Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: hubsonfire on September 10, 2005, 01:03:51 AM
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Skuzzy, I've noticed since 2.051 came out that the game, while showing generally the same higher framerates from the Op tests, would seem sluggish, stuttery, etc.
Noticed at one point that my system memory was just about pegged out. Prior to the update and patch, my machine, on the occasions I checked, was using about 310-350mb of sys mem. Tonight, I noticed it was over 400, and spiking at well over 460 (which would mean all of my avail memory). I was not seeing some of the damage animations, and was not seeing any trees at all, even while flying into them.
Anything in the update to up sys mem usage? Anyone else experiencing similar issues? Something to look at on my end?
Specs and Settings:
AMD xp2400
Asus A7N8X-X
512mb ddr (2700? 166mhz in single channel- only 1 stick at present)
sb128 sound card
FX 5200 256mb agp vid card
Preload textures to vid card.
No preload of anything to sys mem.
All detail sliders at max performance.
1024 x768 rez, 512mb textures, no AA, no AF, V sync on, 60fps limiter in game.
Ran tolerably before Optest, lagging in furballs or near bombers. Ran great through optest 4.
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Turn off preload textures to video card and turn on preload to system memory. Memory usage does grow as skins come into view in the game.
Disable the 60FPS limiter.
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I was running 256 textures prior to the new patch. After the new patch my ram maxed out (768meg). I reduced texture size to 128 and works great.
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Rgr, ty Skuz.
This is going to sound like a stupid question (and it is, in fact), but when you preload the textures and what not, that's not just to speed up getting into the MA, but also determines whether sys mem or vid mem handles a particular texture?
What I mean is, I'd thought preloading all the textures to sys mem simply reduced the load on the card and connection as things were rendered upon login to the arenas. After everything loaded, assumed that the vid card would handle all the dynamic things, and the sys mem would handle the rest. That's an entirely incorrect assumption isn't it?
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No.
Preloading textures to system memory saves the disk access hit in frame rate as the disk is just much slower than RAM. With the textures in system memory, they can almost instantaneously be moved to the video card, as they are needed.
Preloading textures to video RAM simply means the textures are loaded directly to video RAM. If you have enough video RAM and are running small enough texture sizes, and you do not have skins enabled, you might see a performance difference. Otherwise, the video card drivers will simply store the textures in AGP memory space (i.e. system ram) as there is not enough video ram on any card in the market to hold all the textures needed by the game.
Quite frankly, with the updated game, the preload to video ram could cause more performance problems than it helps, depending on the video card and video card driver.
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Ah, okay, makes more sense now. Made the adjustments you suggested, and also went down to 256 textures. Running well again.
Thank you.
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Hmmm. In an ostwind in Ground Vis, suddenly stop seeing any strikes or muzzle animations. Come to a halt, and after a few seconds, trees appear all around me. Hit Ctrl I- RAM usage well over 480mb, card mem usage 25-30mb. This is using the settings you suggested, and at 256mb textures.
Is 512 no longer sufficient to play?
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
Turn off preload textures to video card and turn on preload to system memory. Memory usage does grow as skins come into view in the game.
Disable the 60FPS limiter.
Skuzzy,
My gig of RAM is also near max usage, but I don't have any stutters, invisible trees, etc. My video card rarely uses over 70mb of the available 256. I preload textures to sys RAM using 1024 textures. All game sliders are maxed with everything enabled except water,vsync on, AAx4. I was curious about "Disable the 60FPS limiter"which I have checked. My 50" LCD RPTV is only capable of 60 fps so with vsync on I should be limited to 60 fps, anyway. Is there a reason for me to uncheck this option also.
Thanks,
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i get the stutters to just a touch when the traffic in the area is really high .. 50+ cons id est in area .. I notice the system ram all of a sudden maxes out at 512 when the stutter happens then drops back to 480 area ...
Asus a7n8x -e deluxe
2500+ mobile barton OCed to 2.4 ghz (46c)
512 ddr 3200 crucial
9600 pro 128
win 98se sp 1.5 , dx 9.0c
512 textures 800x600 85hz monitor refresh , unlimited ingame , no preloads ,vsync on , Fps normally running at 85 - 41 low . ingame sliders at about 3/16th from max on left ... mip map and all that stuff is checked ... animated h2o is off.
when the stutter happens it drops to the teens or low 20's ... it never went below 31 befor .
looks like were taking a big ram hit under certian conditions ... the rest of the time the game is playing /running great for me .
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Getting lotsa stutters and freezes. best discribed as momentary pauses.
Have skins and textures preloading on "system" memory and not vid
Limiter not enabled
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Was just in Ground vis mode in a hurricane, trying to strafe flaks ( I can see only the shadows cast by the hull, and the tracers, but not the GVs themselves in other Vis modes). Went from ~410 megs used to a full 510 (note that I only have 512mb total).
What could be causing the huge spikes in usage? These issues are entirely new ones for me.
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Dred, you will not have enough RAM to run with both skins and game textures preloaded. You will be swapping. With all the skins, and at 1024 max texture size it requires more than 1GB of FREE RAM to preload.
Turn down to 512 and you will be fine.
hubs, which video driver are you using (version/date)? You should be using 61.77.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
Dred, you will not have enough RAM to run with both skins and game textures preloaded. You will be swapping. With all the skins, and at 1024 max texture size it requires more than 1GB of FREE RAM to preload.
