Extremely low RAM available with 1 session

Krizzik · Post by **Krizzik** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 11:47 am

Before I go through and post all my info, briefly, I have 1 gig of ram, at this eact moment have only 1 EQ session running, and have 176MB of ram available .... yes I have on all models, have a GeForce FX 5600 128 MB vid, now .. before I post all my info .. anyone out there to offer reasons why one session is eating up all my ram? Maybe some things I should turn off? No, I won't turn off all the models, to me it's part of what I pay for to see in the game, so I won't do that =) Maybe some other video settings that are really needed? I'm not big on vertex shaders so have that off ... just curious, I run 2 sessions with about 25 ram left and sometimes, oddly it seems to climb and I'm not certain why ... so, any advice on self fixes?

Post by **Lax** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:04 pm

Without having sysinfo.txt, there's no way I or anyone else can determine what you should turn off or how much RAM your 1 session is taking. Also, we dont know how much RAM your system is taking BEFORE you launch the game -- it doesnt matter how much RAM is in your system, we need to know how much RAM you had when you first launched it. If you have 75 other programs open, then that 1GB total RAM is arbitrary

So.. if your available RAM is low, you probably just need to close background programs to bring it back to normal.

Krizzik · Post by **Krizzik** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 8:40 am

ok here's my info with only 1 session running:

WinEQ 2 System Information
System:
-----------------------------------
Windows Version: Microsoft Windows XP/Service Pack 2/2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519
System Physical RAM: 147/1023MB
Page File: 1631/2462MB
Virtual Memory: 1931/2047MB (Extended: 0MB)
CPU 1: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+ @ 1833MHz
CPU Affinity Mask: 1
Video 1: \\.\DISPLAY1/NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
Video 2: \\.\DISPLAYV1/NetMeeting driver
Video 3: \\.\DISPLAYV2/RDPDD Chained DD
Monitor 1: \\.\DISPLAY1 (0,0,1280,1024) (1280x1024) PRIMARY
Sound: SB Live! Wave Device
DirectX: 4.09.00.0904
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180
WinEQ: 2.12

Loaded Modules:
-----------------------------------
Module 0: C:\EverQuest\eqgame.exe
Module 1: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntdll.dll
Module 2: C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll
Module 3: C:\EverQuest\mss32.dll
Module 4: C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
Module 5: C:\WINDOWS\system32\GDI32.dll
Module 6: C:\WINDOWS\system32\WINMM.dll
Module 7: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ADVAPI32.dll
Module 8: C:\WINDOWS\system32\RPCRT4.dll
Module 9: C:\WINDOWS\system32\WSOCK32.dll
Module 10: C:\WINDOWS\system32\WS2_32.dll
Module 11: C:\WINDOWS\system32\msvcrt.dll
Module 12: C:\WINDOWS\system32\WS2HELP.dll
Module 13: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DINPUT8.dll
Module 14: C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMM32.dll
Module 15: C:\EverQuest\DSETUP.dll
Module 16: C:\WINDOWS\system32\VERSION.dll
Module 17: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ole32.dll
Module 18: C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll
Module 19: C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHLWAPI.dll
Module 20: C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\x86_Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.2600.2180_x-ww_a84f1ff9\comctl32.dll
Module 21: C:\WINDOWS\system32\comctl32.dll
Module 22: C:\WinEQ2\WinEQ2.dll
Module 23: C:\WINDOWS\Lavish.dll
Module 24: C:\WINDOWS\system32\PSAPI.DLL
Module 25: C:\WinEQ2\WinEQ2-EQ.dll
Module 26: C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSIMG32.dll
Module 27: C:\WinEQ2\WinEQ2-D3D9.dll
Module 28: C:\WinEQ2\WinEQ2-D3D8.dll
Module 29: C:\WinEQ2\WinEQ2-DI8.dll
Module 30: C:\WINDOWS\system32\mswsock.dll
Module 31: C:\WINDOWS\system32\hnetcfg.dll
Module 32: C:\WINDOWS\System32\wshtcpip.dll
Module 33: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DNSAPI.dll
Module 34: C:\WINDOWS\System32\winrnr.dll
Module 35: C:\WINDOWS\system32\WLDAP32.dll
Module 36: C:\WINDOWS\system32\rasadhlp.dll
Module 37: C:\WinEQ2\EQPlayNice.dll
Module 38: C:\WINDOWS\system32\NTMARTA.DLL
Module 39: C:\WINDOWS\system32\SAMLIB.dll
Module 40: C:\EverQuest\EQGraphicsDX9.DLL
Module 41: C:\WINDOWS\system32\d3d9.dll
Module 42: C:\WINDOWS\system32\d3d8thk.dll
Module 43: C:\EverQuest\dpvs.dll
Module 44: C:\EverQuest\eqmain.dll
Module 45: C:\WINDOWS\system32\usp10.dll
Module 46: C:\WINDOWS\system32\HID.DLL
Module 47: C:\WINDOWS\system32\SETUPAPI.DLL
Module 48: C:\WINDOWS\system32\WINTRUST.dll
Module 49: C:\WINDOWS\system32\CRYPT32.dll
Module 50: C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSASN1.dll
Module 51: C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMAGEHLP.dll

