11 replies to this topic

[predator30]

I believe the game might be memory bound. The stock game when the biggest Galactic conquest is loaded uses about 400 meg of memory. In the biggest Phoenix rising Galactic conquest again uses about 960 meg up to 980 meg of memory. It seems to be the more memory the game has to use, the more sluggish it is. I have never seen the memory used to go above this in any circumstances.

even in late Galactic conquest when both the player and the AI have far more units at this point I would expect the game to use more memory because again needs to handle more data. this would suggest that the upper memory limit of the game is being hit meaning the game has to get ever increasing amounts of data from hard disk and could also be putting more stress on the processor Those of us with a bit of a computer background will know that a hard disk is slowest part of a PC. Meaning the game might be struggling to retrieve the data in real-time. I should shortly be able to test this theory as in a couple of weeks my PC will be upgraded with a solid-state drive as everybody knows, these are orders of magnitude faster.

when we run Phoenix rising. We are giving the game far more data than it originally had to handle.

If this is the case, I don't think there is any way to make the game news more memory with out having access to the source code.

Edited by predator30, 06 June 2012 - 11:31 AM.

[Phoenix Rising]

Why would PG forcibly cap memory allocation at 1 GB? Shouldn't that be the operating system's call?

At any rate, we should be able to easily disprove that Alamo is capable of using more memory. I think there are players out there with 16 GB... certainly they would've noticed if the extra memory was useless.

You will see a huge performance boost by going to SSD, but that's mostly because the game is hardcoded to auto-save before every land battle. You can get it to run much more smoothly on SATA 2.0 by making the save file read-only... unfortunately, this leads to instability over the course of a campaign.

One point I'm not certain on: how 32-bit operating systems handle addressing graphics memory if system memory is already maxed at under 4 GB. Intuitively, the GPU memory is in excess of the normal addressing limit; I'm just not sure how that is. Our battles can make use of quite a lot of art assets at times, so I would think that players on a 32-bit OS could benefit from GPUs with a decent amount of onboard memory.

[predator30]

you are correct in saying that memory allocation is handled by an operating system. But in some cases applications themselves can have their own memory usage limit. take sins of a solar Empire, for example, by default, it can only use a maximum of two gig before it became unstable. This limitation has now been overcome because of the optimisation project. My system has eight gig of memory so it is definitely not my PC limiting usage. my operating system is 64-bit.

I was not suggesting that memory usage was been limited by the OS but by the application itself. This could be entirely possible given the original low System requirements of the game. they were very low, even for the time that the game was released.

This was only a suggestion. I wasn't saying this was definitely the case

Edited by predator30, 07 June 2012 - 11:36 AM.

[Kitkun]

All 32-bit programs, of which the vast majority of programs being made still are, have that 2GB limit as the operating system limits it. Though the exe can be flagged to get up to 3GB, few are set that way normally. SoaSE didn't get around it, the game was just made to not load everything, including unused assets, anymore.

[johnchm.10]

i can see a game developer placing upper-limits on certain specs of a game. remember that its not that common anymore to have two computers whose specs and parts are completely identical, unlike (what used to be) the case with consoles, where there is rarely variations to the hardware in-so-far as the capabilities go, with the general exception of hard-drive space, which is barely a hurdle, given that the Xbox 360 has modular hard drives for the older models, and a large (for a console) hard drive for the newer models.
point being that maybe PG wanted an absolute maximum to reduce some compatibility issue, or, and i think this would be more believable, they looked at what they thought was the average amount of RAM installed in your average consumers' computers and decided to make the game as if the average computer owner only had half a gig of RAM in their computer.
and remember that EAW isnt the newest game out there

[Phoenix Rising]

I know you were referring to the game itself - I just don't know why anyone would choose to impose an artificial limit. The engine is capable of detecting up to 4 GB of RAM, since the 64-bit crash happens in excess of that. Not sure about usage, but I'll check next time I'm in.

