I don't have a
problem with the concept I always prefer to do things from a
foundation of knowledge rather than hear-say. So, I pressed for an
explanation. The 32 bit machine we are using is good, fast and
unencumbered with spurious software. Tek support seems to always
want to blame the machine...maybe 'cause it's an easy out.
Anyhow, I think we finally got to the bottom of it: Memory
fragmentation. I've seen cases where FW stops or crashes because it
can't allocate 24 or 4096 bytes (yes, bytes) for a 200K-cell model
with 1.5GB available showing on the performance monitor and the
/3GB switch enabled. It just didn't make sense. The machine isn't
broken. No other engineering application on this system exhibits
this behaviour. There was not plausible explanation until memory
fragmentation was put on the table as a potential culprit.
For those who may not be familiar with the concept a Google search
on "memory fragmentation" will produce plenty of info. Basicly,
programs request small or large chunks of memory as they go along.
These chunks are not necessarily allocated one after the other. If
the application and OS are not smart about this, eventually you can
get into rare situations where you don't have enough contiguous
memory to allocate even a small chunk.
Think of using a 1 inch punch to punch out 1 inch disks out of a
sheet of plastic. Eventually you can't punch out any more 1 inch
disks, even though there's plenty of material left over between the
holes. None of the available material can "allocate" a perfectly
round 1 inch disk...so you are done.
Anyhow, what XP/Vista 64 gives you, effectively, is a larger sheet
of plastic. Memory still gets fragmented, but there's so much more
of it that you can go much farther before running into trouble.
So...while the solution to the problem is not really a solution, it
seems that you can throw money at it and make it work.
Hi Martin,
I might try your suggestion. The problem is that in some designs I have over 20 configurations that need to run as a batch. We've tried running five of six configs overnight to then analyze and make changes the following day and twenty or more configs over a weekend to, again, look at the results on Monday. This, of course, as an attempt to gain efficiency. However, it has backfired in that it is rare to be able to do this due to crashing and lockups.