Direct3D9:
-----------------------------------
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra/nv4_disp.dll/6/14/10/7189
Adapter Display Mode: 1280x1024 D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8
Game Display Mode: 1175x950 D3DFMT_UNKNOWN
Current Adapter: 0
Available Texture Memory: 188MB
Direct3D8:
-----------------------------------
Adapter Display Mode: 0x0 D3DFMT_UNKNOWN
Game Display Mode: 0x0 D3DFMT_UNKNOWN
Current Adapter: 0
Available Texture Memory: (not currently available)
DirectInput8:
-----------------------------------

EverQuest:
-----------------------------------
Profile 1: Krizzik
EQ Path: C:\EverQuest
EQClient.ini: .\eqclient.ini
Patch: OFF Test Server: OFF Locale: us
Video Adapter: Application Controlled
Luclin models: 29 (+145 min RAM)
Dynamic Lighting: ON (+4 min RAM)
Texture Caching: ON (+0 min RAM)
Texture Quality: LOW (+0 min RAM)
Sky: COMPLEX (+10 min RAM)
Calculated minimum RAM: 442MB (BASE+159MB)
Level of Detail: 1
MaxFPS: 100
Additional setting: HardwareTnL=TRUE
Additional setting: VertexShaders=0
Additional setting: 20PixelShaders=0
Additional setting: 1xPixelShaders=1

EQPlayNice:
-----------------------------------
EQ Version: eqgame.exe Oct 10 2005 17:02:52
Foreground
Mode: FPS Limiter
Max FPS: 40
Rendering: 1/1
Background
Mode: CPU Limiter
Max FPS: 30
Rendering: 1/30

-------------------------------------------------------

trying to figure out why I have 170MB of RAM left with one session .. thanks

Post by **Lax** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:46 pm

Well, according to sysinfo.txt, you have it set to use about 450MB per EQ session. With about 150MB left, then you are presumably starting with only 600MB before launching EQ.

What you need to do is bring up Windows Task Manager by hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL. Click on the "Processes" tab and you will see a nice list of every application that's running, along with how much CPU time it's taking and how much RAM it's taking. At the bottom of the window you'll see the total % of CPU usage, and the "Commit Charge" which shows the total amount of RAM used, out of how much total physical and virtual RAM. I have 2GB of RAM and Windows is set to about 1.5GB of virtual memory, so for me it shows "644M / 3429M" under commit charge. You have 1GB of RAM and about 2GB of virtual memory, so your commit charge should also say something close to xxxM / 3000M. Before starting EQ, take note of your commit charge. I'm going to say that you're probably starting at 400M commit charge before launching EQ. Then launch EQ and go all the way into the game, and take note again of your commit charge. It should be roughly 425-450M higher than you started with. You can also look and see exactly how much RAM EQ is using in the list, in the Mem Usage column. One thing you need to be aware of here is that by default, only part of the real amount of memory being used by these processes is listed. You can fix that by clicking View -> Select Columns, and on the right side the 2nd item down is "Virtual Memory Size" -- check that box. Now next to Mem Usage os a VM Size column. I'm no expert on this next part, but one of the two columns is going to have a larger number for each process, but not always the same column, depending on how active the memory is in the application. The larger number is how much is actually being used by the process.

Your goal is to determine which separate applications you are running that you should shut down in order to minimize your memory usage before launching EQ. If you want to keep your 450MB per session settings, with your 1GB system, you need to make sure you're starting with a commit charge of 100MB or less before launching EQ, or you will run low on RAM, probably run out in fact, and will have performance issues because of it. You can change the options listed in your sysinfo.txt to lower your RAM per session:

Code: Select all

Luclin models&#58; 29 &#40;+145 min RAM&#41;
Dynamic Lighting&#58; ON &#40;+4 min RAM&#41;
Texture Caching&#58; ON &#40;+0 min RAM&#41;
Texture Quality&#58; LOW &#40;+0 min RAM&#41;
Sky&#58; COMPLEX &#40;+10 min RAM&#41;
Calculated minimum RAM&#58; 442MB &#40;BASE+159MB&#41;

It is commonly known that you can disable all but the required models (e.g. your race and elementals/horses) to free up most of the extra RAM.