Memory problem

[Arnir]

I have 512MB Ram, if that comes into play.

If I am playing CK and have to leave for a while and put the game on pause, as opposed to quitting, when I come back (after several hours, I don't know how long for sure) I have a triangle warning icon in my systray telling me that XP was allocating more virtual memory and some programs may be denied access. I have never received this before installing CK.

I'm running v1.01.

 

[State Machine]

I haven't gotten that specifically, but I notice that CK uses a lot of the CPU when at pause (and I'm doing other stuff).

 

[Grosshaus]

Seems like a tech issue to me

 

[Ibn]

I have 512MB Ram, if that comes into play.

If I am playing CK and have to leave for a while and put the game on pause, as opposed to quitting, when I come back (after several hours, I don't know how long for sure) I have a triangle warning icon in my systray telling me that XP was allocating more virtual memory and some programs may be denied access. I have never received this before installing CK.

I'm running v1.01.

If you dont mind advice from a bored technician....

Sounds like you need to allocate more virtual memory, windows may be doing silly things when left to its own devices as far as setting the size of the virtual space..

I strongly suggest setting the minimum and maximum values to 1024 megs, this takes away the ability of XP to pretend it knows what it is doing, while leaving you with more ram then anything will ever ask for.

Assuming you have an extra gig of hard drive space, (if you dont, buy a new drive, they are very cheap now days) do the following;

1. Open 'System' in Control Panel.
2. On the Advanced tab, under 'Performance', click 'Settings'.
3. On the Advanced tab, under 'Virtual memory', click 'Change'.
4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.
5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and type a new paging file size in megabytes (1024) in the Initial size (MB) box, then type 1024 into the Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

You will be forced to reboot after doing this.

I suggest defragging your hard drive after the reboot for proper performance. Before defragging delete all your temp files, and clear the cache of your browser, the easiest way to do this is as follows;
goto start->programs->accessories->system tools->Disk Cleanup and select your drive, select all the options except 'compress files' that ones a bad idea, then click 'OK'

(If your using mozilla or opera I'm sure you already know how to clear their cache )

good luck

 

[Castellon]

Okay let's try some standard things.
1) Rename the AVI folder to AVI_back
2) Set the color depth to 16BIT
3) Turn off everything in the background like E-mail/ICQ/Messenger, Virus protection and everything in the system tray beside the clock

 

[State Machine]

I am not sure if the original poster indicated that he had an actual problem - just an observation about system resources of the game - and, by implication, a bug in the game. Ditto by me...

GH, move the thread here, which may be right or wrong.

Anyway, I shall pursue some of the suggestions mentioned.

 

[Castellon]

If you are getting memory errors report by the system then this is the forum you want to be in. But since you have the ear of a bug mod then you can do double duty just in case.

 

[unmerged(12746)]

I have 512MB Ram, if that comes into play.

If I am playing CK and have to leave for a while and put the game on pause, as opposed to quitting, when I come back (after several hours, I don't know how long for sure) I have a triangle warning icon in my systray telling me that XP was allocating more virtual memory and some programs may be denied access. I have never received this before installing CK.

I'm running v1.01.

I had the same problem, scroll down the page and read Ibn's post, you need to allocate more memory yourself. XP will do it everytime but will CTD in the process while the game is running. Follow IBN's post you should be okay. I did it and havent had a CTD since.

 

[kehnn]

1. Open 'System' in Control Panel.
2. On the Advanced tab, under 'Performance', click 'Settings'.
3. On the Advanced tab, under 'Virtual memory', click 'Change'.
4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.
5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and type a new paging file size in megabytes (1024) in the Initial size (MB) box, then type 1024 into the Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

You will be forced to reboot after doing this.

I suggest defragging your hard drive after the reboot for proper performance. Before defragging delete all your temp files, and clear the cache of your browser, the easiest way to do this is as follows;
goto start->programs->accessories->system tools->Disk Cleanup and select your drive, select all the options except 'compress files' that ones a bad idea, then click 'OK'

Another suggestion.....to avoid having issues with needing to defrag for the sake of virtual memory in the future.....create another drive partition on your system...when modifying your virtual memory as described above, set your virtual memory on the c drive to 0 and place your 1GB (or whatever value you're setting- somewhere between 1X to 1.5X your physical memory is the usual suggestion) on the newly created partition.

And, of course, don't put anything else in that partition...

 

[jGeee]

Ehh

Optimizing your system, great... I believe there is a more basic problem. If I alt-tab out of this game before I even start a scenario, just at the first screen, there is already 200MB of memory being used. I started EU2 just for a comparison and it is only using 50MB at the first screen.

I don't remember the exact number but after playing for a bit the memory usage was much higher then 200MB.

Even with everything you have to keep track of in the game it still seems like a lot.

