How to Fix Out of Memory Errors and How to Utilize Multiple CPUs/Multi-core CPUs

[Kilic Reis]

Originally Posted by CJFlint You know Ill screen shot it later and show you, we will see. I run max settings no lag no errors and duel box. Dont call me a troll becuase you dont understand connectivty. Then if you dont wanna lisen, then thats your problem.

Connection has nothing to do with OOM.

I have a 16 Mbit bandwith DSL connection with good noise margin and I keep OOM errors every half hour whereas my brother can play without any errors with his 2 Mbit connection on low settings.

[CJFlint]

Originally Posted by Kilic Reis Connection has nothing to do with OOM. I have a 16 Mbit bandwith DSL connection with good noise margin and I keep OOM errors every half hour whereas my brother can play without any errors with his 2 Mbit connection on low settings.

Whats is your specs? Is there a wirless router connected? Are other poeple using the wireless ruoter when you playing? You lose band with when others are using the same connection.

Like I said I post screen shots later, and show you. After you can decide for your self.

[Squailfish]

Originally Posted by Kilic Reis Connection has nothing to do with OOM. I have a 16 Mbit bandwith DSL connection with good noise margin and I keep OOM errors every half hour whereas my brother can play without any errors with his 2 Mbit connection on low settings.

Originally Posted by CJFlint Whats is your specs? Is there a wirless router connected? Are other poeple using the wireless ruoter when you playing? You lose band with when others are using the same connection. Like I said I post screen shots later, and show you. After you can decide for your self.

CJ, Bandwidth has nothing to do with memory usage. It is how fast you can bring data into the computer. Memory on the other hand is a fixed asset in the computer, whether a physical limitation, or a limitation set by the client.

Latency is lag. Having more MBs connection doesn't necessarily mean you have lower latency. That is why someone in the UK can have a faster connection than someone in Seattle and get ping kited effectively in Avcom. As you noted, however, what is going on with the local network has a lot to do with latency also.

[CJFlint]

Originally Posted by Squailfish CJ, Bandwidth has nothing to do with memory usage. It is how fast you can bring data into the computer. Memory on the other hand is a fixed asset in the computer, whether a physical limitation, or a limitation set by the client. Latency is lag. Having more MBs connection doesn't necessarily mean you have lower latency. That is why someone in the UK can have a faster connection than someone in Seattle and get ping kited effectively in Avcom. As you noted, however, what is going on with the local network has a lot to do with latency also.

I thought the same thing at 1st, but what cuased me to believe it was connection is by swithching connections from wireless to faster cable direct. Then the errors never came back, why is that? Im serously not trying to troll, but I scene that memory lose thing happen to CPU with 12 gb of ram. Thats why Im agruing this point. I think the server connection is cuasing it, posibly becuase refresh rates. Posibly even cuasing the game to not dump memory properly. And yes that is posibly, as sepcaily for an online game like this one.

My theory is the game, and how fast it works and prefromance has to do with how good the connection to the server. If theres some kind of breack or bandwith lose, like say wireless with other users other then your self. It will cuase ALLOT issues in this game. Or conection and how go it is. I definenlty noticed a huge diffrence when I stoped using wireless.

The other week I was doing FDL, group qwest. One of the players in our group kept getting DCed, lag and tons of errors. Turned out his mom was using her laptop on there wireless network downloading. It really does heavly effect this game preformance, and thats just one exsample.

[CaptainWallace]

Originally Posted by CJFlint you are dis regarding the fact that this game heavly rellys on internet conection. You log in to a server on the through a internet conection. When you play it pases info back an forth and allot of it.

This is true and when those packets do not get through it doesn't cause memory errors it causes a disconnect. Depending on how the server/client networking code is built it may have some resilience to packet loss (re-sending packets if an expected packet was not received) but at best it will retry once or twice and if the packets are still dropped then you get a disconnect not a memory error.

Originally Posted by CJFlint DO you know anything about servers?? I bet you dont. I work with servers every day.

As do I, both physical servers and vSphere, and I work at a software development company so coding and bug diagnosis/reproduction is part of my job. I also have experience running MMO servers and so whilst I don't know FLS's exact setup I can make some pretty well educated guesses.

