I think a lot of problems with BZ2 are related to its ability to use RAM effectively. I don't think it gets rid of redundant information, which clogs up the RAM causing it to run slower, and eventually fills it with crap the program doesn't need anymore that it has to sift through to find what it does, until the program crashes or hangs when the RAM fills up. A good program doesn't fill up your memory either. Programs run smoother when the RAM has unused space available in it. It's the same problems you run into with a badly fragmented drive. It runs slow, can misplace data, takes longer to find things, hangs, causes errors, etc.
Am I right about this and if so, is the new patch going to help with this at all?
1.3 seems to be wayyyy less crash-happy for me than 1.2, I can actually be running several programs in the background (winamp, MSN) and have all my USB devices plugged in without fear of a freeze within 5 minutes, in 1.2 all of those would seem to increse the chances of a crash considerably (ESPECIALLY winamp)
i dont think ram is the problem, could be, i dont know my 1.2 never crashes...unless i do something wrong...
The biggest problem with 1.2 when not online is AI overbuild. When online, it's tabbers and laggers looking to either give themselves an unfair advantage or just plain ruin the game for everyone else.
Well, I've noticed that BZ2 fills my RAM of 1GIG to max... which is unacceptable.
Quote from: Angelwing on October 01, 2005, 11:53:23 PM
1.3 seems to be wayyyy less crash-happy for me than 1.2, I can actually be running several programs in the background (winamp, MSN) and have all my USB devices plugged in without fear of a freeze within 5 minutes, in 1.2 all of those would seem to increse the chances of a crash considerably (ESPECIALLY winamp)
BZ2 has always had a reputation as a computer resource hog for many reasons and even though the 1.3 patch will help reduce this, there are still limitations and it makes no sense to run stuff in the background if you are hoping for a clean running BZ2 game.
If you are running extra stuff as a form of bench test, then this is a different story.
However,even when the 1.3 patch is finished, the best recommendation for any game, not just BZ2, is to keep any and all background programs to a minimum.
Well, my point is that it takes a gig of ram to run, but the Game only takes around 600 megs on my hard drive or more to install.... LOL.... wtf?
If anyone here has 2 gigs of RAM, how much of your RAM does it use on your machine? Same question for anyone who has more than 2 Gigs of RAM as well.
I know for sure in the 1.2 patch MPI and instant action games tend to over populate the maps with excess units which are going to require comp resources to maintain. This is where the ram is getting ate up.
In 1.2 patch Strat games, however this should drop considerably since most teams do not make many AI piloted units.
If the 1.3 patch has fixed most of the bugs which cause excess overpopulation as well as a number of other bugs, which tend to cause lag then, yes the 1.3 patch will actually use less computer resources and less ram to run.
Actually, why wouldn't you want a game to use every resource available to it? What did you get all that RAM for, anyway?
Windows? lol...
Seriously, when UT2K4 is done running on my poor little 1.6AMD with 512megs of RAM it takes well over three minutes before I get my system back. The resources that game uses overloads my system causing massive HD cache activity.
BZ2 is a well-behaved puppy compared with UT2K4 as far as system resources are concerned.
AI activity and pathing is a major issue with BZ2, a real hog. After that it's probably texturing the terrain and handling mesh transform and lighting. All of this is done via the CPU so they'll load down your system fast.
-Av-
Quote from: Avatar on October 02, 2005, 01:19:15 PM
Actually, why wouldn't you want a game to use every resource available to it? What did you get all that RAM for, anyway?
You are right, of course.
However,I am talking about extra programs not relevent to the game, leaving as many computer resources available as possible for the game.
For example,winamp and MSN are not necessary to be running while the game is.
I am saying why waste resources on programs you don't need, since BZ2 does use a lot?
We can all appreciate multitasking, but sometimes depending on your computer, you may want to save as many of them as possible for the game.
Unneccessary, perhaps, but I happen to like listening to music whilst playing games - it's not neccessary, but then, playing the game on the highest graphics settings isn't neccessary either, it just makes the game look nicer...
And using Avatars example, We all got the superfast CPU and huge quantities of RAM for a reason didn't we?... Why not use them, by multi-tasking :P
Yes it has a hit on performance... but if it isn't noticeable, where's the problem?
