Town Lag? Possible memory leak?

twiistedkaos · 04-02-2007, 12:05 AM

Sofar me and my friend have both been experiencing this. When we first log on and go to a town fps lag is very minimal. When we've been playing for a few hours then go into a town the lag is very intense and we can barely move 5-10 ft at a time.

icckleblackcat · 04-09-2007, 03:02 PM

Not seen much of this on linux - it's more prevalent of windows. anyhow, we've found it helps to check the option "update all new resources at once" helps a lot for some people - it gets rid of most of the loading induced lag.

aside from that, 1 GB of memory seems to help a lot, I've personally seen the game demand 1.3GB of user space memory when things get busy. If your running with less that 512MB free when you start the game your probably going to get these problems any time there is a lot going on.

The easiest way to check is look at your hard disk activity light - if its going crazy when this happens you could probably do with more memory, if it's not it could be loading lag.

Btw - there are ways to free up memory without buying more, It might be constructive to turn off various daemons before you start thet game

oh - and never, ever try to run the game with evolution running in the background if you have less that 2 GB memory

icckleblackcat · 04-09-2007, 03:14 PM

ahhh - damn me for not reading your post properly...

it's memory - linux caches far more than windows.
try killing unneccesary daemons before you start - most distributions come with way more than you actually want running.

drop to something like the Xfce desktop - if your using gnome or KDE, it will save you 100Meg right off the bat - 200 if you're using beryl or compiz on top of that

mysql is murder on the system memory and processor time and some distros install it by default - if you don't use a DB, turn it off.

firefox is nice and popular - and it too eats memeory

amarok is heavy too - double that if your running it on gnome, xfce etc (anything except kde)

beagle - kill it if it lives on your system, the regnum doesn't register as activity to beagle and it starts indexing your HDD in the background - it's nasty for gaming and deserves to die horribly - boil it in oil if you find it

there are other things that can help and much of this can be automated in a script - will help if I can

niclam · 04-09-2007, 04:00 PM

1.3GB of RAM? That cannot be good.
We probably have a memory leak that we have to check out.

Regards

icckleblackcat · 04-09-2007, 11:27 PM

yup, 1.3 GB just for the regum executable

... was in warzone with a fairly busy environemt, maybe 30-40 players in a 3 way war around Pines fort in alsius, quite a few mobs, 6-7 hunters pets & 8 or 9 demons and all of the GFX turned to max..

That said, the amount of memory demanded seemed to be directly related to how many places I've been through and how busy things are - there doesn't seem to be any of the usual signs of memory leaks - no steady increasing memory footprint that doesn't obviously relate to something.

In other words - my gut feeling would say it's mostly down to aggressive caching (something the *nix malloc can be guilty of and a little brain dead about) and that fact my machine _does_ have this memory to throw at the cache, with the virtual memory settings tweaked approprately.

Mostly, it can get to be a problem with the default virtual memory settings in i386 linux kernels with >860MB memory on board (a known kernel bug that has been rectified in the later kernels)

This is verifiable and reproducable on Ubuntu Edgy, 32-bit running the i386 kernel, Nvidia GeForce 7600GS or 7300GT with beryl, 1GB ob-board memory, >2GB swap partition a game resolution >= 1024x768 and any busy scene after some 40mins to 1hr of playing.

ok, thats quite specific, but it will thrash the hell out of the hard drive every time.
the key is the i386 legacy kernel and the virtual ram settings.

the same machine with the same settings & the modern (generic i586/686) kernel will not reproduce the behaviour even after 4-5 hours of playing.

hope that helps.

twiistedkaos · 04-10-2007, 01:12 AM

Well, I have 2gb ram and 2gb swap, so I don't really think it's a RAM issue for me. I have a dual core 3.0Ghz so that should be fine also. I usually get heavy town lag once I have be lelveing for a few hours and run back to town to train, I get a huge FPS lag that drops to 1-2 fps at times. I'll try the option "load all resources at once" and see if that helps. I'll report back after I have done some proper testing.

-- Joshua

edit....
Loading all the new resources at once does help a lot, there's still a few fps spikes here and there but not as bad as it was.

And to clear more things up, it does only happen to me in town.

