Deep Sky Stacker "Out Of Memory"

[laser_jock99]

Was experimenting with DSS 2x drizzle mode this morning (3x 70Mb Tiff files) and keep getting out of memory errors.

Is there something in DSS settings I'm missing or maybe on the PC settings itself?

The PC is an i7 with 16Gb RAM.

[jgs001]

When you run with drizzle in DSS, you need to select an ROI subset of the image to drizzle. To do this, on the preview page, in the tools on the right, there's a red box... select that and place the appropriate (2x or 3x drizzle) box on the original image.

[Earl]

is DSS a 64 bit app, if not it wont see above 4gb anyway even on 64bit OS

[laser_jock99]

When you run with drizzle in DSS, you need to select an ROI subset of the image to drizzle. To do this, on the preview page, in the tools on the right, there's a red box... select that and place the appropriate (2x or 3x drizzle) box on the original image.

I did not select any region of interest so that might be an issue? I'm interested in the whole picture as it happens.....

is DSS a 64 bit app, if not it wont see above 4gb anyway even on 64bit OS

Earl- you're probably right there. So do I need to get a 64 bit graphics program to make use of the 16Mb RAM? The whole point of biulding this new PC was to get over the 4Gb limit on my old machine!

According to Microsoft:

Physical Memory Limits: Windows 7

The following table specifies the limits on physical memory for Windows 7.

Version                                Limit on X86                                    Limit on X64

Windows 7 Ultimate             4 GB                                                192 GB

Windows 7 Enterprise         4 GB                                                192 GB

Windows 7 Professional      4 GB                                                192 GB

Windows 7 Home Premium  4 GB                                               16 GB

Windows 7 Home Basic       4 GB                                               8 GB

Windows 7 Starter              2 GB                                               N/A

Since I've only installed Wndows 7 Home Premium 64 bit I'm already one the top end of available RAM. On reflection I should have brought Windows 7 Professional for possible future RAM upgrades......

[jgs001]

I'm not sure, but I recall reading somewhere, that with drizzle, due to the huge leap in memory requirements (4x with 2x drizzle, and 9x with 3x drizzle) required for processing, that, if the source images are too large, to use drizzle, you have to select the ROI box. I'd guess that DSS is 32 bit.

[Earl]

Yep to take advantage over 4 gb, OS and applications need to both be 64 bit

over 16gb benefits are really in the video editing world, i have 32 gb and its no better than 16

[laser_jock99]

Yep to take advantage over 4 gb, OS and applications need to both be 64 bit

over 16gb benefits are really in the video editing world, i have 32 gb and its no better than 16

This then  has implications with my image processing software (another RAM limited bottleneck) - since I don't want to pay Adobe for CS5 64bit (and I don't like the idea of subscription based software anyway) it will have to be Corel Paintshop Pro 6x (which I believe is 64 bit and 1/10th the price).

I think there is a 64 bit version of GIMP now ?

[malc-c]

DSS is only a 32bit app so no matter what RAM you have it can only address slightly less than 4 GB RAM.  From communications with the author some time ago, after upgrading my PC to a 6 core 3GHZ 16 GB DDR3 1600 ram to overcome this issue it seems there is no enthusiasm to recompile the application as a 64bit app.  This is a shame as the application has some nice features, but anything other than the default settings causes a memory error.

[laser_jock99]

Yep 64 bit DSS would be nice in this day and age of cheap RAM and large CCD's. Still I guess it would be a huge project to re-write?

DSS (32 bit) might be okay for those old, small astro CCD cameras but anyone using big chip DSLR cameras will probably hit this particular wall!

[malc-c]

I don't think it's a case of re-writting the application, it's probably a case of money to purchase the 64bit compiler.

Reading some of the replies on the Yahoo group and the FAQ's I got the impression that DSS was something written a while ago before 64bit machines were common place.  However I do feel that the information on the wiki is misleading

While stacking large images memory errors or crashes can occur. This exhibits itself with 'strange' behavior. Empty dialog boxes or one with just an exclamation point '!' are shown. The first thing to do is to disable drizzling. Drizzling uses a great deal of memory and the current 32b version of DSS can not always allocate what it needs. If you insist on drizzling you must use a custom rectangle (http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/technical.htm) to restrict the area that will be stacked.

If things still don't work it could be that your computer does not match your images. In other words if you have a camera that generates large images and you're trying to process those on a computer with limited resources (memory, CPU) you may find that this doesn't work. Optimize your computer by first rebooting and then exiting all software that's not absolutely required. This will free up the largest possible amount of memory for DSS. Consider upgrading your PC, they're cheap. Get a machine with Windows 7 64b and at least 4GB of memory. A multi-core CPU will help a great deal.

That last paragraph is very poor indeed,  It gives the impression that throwing multicore processors and shed loads of ram in a  machine will help with memory issues - its total rubbish - as the application will never access more than the 3.5GB addressable RAM that a 32bit application is limited to.

[laser_jock99]

I don't think it's a case of re-writting the application, it's probably a case of money to purchase the 64bit compiler.

Reading some of the replies on the Yahoo group and the FAQ's I got the impression that DSS was something written a while ago before 64bit machines were common place.  However I do feel that the information on the wiki is misleading

That last paragraph is very poor indeed,  It gives the impression that throwing multicore processors and shed loads of ram in a  machine will help with memory issues - its total rubbish - as the application will never access more than the 3.5GB addressable RAM that a 32bit application is limited to.

Are there any alternatives to DSS that are 64 bit?

[Earl]

PixInsight its awesome.

[garethmob]

i got this error message, was running with 20X 16mb images with 22 darks.  ended up giving up on drizzle (as i didnt understand what it did any way) and jsut did normal.     i was running a brand new (i bought it just for astro) HP laptop 8gig ram windows 8.1 and 2.5ghz quadcore 64 bit processer. 

[malc-c]

Are there any alternatives to DSS that are 64 bit?

Yes there are, but not free like DSS.

From the e-mail conversations I had with the author at the time I queried the issue, I go the feeling that as the program suited his needs there was "no need" to re-compile the code for DSS as a 64bit application, and that you took it "as is"