I just wanted to say thank you to Stephane for an amazing piece of software! Been using it for a couple of years for fun, but I recently got the M1 16G IPad Pro 1terabyte to get serious with the program after seeing Glen Southern’s video where he was talking about Nomad being able to access more Ram with the recent IOS and pushing his machine around 40M polys…
This being a new IPad, it basically has a very minimal amount of apps installed so loads of free space and no clutter app or file wise.
For fun I have been testing how high I can go in terms of poly count (around 30-35 sometimes) BUT the app always crashes when trying to save a document higher then 22M polys or so. Basically the moment the memory readout turns a bit orange. This happens with no post-process effects on of course.
Is this normal? Is it an average behaviour with this amount of ram? I’m on IOS 15.2.1
Are there other M1 users that can create and save documents higher than 22M polys? Is there anything I can do to help Nomad be more optimal? I mean, what’s the use of being able to go as high as 35M polys if the app crashes when trying to save a document at 22…
And yes I know 22M or more is a very high number of polys and it’s a bit ludicrous to try and work with so many polys on an iPad, but I basically want to know if this is happening only on my machine with these specs.
That’s normal. System resources are high, high in demand at that point - other benefactors will be playing their role, like throttling of the chip & severe power usage. These have to be taken into consideration also. Also depends how much % you have when trying to save, if the M1 has switched to its lower cores, it’s asking for a lot of work horse at 22M worth of live 3D rendering. Glen made a point of mentioning in an online post after 32M it largely became moot territory, 40M was pretty much when it died - and I suspect he was just hitting ‘subdivide’ and checking the read out, maybe trying a camera rotation - not further sculpting & creating. If in doubt, save more frequently - and then force restart Nomad. This will clear your built up history, which will free up the additional RAM it was using - which will add back to & refresh the total free. It might also help to optimise your iPad a bit, disabling background tasks, keeping notifications streamlined & fine tuning Location services - all elements that run consistently in the background otherwise.
Cpu speed or power usage likely don’t matter at all here, unless your iPad is burning.
But in that case I suspect the system would shut off, not the app.
It’s likely the memory, it’s always the memory.
If you hit the memory limit it’s over, the app quits.
Do you have layers (not objects, actual layers)?
What matters is the “free/used” RAM info.
Postprocesses and shadows (lights) do take a bit of RAM, but for the latest iPad Pros it’s negligible (memory-wise) compared to the polycount. Around +~100Mb of VRAM.
I don’t have the 16GB iPad so I can’t test, but I don’t think there’s any bug in the save feature.
Because I can save just fine a +50M mesh on my MacOS version.
Try exporting in glb instead, to see if it works.
Internal saving exports in lz4, which is a compressed format. It requires more memory.
Heat can be a troublesome issue, especially if the iPad is in a case with poor ventilation or made from materials that absorb heat quicker. The screen automatically dims as a first tell-tale sign that the internals are beginning to get a bit toasty.
Saving is not a particularly taxing operation, on the contrary, it’s only a single CPU.
All the VRAM is freed and there is no GPU work (which is usually the culprit in heating issue).
Yes I did have a layer per object, about 6 or 7 clones totalling around 23 million polys. That has a big impact on things? Also, my IPad is in a sturdy case, but wasn’t hot when saving.
Whilst heat might not be the underlying issue, I’d pop the iPad out of its case if you’re planning on spending a good session in Nomad, the cooler the device stays the general better - especially for longevity for the battery chemistry. The case might not feel hot, but if you touched the back of the iPad it’d definitely feel pretty cosy. Just remember, if you notice a sudden drop in screen brightness for no other reason, it’s heat build up, try and begin a cooling process (take a break for half hour, best thing!)
Hey Bonaparte, long time no see, I haven’t been on the Procreate forum for a while but from what I remember you doing with procreate in the early days I look forward to seeing what you get up to with Nomad!
I’ve had issues myself with huge meshes with my new M1 iPad until I realised there are still limits to adhere to, I wouldn’t go beyond 10-12million total if you can help it
Hi Steve, I remember you too! Yeah the Procreate forum got deleted at some point when they unveiled their new website, that was a bummer and I never went back, not even to beta test. I don’t think I’ll be diving as deep in Nomad as I did Procreate (time will tell) I use it mainly for fun or pre-visualization for projects but it is an amazing program! Been experimenting with lots of different techniques for some hard surface sculpting, it’s quite interesting!