As previously stated I have a 6mbit connection (well 8, but i realistically get 6) and have frequent crashes. Lag is not an issue at all for me. My previous rig, dual core 4gb of RAM and a GTX285 rather than the GTX260 in this one (too lazy to swap the 285 in), never crashed once with the error and I have had the same broadband line for years. If it were the connection then I should have had the same errors on my old rig by your logic.

Anyway, the point of my post is that I just got both texture corruption and an OOM after applying these settings. Spent a couple of hours doing quests in PR, left and got the OS and UI texture corruption (alt+tab fixes this). I realized I was in the wrong ship so turned around and got the crash as I clicked to dock (almost all my OOMs are clicking on PR).

Also, I found the original post where Misha explains what is happening:

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/sho...5&postcount=21

I'm going to experiment with these settings a little more and see if setting the max ram higher gets me by for longer. I can tell what language/compiler the client is (at least partially) build on and I do know a way of getting some fairly in-depth logs but the client will almost certainly resist that and it would probably get me into trouble. Happy to be a guinea pig or make suggestions if FLS want them but I don't want to put that info here.

[Remus]

Thank you kaleras for investigating this and posting this thread, explaining what to do perfectly clearly.

I have no idea whether or not you are right; like many others I have lowered texture resolutions and have since then rarely had oom errors, not that (with the exception of one particular patch, which was later fixed) it was ever much of a problem for me. But I will give your suggestions a go (I also have a dual core machine).

I am sure as more people read this thread, adopt your suggestions and report back with their own personal findings we may get some concensus as to whether this is a fantastic idea that should be stickied or whether it is a marginal thing which works for a few players but isn't a universal panacea. Until then, I for one am perfectly willing to trust what you say.

As for CJFlint, well he might be right too. However, he has posted various opinions in so many threads, obstinately insisting he is right when by concensus he so clearly is not and derailing many threads in the process, that I tend to disregard anything he says.

[kaleras]

Just an update about my thread: Wallace is correct that the fix doesn't seem to work entirely. For me it does seem to make the game run a while longer before crashing, but I end up getting a lot of texture corruption by that time. I have since turned my texture resolution back down to the middle setting. I'm looking into it further, but I'm not sure there's much else that can be done. That said, I have had a lot of people tell me the same thing as Wallace regarding the multi-core fix; it works well, and has especially helped many that run several instances of the game. The only thing I've noticed with it is that sometimes the animations for NPCs in cities seem to run slow, but maybe that was always the case?

Just wanted to copy this from my post in this thread: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81208

SS Kaleras of Antigua
Sea Serpents

[Christy Palliere]

I've tried using this, but I still get the oom errors, and when I open the task manager and look at the amount of memory potbs is using when it crashes, it shows ~1.47gb, so I dont think the the game is actualy addressing any more memory. Oh well, I suppose I'll just dial back the textures.

[gonsi]

I dont suppose you could find way to force Ship Detal Scalin higher than possible in preferences ingame? Ship details really drop low fast, and it make game look pretty ugly.

I imagine its helpfull in pb where game engine have to draw alot of ships, but other than that it would be nice.

[willl14]

Hello all,

I need some help with: Utilize Multiple CPUs/Multi-core CPUs


"Many of us nowadays have multi-core CPUs, but PotBS by default only takes advantage of 1 core/CPU. I've found an easy way to change this.

What you'll need to do is similar to what you did with the pirates_local.ini file except this time you'll need an alchemy_local.ini file. Copy and paste your alchemy.ini file and rename the copy to alchemy_local.ini. Again, you may not need to type .ini depending on how your system is setup.

Now that you have an alchemy_local.ini file, you're going to want to search through it for the GFX section. In this section you will find a value named multiThreaded with a default value of false. Change this value to true and save the changes."


I executed this; but it didn't work at all. I have a quad core computer (Windows Vista), with 4GB RAM.

You can see it in my attached thumbnails. NOTE: My alchemy/alchemy local file is saved as text on my desktop. In my programs it is saved as: ini. file This because I couldn't upload ini. files.

Some Dutch -> English tranlating for help
Geschiedenis -> History
Systeem -> System
CPU-gebruik -> CPU-use
Geheugen -> Memory