How much is a 'Ton' of system memory? Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

6gb DDR3 triple channel running on a Core i7 920 with Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

Task manager only reports about 2.5gb max being used by the entire system while Power Director is running and then it crashes out.

It could be something to do with your hardware set up. Although you have 6GB on your system, all of your memory may not be utilized. Here's what Microsoft says:

"For Windows Vista to use all 4 GB of memory on a computer that has 4 GB of memory installed, the computer must meet the following requirements:

* The chipset must support at least 8 GB of address space. Chipsets that have this capability include the following:
o Intel 975X
o Intel P965
o Intel 955X on Socket 775
o Chipsets that support AMD processors that use socket F, socket 940, socket 939, or socket AM2. These chipsets include any AMD socket and CPU combination in which the memory controller resides in the CPU.

* The CPU must support the x64 instruction set. The AMD64 CPU and the Intel EM64T CPU support this instruction set.

* The BIOS must support the memory remapping feature. The memory remapping feature allows for the segment of system memory that was previously overwritten by the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) configuration space to be remapped above the 4 GB address line. This feature must be enabled in the BIOS configuration utility on the computer. View your computer product documentation for instructions that explain how to enable this feature. Many consumer-oriented computers may not support the memory remapping feature. No standard terminology is used in documentation or in BIOS configuration utilities for this feature. Therefore, you may have to read the descriptions of the various BIOS configuration settings that are available to determine whether any of the settings enable the memory remapping feature.

* An x64 (64-bit) version of Windows Vista must be used.

Contact the computer vendor to determine whether your computer meets these requirements.

Note When the physical RAM that is installed on a computer equals the address space that is supported by the chipset, the total system memory that is available to the operating system is always less than the physical RAM that is installed. For example, consider a computer that has an Intel 975X chipset that supports 8 GB of address space. If you install 8 GB of RAM, the system memory that is available to the operating system will be reduced by the PCI configuration requirements. In this scenario, PCI configuration requirements reduce the memory that is available to the operating system by an amount that is between approximately 200 MB and approximately 1 GB. The reduction depends on the configuration."

What this all means is that your system hardware setup may not be able to use all of the memory that you have installed. If you built this computer yourself, make sure that you have installed the ram in the correct slots and that your bios is able to access all of the memory as well.

Thanks, but yeah, I know what I'm doing, this has an X58 chipset that is capable of supporting 12GB of ram, and the ram is installed correctly.

Windows reports the correct amount of memory and it is all configured properly running 64-bit etc.

What I am saying is that PD7 seems to be the thing that is having the problem and incorrectly reporting it as "not enough system memory". It's entirely possible that the file I was trying to render was beyond the capabilities of PD7 as it was an AVCHD file with very high quality settings. The software itself and the C++ libraries it uses may not be able to handle the large memory footprint it created while trying to render.

Quote:
What I am saying is that PD7 seems to be the thing that is having the problem and incorrectly reporting it as "not enough system memory". It's entirely possible that the file I was trying to render was beyond the capabilities of PD7 as it was an AVCHD file with very high quality settings. The software itself and the C++ libraries it uses may not be able to handle the large memory footprint it created while trying to render.

Have you tried in 32-bit compatibility mode? Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.