I wouldnt mind if it used just half of this, but with 1.5GHz system and 640 RDRAM I shouldn't be having problems with memory with this game.

 

[Castellon]

Please run a DirectX Diagnostic:
Start menu –Run - then type Dxdiag, then select each tab across the top of the window, and run the tests on each tab. Then select “Save All Information” button in the lower right of the window. This will bring up a dialog box to allow you to select a name for the file where the information will be saved. You can save it right on the desktop as this will make it easy to find. Then copy the contents of that file from the start to the heading that says “DirectX components” then paste what you have copied into a post in this thread.

 

[Ibn]

I just noticed in the other memory related thread that I wasn't explicit enough, so here we go;
Do NOT set your virtual memory size to 2048 or greater. Make sure the total amount of real ram and virtual ram do not exceed 2048. This can cause all sorts of odd problems, including the rather ironic "not enough memory" error message. (Obviously if you are running windows server 2003 (4096 meg limit) or the 64bit edition of XP (16 terabyte limit) with an opteron this does not apply, but for everyone else it sure does)

In other words, if you have 512 megs of ram going up to 1536 is just fine, if you have 1 gig of ram don’t exceed 1024, etc...

While I'm at it, the old 1.5 times you ram for the virtual space was advice from the Windows 95 days, and is quite irrelevant with XP or windows 2000.

As was pointed out above, creating a partition for the sole purpose of the virtual swap file is a fine idea, but far beyond easy for most folks. The goal is to make sure your 1gig block of virtual memory is contiguous, instead of scattered all over the drive (fragged), and the next goal is to make sure it is as close to the outer edge of the drive as possible where access to the fake ram is fastest. This can be done using a tool, such as Partition Magic, but messing with partitions is not something I suggest for most people, if you screw up you'll more then likely be reformatting the hard drive.

If you really want to have a well running drive without the chance of destroying all your data, I suggest buying a nice defragging tool (the built in windows tool is feeble), in my experience the past couple decades, Perfectdisk (from Raxco) is a great tool for this, it runs about $40 though.


Good luck

 

[FrEDa]

I just noticed in the other memory related thread that I wasn't explicit enough, so here we go;
Do NOT set your virtual memory size to 2048 or greater. Make sure the total amount of real ram and virtual ram do not exceed 2048. This can cause all sorts of odd problems, including the rather ironic "not enough memory" error message. (Obviously if you are running windows server 2003 (4096 meg limit) or the 64bit edition of XP (16 terabyte limit) with an opteron this does not apply, but for everyone else it sure does)

In other words, if you have 512 megs of ram going up to 1536 is just fine, if you have 1 gig of ram don’t exceed 1024, etc...

While I'm at it, the old 1.5 times you ram for the virtual space was advice from the Windows 95 days, and is quite irrelevant with XP or windows 2000.

As was pointed out above, creating a partition for the sole purpose of the virtual swap file is a fine idea, but far beyond easy for most folks. The goal is to make sure your 1gig block of virtual memory is contiguous, instead of scattered all over the drive (fragged), and the next goal is to make sure it is as close to the outer edge of the drive as possible where access to the fake ram is fastest. This can be done using a tool, such as Partition Magic, but messing with partitions is not something I suggest for most people, if you screw up you'll more then likely be reformatting the hard drive.

If you really want to have a well running drive without the chance of destroying all your data, I suggest buying a nice defragging tool (the built in windows tool is feeble), in my experience the past couple decades, Perfectdisk (from Raxco) is a great tool for this, it runs about $40 though.


Good luck

I assume letting Windows handle this automatically means it won't exceede the 2048 limit?

Since you seem in-the-know, what's best. Fixed or automatic? What size etc?

/F

 

[Ibn]

Nope, windows will never exceed the limit on auto. The primary issue with letting windows handle the virtual memory, well, I'll just quote here, from techweb, to save time;

Virtual memory is a "swap file" on your hard drive that acts as an extension of your RAM. When Windows runs short of RAM, it uses the virtual memory space to free up RAM by temporarily moving -- swapping -- chunks of data temporarily to your hard drive until they're needed again. On its own, Windows creates what's called a dynamic swap file: the file grows and shrinks as needed.

Trouble is, growing and shrinking the swap file takes time and CPU cycles, and prevents your hard drive from doing anything else until the resizing is complete. And as a swap file grows, piecemeal, it can end up scattered in several locations across your hard drive. Combined, the extra housekeeping needed to monitor and manage the size of the file and the time lost in dealing with swap file fragments can make Windows seem sluggish.

That is why we want 1 big block of hard drive space that never changes size and isn't fragmented. We save cpu time and increase system responsiveness by killing all the management processes windows loves to engage in.

