Problem

[Chris10]

We would. Sounds and animations used within a single turn do not use a lot of memory. If taking so little memory is enough to cause an out of memory condition, this is exactly what I mean by "walking on the brink". Take a bigger map with more different units on it, and we'll run out of memory even in the course of a single turn. This is not a normal situation at all.

oh,yeah..you are absolutely right ...I was misinterpreting what you said earlier
This memory issue is very concerning to me and touches me at my very heart as I have already invested 100+ hours just in creating a highly detailed 77.000 hex map (332x232) from Berlin to the forecort of the Ural in order to finally, after 20 years, make my and others old Panzer General dream of a single huge eastern campaign on division/brigade level come to life with the PzC engine...
So I can only hope and pray this will get sorted somehow

[tjeren]

I dowload beta2, uninstall old one and problem stays... in log same message, if helps when i start game it take around 480MB or ram and every second it take few kB of memory and when reach around 840MB it frezz or crash.
What to do?

tjeren, just to make sure, does the memory grow every second even if you are not doing anything with the game, or only if you are moving units/attacking etc.?

Ram usage grow every second no matter what i do, playing or just looking at task manager... if any helps this when i rename audio file game go up to 1.3Gb and still going but with audio it end at cca 840MB... no matter what scenario i play

[Rudankort]

Ram usage grow every second no matter what i do, playing or just looking at task manager... if any helps this when i rename audio file game go up to 1.3Gb and still going but with audio it end at cca 840MB... no matter what scenario i play

Now, this is really strange. Does the map usage start to grow right after you start the game, or after you start a scenario? Also, if you still have PzC 1.05 handy, can you run it on the same machine and see if it has the same behavior? I remember it worked fine for you in the past, but maybe something changed since then.

[VPaulus]

Ram usage grow every second no matter what i do, playing or just looking at task manager...

I can't reproduce this in my XP. It's true that just by selecting units (not always) I see a little increment in the memory usage, but I don't see it grow when I'm just looking into task manager.
I've started the first scenario (with my sound mod activated) and in the beginning before the first move PanzerCorps.exe is using 380MB. In the beginning of the second scenario PanzerCorps.exe has 725MB.
It's true that I usually would only get 700MB of memory usage at the end of the second scenario. So there's definitely an increase of memory usage with AK.

[Rudankort]

Ram usage grow every second no matter what i do, playing or just looking at task manager...

I can't reproduce this in my XP. It's true that just by selecting units (not always) I see a little increment in the memory usage, but I don't see it grow when I'm just looking into task manager.
I've started the first scenario (with my sound mod activated) and in the beginning before the first move PanzerCorps.exe is using 380MB. In the beginning of the second scenario PanzerCorps.exe has 725MB.
It's true that I usually would only get 700MB of memory usage at the end of the second scenario. So there's definitely an increase of memory usage with AK.

This is certainly not a generic issue, or nobody could play the game at all. I can't repro it either. But hopefully we can find a clue. My current guess if that we have some odd audio driver which eats up memory in case some music is played. Against this version is the fact that old PzC worked fine. But maybe the drivers were updated since then?

I checked today, and in AK the tilesets have become ~40MB bigger than in PzC. That's how much more memory AK uses up on the start. As the game progresses, you could also use more memory, because of new units and their effects, but these are few. Most new units reuse old effects, only some (like Panzerwerfer, Flammpanzer and motorcycle infantry unit) have got new effects. Overall, total memory consumption increase compared to PzC should be around 5-10%.

[Chris10]

I checked today, and in AK the tilesets have become ~40MB bigger than in PzC. That's how much more memory AK uses up on the start. As the game progresses, you could also use more memory, because of new units and their effects, but these are few. Most new units reuse old effects, only some (like Panzerwerfer, Flammpanzer and motorcycle infantry unit) have got new effects. Overall, total memory consumption increase compared to PzC should be around 5-10%.

I played around a little further..loaded a game mid scenario (Gazala Line,turn 15) and didnt moved my units letting the AI run rampant...
only hitting end turn until turn 20 and indeed it might be an issue with the AI turns and memory management
game started on 367.000k
Memory increases quickly during AI turn..at the end of each AI turn it seems dynamic allocated memory gets dumped since there is a sudden drop in the RAM load but not as much as the increase...which leads to a permanent build up
after only 5 turns memory went up to 544.000k ..this is 177MB for bit more than a dozen differnt AI and players units defending (move/fight).. close to double the size then the entire sound and animations folders together which are 90MB and since animtations and sounds are not compressed they should not occupy more space in the RAM then on the HD

This brings me back to the freeing routines to dump all sounds/animations each time player hits end turn.
As for the problem of the topic opener..seems are specific issue with his PC as nobody else reported such behavior but there still is this memory problem I just described...

