How to avoid crashing when applying particle system with 10 000 000+ polys? I have a pine tree. I made needles with particles. Particle are meshes of small needles, around ~10 polys each.

The number of particles i have is big, needles make around 10kk polys on that tree.

Here is the problem: when i try to apply(convert) particles from modifiers menu, the blender crashes. It just processes task infinitely. I left my PC working for 50+ hours, and it did not worked out.

I think the problem may be this: when applying particles, blender does not kill original particle system, and after applying you end up with applied meshes + particle system itself. So it basically meshes on top of each other. In my case this gives us 20kk + polys, quite big.

Is there a way i can "kill" that particle system while applying particles? Because i think it may be the reason blender is crashing.
First of all I would think about the necessity of 10 polys per 1 needle. Since 1 would be enough, it would reduce the polycount to a tenth. In case you need a close up, I would suggest setting up another tree with higher density settings. This workflow maybe does not bring you into your " particle kill situation".