(I'll usually close MSN however, since that tends to harm the latency of games - not to mention annoy the hell out of me)
Ah I see,,, and yes music while you play is a good thing.
My point, is that when you fill the RAM completely, thats a BAD thing. Over populating the ram is not necessary, slows down the games ability to function, and can cause problems with the computer. A lot of people don't understand this... and I can understand why.
Actually with WindowsXP you should be always filling your RAM. Unless your system is very well endowed you'll almost always use every spec of RAM and then start in on the HD's swap file.
Any memory manager worth a damn will try to keep everything possible in system RAM, moving things to HD only if absolutely necessary. The minute you start 'hitting' the HD you'll see things start to slow down, as no HD made can keep up with a hefty chunk of SDRAM.
We have P4 1.8's at work with 256M of SDRAM. Once Windows XP Pro finishes loading all 256M is in use, with a hefty comit charge on the HD backing it up. With the piddly slow 20G HD's we have (5000 rpm and I swear they must have no cache at all) it's a lesson in pain trying to run anything.
Again, that's what it's for. You'll see a certain percentage kept reserved for system operations but the rest should be in use for maximum performance.
-Av-
Actually, in 1.3 i've had the program take up all my memory(1GB DDR), then cause my virtual memory to fill to it's max(1GB also). How many times has it done this ... ONCE. All other times i've played on 1.3, there have been no problems with memory. Sure, an occasional AV or network timeout. But for the record, there sure are alot of other programs out there that can suck the juice right out of your puter ... ever have Outlook running all the work day? LOL
So,
Is 1.3 Stable enough to upgrade from 1.2?
Windows *will* fill your ram, it can *always* find something to fill your ram.Ã, It also tries to make sure there as at least as much page file as there is ram in case in needs to dumpÃ, it fast due to a BSOD or whatnot.
EDIT: And for note. BZ2 DOES NOT MANAGE RAM... Windows does, and it is one thing that Windows actually does exceptionally well.
er, you're talking XP, right?
Not 9x?
:)
-Av-
Yes, XP, 9x memory management was... not as good..
Was there any? I thought Himem.sys handled it for Win9x...
-Av-
Quote from: Avatar on October 03, 2005, 10:33:05 PM
Actually with WindowsXP you should be always filling your RAM. Unless your system is very well endowed you'll almost always use every spec of RAM and then start in on the HD's swap file.
Any memory manager worth a damn will try to keep everything possible in system RAM, moving things to HD only if absolutely necessary. The minute you start 'hitting' the HD you'll see things start to slow down, as no HD made can keep up with a hefty chunk of SDRAM.
We have P4 1.8's at work with 256M of SDRAM. Once Windows XP Pro finishes loading all 256M is in use, with a hefty comit charge on the HD backing it up. With the piddly slow 20G HD's we have (5000 rpm and I swear they must have no cache at all) it's a lesson in pain trying to run anything.
Again, that's what it's for. You'll see a certain percentage kept reserved for system operations but the rest should be in use for maximum performance.
-Av-
Actually AV its called DDR and DDDR2 ram now, And if windows XP is using 256MB of ram while sitting at the desktop you must have a whole crap load of bloatware installed.
Actually, the entirety of the windows subsystem takes 512megs.
Quote from: Bull Dog on October 07, 2005, 01:50:58 AMActually AV its called DDR and DDDR2 ram now, And if windows XP is using 256MB of ram while sitting at the desktop you must have a whole crap load of bloatware installed.
I know, I usually use just plain old RAM to get away from having to type too many capital letters...
I've read your first statement several times and it keeps coming out "blah blah
Bloatware XP blah blah
bloatware installed."Ã, Ã,Â
Redundant!Ã, Ã, Lol...
256MB is the Minimum Requirement for running Windows XP. Minimum! MS knows how to sell new hardware...
Coffee. Now.
-Av-Ã,Â
All of this discussion seems to avoid one simple fact.
If a program, any program operates efficiently, then it will use less computer resources than a program which does not operate efficiently.
In the case of BZ2 where unit population among other things, which decides how many resources are required, it would seem the more efficient the operation, the more fun you get to have without lag, av's and other nasty interuptions to the game.
