2-3 seconds freezing/stutter

Kapakio · Post by **Kapakio** » Mon, 24. Nov 08, 13:40

Well, I also did the test of 3Gb switch and got exactly the same result as cucher. It didn't help a lot in the combat situations, and after a couple of hours playing, I jumped in Legend's Home and the game came to almost a complete stop, about 10 frames per MINUTE. I also checked the memory and X3TC was using around 2.5GB!!!.

So the games is literally eating all available memory, and still not being able to use it properly.

kayfess · Post by **kayfess** » Mon, 24. Nov 08, 18:47

CBJ wrote:you should find discussion of how to set your system up to allow the game to use 3GB instead of the usual 2GB

My Vista 32 box has 4Gb and I'm not seeing it break 2Gb - either actively or VMS: I'm seeing around 1.4Gb and 1.8Gb Virtual, but I've seen the cache flush start around 1.2Gb active memory.

It seems to be sound related - firing various missiles seems guaranteed to evoke it (perhaps the combination of loading firing sound, missile engine sound and the computer voice all at once). Unfortunately, it's usually happening when your adrenaline is at its highest and the stutters bam it up a notch so ... I may be wide of the mark on this one, since sometimes just turning your ship seems to trigger it - do you play a tiny little "nose jets" audio sample too?

Incidentally, I also have Vista + XFi.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Mon, 24. Nov 08, 19:33

kayfess wrote: My Vista 32 box has 4Gb and I'm not seeing it break 2Gb - either actively or VMS: I'm seeing around 1.4Gb and 1.8Gb Virtual, but I've seen the cache flush start around 1.2Gb active memory.

You wouldn't expect to see it break 2Gb; by default, a 32-bit process can't use any more than that (the other 2Gb of its virtual address space being allocated for system use).

bumpinthenight · Post by **bumpinthenight** » Tue, 25. Nov 08, 00:27

I've posted this in the /3GB switch thread as well but something I noticed about my own pausing/hud reload issue is that by flying around in sector M148 its instantly triggered and is pretty unbearable actually. There is no combat going on, just a large amount of ships and mainly a big variety of them as all the races are sitting there ready for the ka'aaak quest which I haven't gone past the opening mission for. Might wanna give that a try too to see if it affects the same way, rules out sound concerns any ways.

(meanwhile using a modified version of the EXE that allows for more then 2GB of ram allocatable to the program I can go through that sector perfectly)

Prax · Post by **Prax** » Tue, 25. Nov 08, 02:07

Its weird that it doesn't work for some people.

Ever since I modified the exe I have not had a single HUD dissapearing / locking / hard drive thrashing at all.

I still ocassionaly jump into a system where I get 0 FPS and the game cannot do anything due to ships stuck at jump gates...but at least my HUD doesn't bug out haha

kayfess · Post by **kayfess** » Tue, 25. Nov 08, 04:35

pjknibbs wrote:
kayfess wrote: My Vista 32 box has 4Gb and I'm not seeing it break 2Gb - either actively or VMS: I'm seeing around 1.4Gb and 1.8Gb Virtual, but I've seen the cache flush start around 1.2Gb active memory.
You wouldn't expect to see it break 2Gb; by default, a 32-bit process can't use any more than that (the other 2Gb of its virtual address space being allocated for system use).

Right, but most of the time it is stuttering it is as much as 800Mb short of the limit.

- Oliver

Corpse_Maker · Post by **Corpse_Maker** » Sat, 6. Dec 08, 21:23

This is bizarre... the huge memory dump got fixed since 1.21, but random stutter and hud "be gone" are still present... (very brief 0.5 to 1 seconds) just by flying around it still stutters. It does look like it has to do with caching stuff.

1.3 did not improve the performance.

Almost Tactful · Post by **Almost Tactful** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 03:47

CBJ wrote:
Corpse_Maker wrote:I hope one of the moderators will read this, this issue has to do something with caching...
Yes, it's a cache thing. Basically the pause you are seeing is the game running out of memory and performing a major flush of the cache to enable it to load something new. It should be a pretty rare thing on a PC with plenty of available memory, and if you hunt around in the performance-related threads in this forum, you should find discussion of how to set your system up to allow the game to use 3GB instead of the usual 2GB maximum for a single application. It's not 100% guaranteed to work, but it might tip the balance and give the game enough extra space to make the flushes even more rare.

Well I am running 8GB and a 64 bit OS, is there anyway to let it use up to say 6GB of RAM?

eladan · Post by **eladan** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 04:07

My understanding is that as a 32 bit app, TC can't use more than 2GB of memory anyway. The likely advantage of using the /3GB switch would be that it can use the full 2GB rather than having to share with other apps.

My understanding could be wrong though - I don't have full knowledge in this area.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 07:43

eladan wrote:My understanding is that as a 32 bit app, TC can't use more than 2GB of memory anyway. The likely advantage of using the /3GB switch would be that it can use the full 2GB rather than having to share with other apps.