[VPaulus]

This is certainly not a generic issue, or nobody could play the game at all. I can't repro it either. But hopefully we can find a clue. My current guess if that we have some odd audio driver which eats up memory in case some music is played. Against this version is the fact that old PzC worked fine. But maybe the drivers were updated since then?

I thought that too, but remember that Audio folder contains also the Music subfolder and tjeren by renaming the audio subfolder is not only not playing the sound effects but also not playing the music.

I checked today, and in AK the tilesets have become ~40MB bigger than in PzC. That's how much more memory AK uses up on the start. As the game progresses, you could also use more memory, because of new units and their effects, but these are few. Most new units reuse old effects, only some (like Panzerwerfer, Flammpanzer and motorcycle infantry unit) have got new effects. Overall, total memory consumption increase compared to PzC should be around 5-10%.

Anyway I think that at least for the sake of longer maps with more units than usual and the possibility of combining mods, you need to address the problem of 1GB limit. At least consider the idea of dumping off memory at the end of each turn. It won't have so much impact in gameplay with modern hardisks. The aliases, although a great idea and very helpful, are not enough, specially when we're seeig to be created the first custom animations. We need to complement it.
For the mod community this is fundamental, Alex.

[VPaulus]

I've played two scenarios without exiting to Windows:
At the end of the first scenario PanzerCorps.exe had 650Mb and in the end of the second 780Mb.

[Razz1]

Why dosen't he disable Norton Anti Virus to see if that works?

Or maybe he has a virus. I've seen those before.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Is one of the best out there.

[tjeren]

Ram usage grow every second no matter what i do, playing or just looking at task manager... if any helps this when i rename audio file game go up to 1.3Gb and still going but with audio it end at cca 840MB... no matter what scenario i play

Now, this is really strange. Does the map usage start to grow right after you start the game, or after you start a scenario? Also, if you still have PzC 1.05 handy, can you run it on the same machine and see if it has the same behavior? I remember it worked fine for you in the past, but maybe something changed since then.

After i select scr. res. game starts and then it starts eating ram. I dont have installed PzC 1.05 any more and i think i play 1.05 on win7 x32.
My audio (realtek HD) driver are newest and work fine with other games and apps.
I hope my problem is unique and will not happen to others ... I tried as much i can i dont know what to do any more... but i finish game, without sound , and it is great

ps.
I tried with older audio driver, no change

[Rudankort]

After i select scr. res. game starts and then it starts eating ram. I dont have installed PzC 1.05 any more and i think i play 1.05 on win7 x32.
My audio (realtek HD) driver are newest and work fine with other games and apps.
I hope my problem is unique and will not happen to others ... I tried as much i can i dont know what to do any more... but i finish game, without sound , and it is great

ps.
I tried with older audio driver, no change

Hi tjeren! If the memory problem happens right after game is started, but it plays ok without the audio, could you please do one more test:
- Leave Audio folder intact, but rename the Music folder inside it to _Music.
- Check if the memory will be eaten up: a) if you start the game and stay in main menu, b) if you fire up a scenario and do a few moves/attacks.

Thanks!

[tjeren]

After i select scr. res. game starts and then it starts eating ram. I dont have installed PzC 1.05 any more and i think i play 1.05 on win7 x32.
My audio (realtek HD) driver are newest and work fine with other games and apps.
I hope my problem is unique and will not happen to others ... I tried as much i can i dont know what to do any more... but i finish game, without sound , and it is great

ps.
I tried with older audio driver, no change

Hi tjeren! If the memory problem happens right after game is started, but it plays ok without the audio, could you please do one more test:
- Leave Audio folder intact, but rename the Music folder inside it to _Music.
- Check if the memory will be eaten up: a) if you start the game and stay in main menu, b) if you fire up a scenario and do a few moves/attacks.

Thanks!

I tried and it works....
I renamed Music folder and that every sceond eating problen is solved, BUT with every move or action in scenario game eats more i more ram and it crash when reach 870MB

[Chris10]

with every move or action in scenario game eats more i more ram and it crash when reach 870MB

that seems natural as the game would crash anyway around 1GB RAM usage but since W7-X64 claims more system ressources than Win7-32bit I suppose the crash simply comes earlier as the application can not reach the adress space reserved for the system...

I really would encourage you to upgrade to at least 4GB RAM..anything under 4GB RAM does not makes any sense for a x64 operating system as it needs more ressources

[Rudankort]

with every move or action in scenario game eats more i more ram and it crash when reach 870MB

that seems natural as the game would crash anyway around 1GB RAM usage but since W7-X64 claims more system ressources than Win7-32bit I suppose the crash simply comes earlier as the application can not reach the adress space reserved for the system...