I run a minimal custom linux install, so there's no daemons that I don't need. I also run FluxBox desktop enviroment so it's very minimal

04-02-2007, 12:05 AM	#1
twiistedkaos Apprentice Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 69	Town Lag? Possible memory leak? Sofar me and my friend have both been experiencing this. When we first log on and go to a town fps lag is very minimal. When we've been playing for a few hours then go into a town the lag is very intense and we can barely move 5-10 ft at a time.

04-09-2007, 04:00 PM	#4
niclam Legend Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,636	1.3GB of RAM? That cannot be good. We probably have a memory leak that we have to check out. Regards __________________ niclam

04-10-2007, 01:12 AM	#6
twiistedkaos Apprentice Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 69	Well, I have 2gb ram and 2gb swap, so I don't really think it's a RAM issue for me. I have a dual core 3.0Ghz so that should be fine also. I usually get heavy town lag once I have be lelveing for a few hours and run back to town to train, I get a huge FPS lag that drops to 1-2 fps at times. I'll try the option "load all resources at once" and see if that helps. I'll report back after I have done some proper testing. -- Joshua edit.... Loading all the new resources at once does help a lot, there's still a few fps spikes here and there but not as bad as it was. And to clear more things up, it does only happen to me in town. I run a minimal custom linux install, so there's no daemons that I don't need. I also run FluxBox desktop enviroment so it's very minimal Last edited by twiistedkaos; 04-10-2007 at 02:28 AM.

04-09-2007, 03:02 PM	#2
icckleblackcat Apprentice Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 93	Not seen much of this on linux - it's more prevalent of windows. anyhow, we've found it helps to check the option "update all new resources at once" helps a lot for some people - it gets rid of most of the loading induced lag. aside from that, 1 GB of memory seems to help a lot, I've personally seen the game demand 1.3GB of user space memory when things get busy. If your running with less that 512MB free when you start the game your probably going to get these problems any time there is a lot going on. The easiest way to check is look at your hard disk activity light - if its going crazy when this happens you could probably do with more memory, if it's not it could be loading lag. Btw - there are ways to free up memory without buying more, It might be constructive to turn off various daemons before you start thet game oh - and never, ever try to run the game with evolution running in the background if you have less that 2 GB memory

04-09-2007, 03:14 PM	#3
icckleblackcat Apprentice Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 93	ahhh - damn me for not reading your post properly... it's memory - linux caches far more than windows. try killing unneccesary daemons before you start - most distributions come with way more than you actually want running. drop to something like the Xfce desktop - if your using gnome or KDE, it will save you 100Meg right off the bat - 200 if you're using beryl or compiz on top of that mysql is murder on the system memory and processor time and some distros install it by default - if you don't use a DB, turn it off. firefox is nice and popular - and it too eats memeory amarok is heavy too - double that if your running it on gnome, xfce etc (anything except kde) beagle - kill it if it lives on your system, the regnum doesn't register as activity to beagle and it starts indexing your HDD in the background - it's nasty for gaming and deserves to die horribly - boil it in oil if you find it there are other things that can help and much of this can be automated in a script - will help if I can

04-09-2007, 11:27 PM	#5
icckleblackcat Apprentice Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 93	yup, 1.3 GB just for the regum executable ... was in warzone with a fairly busy environemt, maybe 30-40 players in a 3 way war around Pines fort in alsius, quite a few mobs, 6-7 hunters pets & 8 or 9 demons and all of the GFX turned to max.. That said, the amount of memory demanded seemed to be directly related to how many places I've been through and how busy things are - there doesn't seem to be any of the usual signs of memory leaks - no steady increasing memory footprint that doesn't obviously relate to something. In other words - my gut feeling would say it's mostly down to aggressive caching (something the *nix malloc can be guilty of and a little brain dead about) and that fact my machine _does_ have this memory to throw at the cache, with the virtual memory settings tweaked approprately. Mostly, it can get to be a problem with the default virtual memory settings in i386 linux kernels with >860MB memory on board (a known kernel bug that has been rectified in the later kernels) This is verifiable and reproducable on Ubuntu Edgy, 32-bit running the i386 kernel, Nvidia GeForce 7600GS or 7300GT with beryl, 1GB ob-board memory, >2GB swap partition a game resolution >= 1024x768 and any busy scene after some 40mins to 1hr of playing. ok, thats quite specific, but it will thrash the hell out of the hard drive every time. the key is the i386 legacy kernel and the virtual ram settings. the same machine with the same settings & the modern (generic i586/686) kernel will not reproduce the behaviour even after 4-5 hours of playing. hope that helps.