The best solution is buying more ram, but that isn't feasible for most folks, and hard drive space is cheap, so I suggest setting it to 1024 megs, modern drives are so huge using 1gig as a permanent swap file makes sense. Only high end professional, or server, applications will ever ask for more then a gig of ram, even the craziest games out there won't use more then 750megs at the moment, so you wont have a problem with out of memory errors or the like....

Have fun

 

[Ibn]

Ahh, while I'm giving suggestions, I noticed that perfectdisk is available for a free 30 day trail. That should be more than enough time to defrag your drive

http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/perfectdisk2000_download.cfm

If you are paranoid about giving out your email address, you should check out this wonderful free service;

http://www.mailinator.com/mailinator/Welcome.do

 

[FrEDa]

Nope, windows will never exceed the limit on auto. The primary issue with letting windows handle the virtual memory, well, I'll just quote here, from techweb, to save time;

Virtual memory is a "swap file" on your hard drive that acts as an extension of your RAM. When Windows runs short of RAM, it uses the virtual memory space to free up RAM by temporarily moving -- swapping -- chunks of data temporarily to your hard drive until they're needed again. On its own, Windows creates what's called a dynamic swap file: the file grows and shrinks as needed.

Trouble is, growing and shrinking the swap file takes time and CPU cycles, and prevents your hard drive from doing anything else until the resizing is complete. And as a swap file grows, piecemeal, it can end up scattered in several locations across your hard drive. Combined, the extra housekeeping needed to monitor and manage the size of the file and the time lost in dealing with swap file fragments can make Windows seem sluggish.

That is why we want 1 big block of hard drive space that never changes size and isn't fragmented. We save cpu time and increase system responsiveness by killing all the management processes windows loves to engage in.

The best solution is buying more ram, but that isn't feasible for most folks, and hard drive space is cheap, so I suggest setting it to 1024 megs, modern drives are so huge using 1gig as a permanent swap file makes sense. Only high end professional, or server, applications will ever ask for more then a gig of ram, even the craziest games out there won't use more then 750megs at the moment, so you wont have a problem with out of memory errors or the like....

Have fun

Danke, suspected you would say that though. Wouldn't the big swap space still get fragmented in itself even if a fixed size (but only the data stored there as opposed to the file itself and the data) unless there some very shrewed algorithm. Ah well, it all depends on how they've designed it and what partition you're using for it I guess..

I usually have it on my temp partition, but perhaps it's wiser to put it on a less accessed partition, perhaps even a seperate HD.

/F

 

[Ibn]

I keep mine on front edge of another drive as well, it is the best overall solution.

No, it will not get fragmented once you have it in a big contiguous block even on the main drive, as the space it is using will never change. That is, windows XP will check the 'MFT', master file table, to see where it can write data (or the FAT in win 98), it always takes the next available free sector when writing new data.

However, it is rather difficult to fully optimize the swap file into 1 big block, simply because windows is using it as ram. The easiest way to fully optimize it is an 'offline' defrag, you tell your software (like perfectdisk) to defrag the paging file. It will need to reboot the machine and run the defrag before windows loads up. After this is done you never need to do it again

If you dont feel like using a real defrag tool, but your really picky about this stuff, you need to set the swap file size to zero (0), minimum and maximum, reboot, run the feeble windows defrag, reboot, then set the swap file to 1024 minimum and maximum. Though it would be quicker just to use a better tool, which has no problem defragmenting multiple drives at once as well as being faster on a single drive

If you want to understand a bit more about NTFS in windows xp (or FAT32), read this from microsoft, it has everything and some nice tweaks buried in there, and I’ve got a basketball game to watch

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_buvl.asp

If you'd like something with a wee bit less information then the link above, this is nice;
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/ntfs-pf.htm

Have fun

 

[Arnir]

Howdy folks. I appreciate all the info and will try it out as soon as I get a chance.

I'll let you know how it turns out, but right now I'm caught in the corrupted save game issues. Still love the game though.

 

[FrEDa]

I keep mine on front edge of another drive as well, it is the best overall solution.

No, it will not get fragmented once you have it in a big contiguous block even on the main drive, as the space it is using will never change. That is, windows XP will check the 'MFT', master file table, to see where it can write data (or the FAT in win 98), it always takes the next available free sector when writing new data.

Not the file itself, but depending on how the allocation is in regards to different processes requesting space, the data stored by a specific process (request instances) might get somewhat fragmented (i.e. not stored continuessly) if another process puts in a reguest in between writes.. unless it's locked access, in which case we could still end up with fragmented data (though not very related) from the same process (like a game) but not 'same request' instance being fragmented.. but that's inherent in the system.

That's what I was saying.. not very important.. but..

/F

 

[Owen]

Hmm. Ibn, do you know whether the process of setting virtual memory min/max is any different with Win98SE? Thanks.

Also, has anyone who has had this memory problem had any joy from resetting to 16-bit colour, as Castellon has suggested may be the answer?