I really would encourage you to upgrade to at least 4GB RAM..anything under 4GB RAM does not makes any sense for a x64 operating system as it needs more ressources

Chris, how do you explain that:

My problem is solved after i renamed audio folder and after few hours app gets little slow and i takes about 1.3 GB of ram.... save-quit-run again.... and its fast again

Where additional 430MB come from in this case (the difference between 870MB and 1.3GB)?

[Chris10]

with every move or action in scenario game eats more i more ram and it crash when reach 870MB

that seems natural as the game would crash anyway around 1GB RAM usage but since W7-X64 claims more system ressources than Win7-32bit I suppose the crash simply comes earlier as the application can not reach the adress space reserved for the system...

I really would encourage you to upgrade to at least 4GB RAM..anything under 4GB RAM does not makes any sense for a x64 operating system as it needs more ressources

Chris, how do you explain that:

I would like to try if only I know to what in particular you are referring to ?...

If you refer to this bit

I really would encourage you to upgrade to at least 4GB RAM..anything under 4GB RAM does not makes any sense for a x64 operating system as it needs more ressources

Chris, how do you explain that:
[/quote]
the actual system requirements as given by those who have really tested the OS might look something like "Win7 x86 edition requires 0.8 GB RAM, x64 edition requires 1.1 GB of RAM". As those numbers are always rounded up to a nearest GB, you end with 1 GB and 2 GB even.
So having 2GB on x64 will probably conflict with applications which try to use more RAM when there is only around 900MB left and giving the fact people nowadays run a lot of other stuff like AV and whatever RAM is even less
The only point of running an x64 OS is to use more RAM and not to stumble around with 2GB system RAM...
Thats said and coming to x86 games, there might be other situations where x64 edition will really need to a lot more memory. Consider scenario where you run multiple applications, some of them are 64b, others are 32b. Each application requires DLLs which match its bit-ness - hence you will also need many components to be loaded twice, 32b and 64b, or at least to have 32b-64b translation layers loaded instead of them.
With only 2GB system RAM I can only see bad things happen then besides that x64 do use more space for storing memory since each adress is generally twice as long. This means that storing the locations of data in memory takes more memory itself.

[Rudankort]

I would like to try if only I know to what in particular you are referring to ?...

Audio enabled: game crashes at 870 MB of memory usage.
Audio disabled: game gets slow at 1.3GB of memory usage (but does not crash even then).

Why?

[Chris10]

I would like to try if only I know to what in particular you are referring to ?...

Audio enabled: game crashes at 870 MB of memory usage.
Audio disabled: game gets slow at 1.3GB of memory usage (but does not crash even then).

Why?

Reading thru the topic it seems this is an issue particularly related to the OTs PC but without having this PC fisically in front of you
I doubt this can be checked out..seems a problem with the audio in general...unlimited possibilites in hardware/driver combinations
I dunno

My guess would be the audio is the culprit and causes the crash but anyway the game undergoes software aging when it goes slow...
so..well..my guess is as good as anybody elses...beyond that it seems that for most poeple PzC crashes around 1GB anyway no matter how many memory or x86,x64

[Rudankort]

so..well..my guess is as good as anybody elses...

Well, the behavior of the program on the tjeren's PC seemed "natural" to you, that's why I asked. To me there is nothing natural about it, I would even call it exceptional. But as you seem to have no clue too, never mind...

[Chris10]

so..well..my guess is as good as anybody elses...

Well, the behavior of the program on the tjeren's PC seemed "natural" to you, that's why I asked. To me there is nothing natural about it, I would even call it exceptional. But as you seem to have no clue too, never mind...

...no...I meant his crash given his RAM load...not the behavior itself ..its more than weird...
If he has 2GB system RAM and PzC goes over 800-900MB and X-64 OS claims around 1.1 GB or even more with other applications like AV and stuff running too...well..physical memory runs out and it has to crash,has it ?
Thats what I meant with natural...and the log confirmed it too
and lets not forget memory usage in x-64 is higher due to generally double size of the adresses
really a X-64 with 2GB RAM is pointless

[VPaulus]

I'm sure tjeren case is a particular one.
Probably it's a combination of factors, such as codecs and third party software. He said that he don't have anymore 1.05 installed, but when he had it, this issue didn't happened. I bet however if he installed Panzer Corps again he would also have now the same issue.
So I will ask tjeren, if he installed any codec pack, any video or audio player, or anything that might be connected with audio and video, between the last time he played Panzer Corps and now Afrika Korps. Something happened to his system between then and now.