11 replies to this topic

[Hayashi]

Can I check with the dev team if the MechWarrior Online client is 64 bit or 32 bit?

The cause of Crash-To-Desktop errors in many games tends to be running out of RAM - and I believe 32-bit clients only utilise 2 GB of RAM, regardless of how much RAM your hardware can provide.

Perhaps upturning the 4 GB utilisation flag might help with things, if it hasn't been done already.

I was attempting to experiment using the tool http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php to force the MWOClient to run with extra RAM to see if it would reduce the rate of CTDs, but the client blocked any intervention by the tool.

Perhaps if the possibility has not yet been considered, the devs can experiment seeing if this solves the issue. Most computers really have 8 GB RAM nowadays anyway, and many of us up to 24 GB.

[Skyfaller]

The memory leak is not system ram. its video ram.

system ram leaks tend to show up on system monitoring tools as a massive spike. This doesn't happen here. Video memory on the other hand.. if you have monitoring tools for it, you will see it being a steady amount and when you get 4fps and check the tool it's spiked to the top and stays there.

something in the code is not flushing vid memory correctly.

...and it is a cryengine 3 issue. This only begun to happen the very day of the engine upgrade.

[focuspark]

32-bit software can address up to 4GB of memory if direct byte addressing is used.

That said, and OOM error isn't happening because you don't have enough RAM.

I should add that the entirety of MWO is only about 1.7GB in size. This includes all textures, models, everything.

[sycocys]

I'm in agreement that if it's happening it's a video ram issue - can you divert more of your physical ram to video processing via some software work around?

I don't have the frames issue with 1 gig of video ram so that may be where the point to aim for is.

[focuspark]

sycocys, on 30 November 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

I'm in agreement that if it's happening it's a video ram issue - can you divert more of your physical ram to video processing via some software work around?

I don't have the frames issue with 1 gig of video ram so that may be where the point to aim for is.

No. That's the job of the operating system and the device driver.

Recommendation: lower visual fidelity to see if that solves the problem.
Recommendation: make sure you have the most up to date GPU driver you can get your hands on.

[Nakuru]

It's been some time since the last update to this thread, but I feel something needs to be added here.

Several patches ago, I'd crash randomly with a Cryengine error telling me it had a memory allocation error. This went on for some time until, finally, one patch seemed to fix it. Only, it didn't quite do that. Instead, I crashed regularly. Specifically, I could do exactly 3 matches without a problem, but I had to restart my client by the fourth, otherwise it'd either give me a black screen and stop working, or crash with a Cryengine error.

About 2 weeks ago, I made an upgrade to my computer. Specifically, I upgraded from 4GB of RAM to 12GB, and I now dual-boot with Windows XP and Windows 7 64 bit instead of straight to Windows XP 32 bit. Nothing else had been changed, and my video card is an ATI Radeon 6570 with 1GB of memory, as it was before the upgrade. When I boot into Windows 7 to play, I have yet to have any issues whatsoever. No unexpected slowdowns, the textures in the mech lab are finally showing up properly, and no crashes at all. Being a Professional Procrastinator, I haven't made any attempts to see how it's running in Windows XP since the upgrade, but I would expect little to no change since Windows XP can't really access the extra RAM. But, computers tend to be very touchy and do unexpected things, so I won't know for sure until I get around to trying it.

Can any conclusions be drawn from this? Maybe. I won't say anything for sure, though. But this information might be useful to someone regarding this topic.

[focuspark]

It sounds like a lot changed in your system. When you did the RAM upgrade did you keep any of the old DIMMs or just replace them out right? If one of those was bad it could have been cause the issue, but that would have been odd for it to be just with MW:O.

More than likely it's the difference between WinXP and Win7 that you're seeing. Win7 is two generations and 7 years newer technology wise than WinXP. New memory management, new disk management, new networking stack, etc. One major difference is the device driver model radically changed for graphics devices (aka GPUs) between WinXP and Vista (Win7 uses Vista's model). More than likely the Radeon driver you get for Win7 is completely different from the one you get for WinXP. It's also likely far more tested by AMD's QA department.

Basically, if you're still using XP and stuff doesn't work don't be surprised.

[xenoglyph]

In response to Hayashi:

The game client is 32 bit and is compiled with LargeAddressAware option, thus negating the necessity for the patch.

Source: "Characteristics" field of File Header within the NT Header within the PE Header, value 0x123

Edited by xenoglyph, 11 December 2012 - 03:20 AM.

[xenoglyph]

focuspark, on 30 November 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

32-bit software can address up to 4GB of memory if direct byte addressing is used.

That said, and OOM error isn't happening because you don't have enough RAM.

I should add that the entirety of MWO is only about 1.7GB in size. This includes all textures, models, everything.

Correction: the entirety of MWO when compressed is only about 1.7GB in size.

It's not readily apparent what the true uncompressed size of some of the resources are because even the compressed data files contain files that are themselves compressed.

Edited by xenoglyph, 11 December 2012 - 03:13 AM.

[Nakuru]

I kept the original two DIMMs in it. I just added 8GB more.

[focuspark]

Then it's likely WinXP vs Win7.

@xenoglyph DirectX supports compressed in memory textures, which are likely the bulk of MW:O's size. Compressed textures are way to go because PCI bandwidth is at a premium.

[Hayashi]

xenoglyph, on 11 December 2012 - 03:01 AM, said:

In response to Hayashi: The game client is 32 bit and is compiled with LargeAddressAware option, thus negating the necessity for the patch. Source: "Characteristics" field of File Header within the NT Header within the PE Header, value 0x123

Thanks for the information. Guess this idea's not going to work out after all then, and we'd have to look to either further bugfixes or DirectX 11 functionality to address the memory allocation problems.