[P.O._210877]

I just don't know why anyone would choose to impose an artificial limit.

A very wise man once said: Always bet on stupidity.

I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but in my experience it, sadly, often is.

[predator30]

I just don't know why anyone would choose to impose an artificial limit.

A very wise man once said: Always bet on stupidity.

well said

I know you were referring to the game itself - I just don't know why anyone would choose to impose an artificial limit. The engine is capable of detecting up to 4 GB of RAM

Just because it can see it that does not mean it can use it. 32 bit windows can see lots of ram but is not able to use it (vista and 7).
Applications will only behave as they are written to behave.

[mrazek666]

Perhaps slightly off topic but I have just been thinking - why are certain mods laggging and others are not? I mean looking objectively with the UTMOST respect to all the good modders out there - you will always get a lag in certain mods and never in others. To compare - Phoenix Rising - fantastic mod that almost got me into trouble with my wife (yes Honey I will do the vaccuming ...just after 1 more battle lol) but it lags big time in GC and sometimes in battles(with too many units especially fighters or infantry on land), also it has got an issue with saves not working or even getting erased - at least in my case. On the other hand lets have a look at lets say - Alliance 4.5 - great mod from Nomada, probably the greatest diversity of units in any FOC mod( I think) and .... no lag in GC at all( again in my case). On the minus side, sometimes you will get a CTD after a victory (really annoying - quickly learnt to save as soon as I see YOU HAVE BEEN VICTORIUOS!).
For whatever reason the diversity doesnt affect(?) the performance and thats with 2AIs + player in 121 planets GC.
Now to the point - I still much prefer PR 1.2 to Alliance 4.5 but I just dont get it!!!I believe that Alliance has got AI rewritten so that shouldnt be a problem again....PLEASE dont get me wrong - I am not trying to moan/flame/troll etc - it more of a stream of conciousnes flowing through my fingers onto the keyboard

Keep up the great work and I am looking forward to next installment!!!

Edited by mrazek666, 21 June 2012 - 09:59 PM.

[evilbobthebob]

Uh, well, if you look at Alliance the galactic conquest maps have very low unit diversity at start. Each planet only has a few different ship classes which are repeated across most planets. This is why mods like that and Republic at War can run well. In PR, we tailor each campaign and each planet has different fleets.

[Chih]

I've gone through this several times, but hey

There's two things that make EAW/FOC mods lag on any computer.

1) Very high unit variety. (leads to low fps and bad performance in general)

2) Excessive AI fleet movement. (leads to general choppyness and lagspikes)


First off, Phoenix Rising is the only mod done for EAW/FOC that really pushes the limit of the engine in unit variety. Sure, other mods have a lot of units as well. BUT - Phoenix Rising has those same units WITH several versions of upgrades. Basically every upgraded ship is a new unit according to the engine. In addition to there being an insane amount of different units for pirates as well. No mod even comes close to the amount of units in PR. Performance for PR can be fixed by going into XML files and cutting down unit diversity significantly (eg. Removing all pirate fighters/transports and replacing with carriers, removing ships that Rebels/Empire can't build but have as starter units etc.). No other mod even comes close to PR when we're talking the amount of different units, this includes mods like RAW or Alliance.

Second, the Ai moving fleets is a problem for all mods with huge galaxies (as in over 100 planets), depending of course on how accessable the planets are for the Ai. The AI is constantly moving fleets between planets, and when it is moving very high amounts of fleets on the same time it leads to lag spikes. Choppyness and the occasional lagspike I've had in other mods as well and not just PR. It's just a general problem with EAW/FOC.

Lastly, there's custom GC's in the works. I'm making a submod of GFFA for a 2 BBY setting that is optimized and runs pretty well, and Darth Stalin is working on a custom GFFA as well with 203 planets, but decent performance

Edited by Chih, 22 June 2012 - 08:25 AM.

[Phoenix Rising]

I'm pretty sure AI freestore lag can be mitigated. I don't think we necessarily need to be resigned to that.