Therefore a game using less resources, and giving the player more fun would be prefered.
So any game( including UT as Avatar mentioned) requiring huge amounts of computer resources is not necessarily a very well written game program and only serves to encourage the excess buying of upgrades, which under most circumstances, would not be necessary.
Some of the newer games coming out promise more details and realism in sight and sound but all this extra stuff means getting a beafier computer setup just to enjoy such things. Fun? what about the fun? If I spend money for the eye and ear candy will I still have fun?
Doom 3 has some serious requirements, lots of eye candy and a very good single player but the multiplayer side of things was limited to deathmatch. I do not prefer to deathmatch games all the time, so this was a great disappointment to me.
In the long run, I prefer to invest in computer equipment and software which does whant I need it for, either peace of mind or fun.
I don't know about you, but more fun for the buck seems to make perfect sense to me.
1.3 is better then 1.2, bz2 is hard on the computer, and 1.3 makes it a little less hard, so yes its better.
An easy way to see what you're using is to go to Alt-Tab to Task Manager, click on the Performance tab, and check out the numbers there.
Commit Charge (K)
Total = Current usage
Limit = Total (physical) + Pagefile size
Peak = will be the max used since last boot.
Physical Memory (K)
Total = RAM
Available = RAM - Current Usage
Wait,I'm confused,right now,all I have is 202MB out of a total 905 Mbs?
Battlezone II doesn't do that to my system,I can have WMP,MSN,AIM,etc,etc going,and it still runs perfectly fine...and when I start BZ2,about 70 MBs add on,but,it doesn't use all of it....
Never post such useless and harmful links like that again please.
One of the good things about Windows NT5+ is the way it handles ram. It tries to load as much as possible into ram to keep it as snappy as possible. Linux and Mac do the same thing. It pages things out to the page file when more ram is needed, you generally always have a lot more page then ram if you have many things in memory. Those "freeing ram" programs hurt system performance because they cause things to be paged out. If they ask for too much, then pieces of the kernal get paged out, drastically hurting system performance the next time you do *anything*, for the split second it reloads it. When a program closes, or releases memory back, windows keeps it available in-case it is reopened in the next few minutes, give it a try. Restart computer, Load MSWord, open a large doc, close MSWord, reload MSWord, noticed how much quicker it loaded, that is because the memory did not need to be reacquired. Because a program like that eats up so much memory, then releases it, windows keeps it ready again for that stinkin app, ergo, denying it to other applications till there is none left (or the time delay is hit, generall 15-30 minutes) then deletes the pged secion of memory it was keeping reserved. If you have enough page file, that isn't much of an issue. If task manager says that more then 1/4 of your ram is unused, then there is something keeping it paged out for saving, or you have a *ton* of memory and not enough apps running, ton meaning multiple gigs.
Ergo, running those programs cause a performance hit. And DevLeader is doing something that is causing his ram not to be completely used, such as a large program was running, and he shut it down within the past 15 or so minutes of checking that.
For example, my computer has 1 gig of ram, it is using a little over 800 megs of it currently, the kernal is using ~360megs of that. My page file is a little over 2.5 gigs (system managed), with a little over a gig in use (I have my usual ton of programs running, my task bar is scrolling, screen is 1280 wide). And this is actually light because I restarted recently and still havn't finished restarting everthing.
Ah ok, my bad. In case you were wondering what I was thinking. I was thinking that the program would make more ram availiable for the game, and perhaps make it run better, hence, improved performance. But, nvm.
Edit: LOL that post went BYE BYE, completely gone now!
TOO, Don't be like Squirrel.
.:.HMR.:.squirrel-Cmd formerly known as squirrelof09 is the 2nd coming of Styx/Zanting (only worse ;-) ).
shut up. the only word I understand in your status message is online...
Ah, ok! Hmmm... I think this is the first time I've seen squirrel.
Hi :-D!
hi!
Quote from: .:.HMR.:.squirrel-Cmd on December 03, 2005, 10:17:39 PM
shut up. the only word I understand in your status message is online...
That's because it's Russian. Try coverting it with babelfish.