Turn down to 512 and you will be fine.
hubs, which video driver are you using (version/date)? You should be using 61.77.
Cool. Will give it a shot.
How did you know I had a gig of ram and was running at 1024 tex size? I forgot to list current system specs and dont remember mentioning I had upgraded the ram to a gig LOL
Actually 1024 was the default Tex size the game set up for me when I installed the latest version.
But it did not have the skins and texures boxes checked.
Those I checked off myself after reading to check them on the boards.
Now. should I uncheck them as well as reducing Tex size? or just reduce texture size to 512? Or experiment with a combination of the two and see how it works best for me?
Oh and I did notice a moderate reduction of stutters once I downloaded the skins and installed all at once as opposed to waiting for them ingame.
Just as a note that might help someone else
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You can preload textures, not skins, at 1024. You can preload both at 512, if you have at least 1GB of RAM.
Right now a full preload of both skins and textures requires around 1.5GB of RAM, due to the number of skins.
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61.77, Skuzzy.
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Hubs, also (I was not aware of this until today), if you have moved the distance slider out to maximum distance the game will use more memory now. Try adjusting it in a little bit to see if that helps.
Keep an eye on your system ram usage. If it gets close to full, swapping may occur and that will cause freezing, stuttering, and/or pauses.
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Skuzzy, will cutting view distance change con dot visibility range? And, is the "dot" handling for ground cons different than air cons, with different visability ranges?
I dont mind losing graphic eye candy at range, but changing dot distnace has a big impact on combat engagements...
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The level of detail sliders are all set to max performance, with Distance set all the way to minimum. During the optests, I played with those (normally ran them all at performance, setting them to default only for the optests), and determined they had a big enough hit on performance that I set them all back to performance.
Skuzzy, would deleting the cache help? I'm stumped that I would get improved framerates, but suddenly have something that just tanks the way the game runs. I'm still scratching my head on this one.
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Hubs, something else is going on here. When you are at your desktop and nothing is running, bring up the task manager.
1) How many processes are shown (look in lower left corner, and note if that number changes while watching it)?
2) What does the CPU usage in the lower center do (i.e. what range is it switching around to...watch this number for at least 15 seconds)?
3) In the Peformance tab, what are the numbers under the physical memory (i.e. total, available, used..)?
Next, send me a DXDIAG output.
Appreciate it.
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1) 16 processes with my browser up (excluding Idle and Task Mgr, of course)
2) With my browser up (stuck with dialup for the time being), CPU usage displays as 0% and 4%, reading 0 most of the time, and flashing 4% for a moment, then back to 0.
3)Under the Performance tab
Physical memory (K)
Total 523760
Avail 365100 to 365450 (varies over time)
Sys Cach 397828
Emailing you my DxDiag output now.
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Skuzzy, running at 256 textures, and 1280x1024 res at default Levels of Detail, I saw increased usage at low alt, and on the runway, at A8. A total of maybe 4 aircraft and a few GVs, RAM used went up to 500 plus while on Full Vis Range.
While attacking a land base on one of the small islands in the eastern part of the current map, from a CV, I ran the same settings, in Full and Ground vis ranges (was attacking planes initially, then GVs). At that base (V18, I think), even though I was flying very low, and there were multiple cons, 3 burning/smoking hangars, etc, RAM usage never exceeded 380. Over the water, it was varying from ~310 350. I ran into decreased FPS flying through the smoke, but no appreciable increase in RAM.
In all situations, I was using about 46mb for textures, and 30-40 mb of vid ram. Another thing I noticed later over A8, was that as I climbed to alt, my Sys RAM used decreased, and FPS doubled when I got about about 8k or so. At lower alt, after the RAM used started to sharply increase, my FPS was bouncing back and forth from 30 to 60. At 15k, I was using only 320mb of RAM or there abouts, and the game ran extremely smoothly.
It seems that the ground objects are one major factor here, at least for me.
Anyway, let me know if you need any more info.
Thanks,
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Skuzzy, could corrupted video drivers cause this? Mine finally collapsed the other night, had to get some assistance to diagnose the problem. After reloading my drivers, the game seems to be running better, and (although possibly unrelated), I haven't seen my RAM usage get above 420mb or so.
Just curious, thought I'd see if this were perhaps the cause, or at least a factor.
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Incorrectly installed video drivers can cause a melee of problems. Typically it is due to changing the video card driver without thoroughly removing the previous instance of a driver.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
You can preload textures, not skins, at 1024. You can preload both at 512, if you have at least 1GB of RAM.
Ok had Tex preloaded at 1024 as per your suggestion.
Still getting alot of micro freezes but it was tolerable
Weird thing started happening
Switched from fighting against bish to fighting against rooks and suddenly noticed my FPS dropping into the 20s even with only a few friendlies around
Framerate Status readout in game looked like this
Framerate 26
Vid Mem321.7M used 46.0M cnt =0
System mem 1023.5M used 573.2M TEX=0.0
I have a snapshot of it if you like
Sooo I switched to 512 textures and preloaded.
Really really dont like 512. game doesnt lookor feel nearly as crisp and while framerates are up it still feels almost sluggish.
Still getting micro stutters which do not seem to be either sound nor con nor terrain related