[Found some interesting info here ,that may help some folk.myself included..tabby ]


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Ok, I couldn't help but notice, as I can now play KR with a machine well capable of running it, that the Memory Usage, according to Task Manager Processes info, seems to climb endlessly the longer you run the client. The following pics show the Memory used from logging in to KR and simply running around the place and recalling into a couple of dungeons, Heartwood, Ilshenar Oakes spawn etc. I wasn't fighting anything, just taking screenies every few minutes. These were taken over approximately 25 minutes in the Client...at which point it was running fairly choppily and an increase in lag was noticable.



From top to bottom they show:
1. Select Server Window
2. Character Logged into Game
3. Recall to Luna, ran once around the square
4. Recall to Despise, ran through a couple of levels.
5. Recall to Destard, ran around in there for a few minutes.
6. Recall to Heartwood, ran completely through the place.
7. Recall to Ilshenar Oakes Spawn, via Luna Moongate, ran to Altar area.
8. Recall to Britain, a few Friends' houses then to my house and logged.

So nothing fancy there, but that Memory kept spiralling upwards. And what was even more surprizing was that after I logged the character, but had not quit the client, I got this reading from Task manager:

And Task Manager stayed that way until I finally quit the client 5 minutes or so later.
During this test, I tried various Game settings, system messages off and on, shadows , particles etc...didn't make any difference really.

So, is that a Memory leak or what? Now I'm no expert, but I think so, in a big way.

Anyone care to comment and explain why I'm getting those numbers?


FYI, here's my system specs, which is fairly high-end for running games like this, tho I think they'd need to be if memory usage like this is the norm for everyone running KR.
Motherboard: Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0 GHz
Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GTS 640Mb
Memory: Corsair Dominator DDR2 Twin2X2048-8500C5DF 1066MHz 2Gb Kit.
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Gb SATA II
Audio: Realtek HD Audio
Monitor: BENQ FP222W 22" Widescreen
Operating System: Windows XP Professional- Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Direct X: 9.0c
All Drivers and BIOS updated to latest available.

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I see pretty much the same thing.



Now this is what bothers me the most. I like to have KR up and running when I am editing the UI, so that I can load/re-load to see what changes look like, alignment, etc... . I have found if I drop to the log-in screen, that my entire system bogs down to almost a standstill. As soon as I either quit KR or go back into the game, the extreme sluggishness goes away.

Anyway, considering I don't know a thing about code and code architecture, I won't even attempt a diagnosis, but I can/will report the symptoms.

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Increase your "Minimum free system memory" option in KR - that should decrease the lag you experience (hopefully).
KR is built to take as much memory as it can - it will cache stuff and keep it cached until you quit, only releasing if it needs more memory but can't get that memory without releasing some of it's existing cache.

If you notice memory go up like that when doing the same thing over and over again, then it's likely unintentional and something that should be specifically reported (like the problem 2d had with closing and openning the options menu) - otherwise, it's just KR being overly greedy.

KR being that greedy does cause issues in some situations though, especially if it starts using virtual memory for frequently occuring stuff. I'd like an option to tell KR that if it doesn't use a mob animation/texture/etc for X minutes, it should release that cache, or something similar for situations when I'm not staying in one area for long periods of time.

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yup, and when it hits the limit of my RAM my pc crashes.

although fyi, 2D eats memory if left at the log in screen, and shoves the cpu temperature up to an alarming degree. The golden rule in our house is 'NEVER leave uo sitting at login. Either quit or log the next char in immediately'


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Exactly!! The fact that I have a heap of available ram is fine for me, but there's a lot out there that don't and a good percentage of them experience crashes after running KR for any length of time over a few minutes.

While it's ok to say KR will use whatever ram it can to load certain areas and such, once you leave one place, say Luna, and go elsewhere, say a Champ spawn, it should be dumping the cached memory from Luna and not simply sucking more and more out of the system, until eventually, you run out of ram and virtual memory and the game, or your system, crashes.

I don't get anything like these Memory Usage numbers running Oblivion, which is hugely graphic intensive. I've never seen it over 200meg. Even 3D Mark06, which is designed to totally stress systems and it does, maxes out at 336meg, nothing like the memory that KR wants just to run around for a while.
Seems to me there has to be something significant wrong with KR here that needs to be addressed and fixed.

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If that is how it works it is a terrible design. Once you run out of memory, if Windows or another program needs any then the page file starts getting used. The page file sits on the hard drive, which is many multiples slower than RAM is.

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I would love to hear if the latest patch made this somewhat better, because the mouse cursor was eating windows resources and never releasing them - the last KR patch should have fixed that.

E. Jeremy Dalberg
UO Community Coordinator
EA Mythic

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So feedback please from all those people that have /are having problems