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LabVIEW 2016 High RAM Usage

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I just upgraded to LabVIEW 2016 from LabVIEW 2015. Previously I have had no memory issues. With 2016, though, even when I have a few VIs open, sitting idle, LabVIEW alone is using 3 GB of my RAM. Since I only have 4 GB, it slows my computer to a crawl. Has anyone else experienced these issues with 2016, or does anyone have a solution to reduce the amount of RAM LabVIEW requires? Thanks for the help.

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Message 1 of 7
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Well, more advanced versions of LabVIEW, particularly with more advanced versions of the Windows OS, you might want a slightly more "modern" PC (I recall, when Windows XP came out, we started strongly recommending 8GB of memory).

 

I just look at my laptop.  Without LabVIEW running, 2.9GB of memory are used.  With LabVIEW 2016 and a 20-30 VI Project loaded, about 3.1GB of memory is showing (LabVIEW, itself, seems to need about 153MB, going up to 164MB when the Project is open).

 

It's not NI or LabVIEW's fault that you are trying to run it on a seriously-underpowered PC ...

 

Bob Schor

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Sorry I don't agree. NI still makes 32 bit LabVIEW, which if used on a 32 bit computer can only address a maximum of 3GB of RAM if you tweak a setting. If you are using 32 bit LabVIEW on 64 bits then 4GB is the max memory. If the vi's were working fine on an older version of LabVIEW, then they should work on the new version. This seems like a bug.

 

mcduff

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Accepted by topic author nrpratt

One of my colleagues has some "cheap" laptops that are similarly configured with minimal memory (4GB).  Even when running Windows XP (which, I think, is smaller and needs less RAM than, say, Windows 7/8/10), it was painfully slow to do anything (can you say "Wait 5 minutes for the OS to load"?).

 

When Windows is "doing its thing" properly, it typically creates a Swap file so that software can utilize more than 4GB of memory space for itself.  As I noted in my response, LabVIEW 2016, when loaded, appears to take a small fraction of this (a few hundred MB), even with code and block diagrams open.  Still, if your PC takes many minutes to boot up, runs extremely slowly when doing routine tasks, and is either "old" or ridiculously short of memory, it may be wise to either (a) upgrade your memory (if you can), or (b) upgrade your PC to at least a machine with 8GB.  Remember, you're using the PC to run LabVIEW, a robust programming/Data Acquisition/Instrument I/O platform, not surf the Web, do e-mail, or (hmm, I was going to say "play games", but games are evolving too, and tend to put even more demands on PC hardware than LabVIEW, so never mind ...).

 

Bob Schor

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It's difficult to offer much, if any, help given what you've shared.

 

Can you define "no memory problems" in numerical terms?  You clearly weren't at 0% usage.  Where were you at before?

 

When you say LV alone is using 3GB, do you mean when you open LV it increases by 3GB or up to 3GB?

 

Do you still have 2015 installed on that PC?  If so, can you compare what you see now?

 

"when I have a few VIs open."  What do you see before you open those VIs?  How much of a change do you see after you open them?  If you open a blank VI instead, do you see the same gain?  If not, what is the VI doing?   Is it loading anything else?

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@nrpratt wrote:

I just upgraded to LabVIEW 2016 from LabVIEW 2015. Previously I have had no memory issues. With 2016, though, even when I have a few VIs open, sitting idle, LabVIEW alone is using 3 GB of my RAM. Since I only have 4 GB, it slows my computer to a crawl. Has anyone else experienced these issues with 2016, or does anyone have a solution to reduce the amount of RAM LabVIEW requires? Thanks for the help.


Are these numbers from the task manager? How does it change over time?

Did you just load a 2015 VI with many dependencies into 2016? The conversion and recompile might need to load a lot of things in memory that would otherwise not be there. Do you still see the problem once you save everything in 2016?

 

In comparison, I currently have a few VIs open (7 windows) in 2016 and task manager shows a total memopry usage of 67MB. That's nothing!

 

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Loading and running one of my larger projects from scratch uses 283MB in LabVIEW 2015 but only 268MB in LabVIEW 2016, so 2016 seems to be even slightly leaner.

 

However, the first time I loaded it in 2016, it used slightly over 400MB during the recompile phase (I seperate the compiled code), so the conversion/recompile is definitely more resource hungry. On the next load things should be back to normal, or even better. 😉

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