32bit Issue

Photivo crashes on 32bit systems when a large image (about 10 Mpx or more) is opened in 1:1 pipe.

To better understand the details about this, first have a look at the Processing and Pipe size sections on the Workflow page.

The problem on 32bit systems is the 2 GB RAM limit per process. It doesn’t matter how much RAM you actually have installed in your computer, a single process (like Photivo) cannot use more than 2 GB. With large images (about 10 Mpx or more) and the 1:1 pipe Photivo reaches this limit. So what to do about this? One possibility is to reduce the caches which would slow down Photivo and would still fail once you start using even larger files (e.g. 18 Mpx) with the next camera generation.

I finally know how to prevent the crash (although this will take a while to implement), but the actual issue is Photivo’s necessary hunger for memory clashing with an inherent limitation of the 32bit architecture. The design of Photivo, large images and 32bit systems just don’t match well.

However, there is a nice workaround besides getting a 64bit system and lots of RAM.

As you know from the Workflow page, most filters act more or less the same on all pipe sizes. So working with a smaller pipe still gives you an accurate preview of the final 1:1 result. The only exception are some of the denoise and sharpen filters, that might need adjustment for 1:1 output. To get a non-crashing 1:1 preview, crop the piece of your image where you want to judge denoising and sharpening (keep it to not more than like 1/2 of the full image) and switch to 1:1 pipe. Photivo won’t crash now. Wenn you are done configuring your denoise and sharpen filters go back to 1:2 (or less), choose your final crop and export with the full size option in the context menu of the save button.

Meanwhile the 1:1 detail view is implemented, this works (with reasonable crops) also on 32 bit systems.