My understanding could be wrong though - I don't have full knowledge in this area.

Your understanding IS wrong. Normally, a 32-bit app on Windows has 2Gb of virtual address space for its own use (this memory is not "shared" with any other application) and 2Gb reserved for the system (which IS shared between applications, though usually in such a way that it can't be written to). The /3Gb flag, in combination with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag in the .EXE header, switches this around so that the application has 3Gb of virtual address space for its own use and only 1Gb for the system.

X3 didn't have the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set, at least as of 1.2.1--don't know if that's been changed in 1.3. People found a way to hack the EXE to set that flag and reported performance improvements from doing so, though.

eladan · Post by **eladan** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 08:38

There you go - there's a reason I'm not a programmer.

bumpinthenight · Post by **bumpinthenight** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 14:41

Almost Tactful wrote:Well I am running 8GB and a 64 bit OS, is there anyway to let it use up to say 6GB of RAM?

Check out the 2nd post in this thread:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... sc&start=0

6gb is probably much larger then what the game can actually grow into but this edit will allow it to grow beyond the default. Its that exe editing that's been mentioned. No worries its actually a lot easier then it sounds once you grab CFFexplorer and follow along. I'd suffered from that stuttering as well, pretty much guaranteed to happen in sectors with multiple race's ships present and this fixed that entirely. Game now uses about 2.2GB but its happy and smooth.

Almost Tactful · Post by **Almost Tactful** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 16:05

bumpinthenight wrote:
Almost Tactful wrote:Well I am running 8GB and a 64 bit OS, is there anyway to let it use up to say 6GB of RAM?
Check out the 2nd post in this thread:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... sc&start=0

6gb is probably much larger then what the game can actually grow into but this edit will allow it to grow beyond the default. Its that exe editing that's been mentioned. No worries its actually a lot easier then it sounds once you grab CFFexplorer and follow along. I'd suffered from that stuttering as well, pretty much guaranteed to happen in sectors with multiple race's ships present and this fixed that entirely. Game now uses about 2.2GB but its happy and smooth.

Thanks bump, I modified the header, I'll give it a go now

Mad Ashy · Post by **Mad Ashy** » Sun, 7. Dec 08, 16:27

Looks like were all waiting for the 1.4 patch now see you all in another 3 months

SpenzOT · Post by **SpenzOT** » Mon, 8. Dec 08, 23:37

Question on the CFF edit and the 3gb switch thing. I have WinXP 32-bit. Do I need to do both the CFF and the .3GB switch, or either one?

I already tried the /3gb switch and it just crashes the game with a "cannot play video" (I suspect I need to reinstall my video drivers when I start up XP in /3GB switch mode), so it would be nice to know that the CFF trick is the only thing I need to do.

Soulstar · Post by **Soulstar** » Tue, 9. Dec 08, 00:06

I get the impression the patches are only a temporary fix, unintentionally I imagine. Here's what happens for me: I run the patch and the game runs pretty good on high settings for several days, then it only runs good on medium settings, and eventually once again struggles to run on the very lowest settings. And at this point it looks so horrible you don't even really want to play anymore lol. Is the performance vs time bug still lurking around?

bumpinthenight · Post by **bumpinthenight** » Tue, 9. Dec 08, 08:08

SpenzOT wrote:Question on the CFF edit and the 3gb switch thing. I have WinXP 32-bit. Do I need to do both the CFF and the .3GB switch, or either one?

I already tried the /3gb switch and it just crashes the game with a "cannot play video" (I suspect I need to reinstall my video drivers when I start up XP in /3GB switch mode), so it would be nice to know that the CFF trick is the only thing I need to do.

The CFF exe edit is definitely a needed, the /3GB switch is also probably needed in order for the OS to allow any particular program to use more then 2GB of ram.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 9. Dec 08, 08:49

You need both. The /3GB switch tells the OS that it can allocate 3Gb to an application and the flag in the application itself tells the OS that the application is capable of handling 3Gb...

NeverSnake · Post by **NeverSnake** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 19:37

I'm suffering from this problem too, I just had a particulaly bad case of it in mars fighting the xenon during the plot mission. This was with medium textures, 0x AF, 2x AA and everything else turned on high.

I've got a Q6600, 4850 1GB, 4GB, X-fi titanium, Vista home premium 64-bit.

Task manager reports about 1.3-1.4GB used before I start up X3:TC and it reports X3:TC using about 1.3GB on high or 1.1GB with the settings about.

I don't generally lose the hud myself, but it can happen in bad situations.

It also seems to happen to me worse the longer the game has been running, the above was probably after 4 hours or so but it can happen half an hour in.

Goldo · Post by **Goldo** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 21:10

Mad Ashy wrote:Looks like were all waiting for the 1.4 patch now see you all in another 3 months

could just revert back to X2 or even XT

- should run a dream on the newer computers hehe!

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2-3 seconds freezing/stutter

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