Salome-Meca-2008.1 error: Could not get dma buffer

Hello all,

I am encountering a strange, but sporadic problem with Salome-Meca-2008.1 running on Ubuntu Hardy (8.04). Frequently, but not every time upon opening a the GEOM module (New File) SalomeMeca crashes with an error in the terminal window:

*********************************WARN_ONCE*********************************
File r300_mem.c function r300_mem_alloc line 225
Ran out of GART memory (for 1048576)!
Please consider adjusting GARTSize option.
***************************************************************************
Error: Could not get dma buffer... exiting

Also this happens after using the SalomeMeca GEOM module for sometime. This may be a complex problem to solve, but can anybody suggest where I should be looking?

I am running on the following hardware:
AMD Athlon(tm) cpu MHz: 2174.271
MemTotal: 1035372 kB
VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AS [Radeon 9550]
Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AS [Radeon 9550] (Secondary)

So far I have tried:
a) logging out and back in
b) rebooting
c) pulling my hair out...

None of the above helped!

Thank you,
JMB