NI V4.32Pro+ PS CS Plug-in Memory Problem

[W A Hunt]

Hello NI Team,

I’m having a problem with Photoshop CS and Neat Image as a plug-in. When working with all but a tiny JPG, I get the following message: “Neat Image cannot get free memory block from the operating system (112978832-byte memory block is requested).” I've read the threads concerning similar issues with 4.0 & 4.2 in "batch mode," but I'm getting my error msg with single image, albeit somewhat large ones.

As a stand-alone, I’ve already applied NI to several files in the 750MB - 1.25GB range, but even a 5.9KB JPG yields the same error.

System:
Dual P-III’s 1GHz
1.5 GB RAM DIMM
2-120GB SCSI 160M HDD’s
Matrox G-450 Vid 64MB VRAM
OS - W2K-SP4 + all patches/updates
NI = V4.32 Pro+
Name: W A Hunt, Hunt Photography
Photoshop CS = Memory Usage 87%, Cache Levels 6

When used in stand-alone mode, the processing of the 1.25GB TIFF only takes about 2 minutes, and though getting a bit long in the tooth, the workstation in CS still flies with Crop and Gaussian Blur on 2+GB files.

Is there a setting that I can address this issue with, or am I relegated to just use NI as stand-alone for any file above ~3KB?

A note: in the few days that I’ve used it, NI is spectacular. It came highly recommended from several users in PS news groups, and I see why. If I cannot use the plug-in in PS CS, all will not be lost, but it does cramp my normal workflow.

Thanks for your product and any help you can offer.

[NITeam]

Dear Mr.Hunt,

I understand the effect you describe is only related to the plug-in, correct?

How much RAM in MB is given to Photoshop (see Photoshop preferences)? If too much of Windows RAM is given to PS, then Windows is not able to provide more RAM to Neat Image plug-in when it needs some space. Try to reduce the amount given to PS to see if this helps.

Thank you,
Vlad

[W A Hunt]

Thank you Vlad. I just tried the same test image on my laptop (not at the same time as NI was running on my workstation <G>), and the plug-in works fine. I'll bump down the memory usage of PS CS on the workstation, as it is at 87%. Normally, PS is all I have running, so I probably had it set too high for NI, but had never experienced any problem with any other plug-in, or operation.

Laptop system:
3.4GHz P-IV hyper-threading
512MB DIMM RAM
nVidia 128MB shared VRAM
1 - 80GB ATA HDD
XP-Media Edition SP-1

All was fine here, so I'm off to lower RAM usage in PS CS on workstation.

Again, thank you,
W A Hunt

[BillGilbertson]

I have 3 Gb of RAM and allocate 1777000 (100%) to Photoshop. I do not get the out of memory message when I pulll it back to 70%. But the reason I bought 3Gb is so that I can maximize PS performance with large images. Is there a way to use all of the memory?

As far as tuning tuning the rest of my system, does NI use the PS scratch file, a separate file, or Window swapfile?

Thanks,


Bill

[NITeam]

Bill,

At the moment, Neat Image plug-in needs some free Windows memory to run, so you should not give all of the available memory to Photoshop.

We are working on this aspect of Neat Image and in the next versions you will be able to better use your computer's RAM with Photoshop and Neat Image plug-in.

Vlad