Recently I started looking at my windows task manager/processes tab. Doing a rough calculation it appears that I'm using 120ish megs of memory. However the Commit Charge: shows 623M.
Is this typical or is there a memory leak? This only happens when I'm running EQ. Even when I camp out of EQ the commit charge remains very high and performance is very slow for the rest of the system.
If this is a memory leak, is there a way to fix it aside from getting a new computer/software? I've already used the trendmicro and there's no viruses on my system. Lavasoft didn't come up with any weird anomolies either.
System specs just in case it matters:
P4-2.5Ghz intel chip
1 gig of pc2100 ram
Asus P4B motherboard
MSI GeForce4 4200Ti 8X 128MB DDR
Creative labs sound blaster sound card (cheapest they made when I bought the system, can't remember the exact one).
3Com 10/100 network card (yes, I realize my motherboard has a built in network card but I prefer 3Com).
Windows XP Home
I'm using EQW build 2.4 but the amount of memory doesn't seem to change if I'm running EQ from there or straight from the eqgame.exe file.
I kept the task manager up from when I started writing this until now. The eqgame.exe has gone from 40k to 110k for some reason. Now I'm baffled and puzzled.
Thanks for any thoughts on the matter.
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Good question topic!
Diagnosing memory leaks is a really tricky process if you don't do it right. Taking a scientific approach will save you a lot of trouble here.
First thing I would do is get a baseline of memory usage based only on windows. To do this, go to start:run and type in msconfig . In the window that opens, click the general tab and select diagnostic startup. hit ok, then restart your computer.
Upon restart, press CTRL+Alt+Del to load the windows task manager and click on the processes tab. Note all the processes in there at that time, their memory usage, and cpu usage over time. Now open msconfig again, and set normal startup. restart.
As soon as your computer is completely booted up, and in it's natural state before you open any programs that don't already open at startup, again load the windows task manager. Note any changes in the processes tab to the one s you already wrote down, and note the new entries, and how much mem usage they have. If there are any significant changes to the mem usage on the ones from the diagnostic boot and the full boot, post them here. (you can sort the mem usage list by clicking on the mem usage header)
Next, look at your list of running processes. note any that are over 3,032 k and are not on the diagnostic boot list. If Svchost.exe is listed more than once, this is normal. Check and see if any of them appear to be for things you don't use on startup, like directcd.exe, quicktime, winamp, etc.
Go back to msconfig. look on the startup tab. if you see anything on that list that you don't normally use on a regular basis, remove it. For example, quicktime takes 20 seconds to load if it is not loaded at startup, yet it takes around 3000k memory. I personally almost never use quicktime. if you don't either, nuke it.
Now that we have a clean setup to work off of, begin opening and closing programs. note the mem usage values for everything before, and after running the program (a restart in between each one doesn't hurt, but is time consuming) if you notice a higher number after running a program, it has a memory leak.
Everquest has a few ppersistant minor memory leaks that they have never quite totally obliterated, so I wouldn't be suprised if you find one there.
Diagnosing memory leaks is a really tricky process if you don't do it right. Taking a scientific approach will save you a lot of trouble here.
First thing I would do is get a baseline of memory usage based only on windows. To do this, go to start:run and type in msconfig . In the window that opens, click the general tab and select diagnostic startup. hit ok, then restart your computer.
Upon restart, press CTRL+Alt+Del to load the windows task manager and click on the processes tab. Note all the processes in there at that time, their memory usage, and cpu usage over time. Now open msconfig again, and set normal startup. restart.
As soon as your computer is completely booted up, and in it's natural state before you open any programs that don't already open at startup, again load the windows task manager. Note any changes in the processes tab to the one s you already wrote down, and note the new entries, and how much mem usage they have. If there are any significant changes to the mem usage on the ones from the diagnostic boot and the full boot, post them here. (you can sort the mem usage list by clicking on the mem usage header)
Next, look at your list of running processes. note any that are over 3,032 k and are not on the diagnostic boot list. If Svchost.exe is listed more than once, this is normal. Check and see if any of them appear to be for things you don't use on startup, like directcd.exe, quicktime, winamp, etc.
Go back to msconfig. look on the startup tab. if you see anything on that list that you don't normally use on a regular basis, remove it. For example, quicktime takes 20 seconds to load if it is not loaded at startup, yet it takes around 3000k memory. I personally almost never use quicktime. if you don't either, nuke it.
Now that we have a clean setup to work off of, begin opening and closing programs. note the mem usage values for everything before, and after running the program (a restart in between each one doesn't hurt, but is time consuming) if you notice a higher number after running a program, it has a memory leak.
Everquest has a few ppersistant minor memory leaks that they have never quite totally obliterated, so I wouldn't be suprised if you find one there.
Quote:
If there are any significant changes to the mem usage on the ones from the diagnostic boot and the full boot, post them here.
Ok, I had three entries from Nvidia on start up that are nuked as of now. Drivers are still in tact but I didn't really need an icon in the task bar that allows me to switch video modes (I'm perfectly capable of doing that with a right click in the middle of my screen, hehe). Quicktime was also in there but has been put into a long term coma until I decide to revive it.
Gonna start messing with Everquest while using EQW and without EQW. I'll post my findings in a bit.
Edit:
Just ran Everquest from the EQ icon (didn't use eqw). All models and options turned on. Memory usage for EQ alone jumped to 380,884k in the bazaar. Logged the mule off and started my bard in WFP. Memory usage for EQ dropped to 310 megs. The Commit Charge when I was in the bazaar was hovering at 488 megs. When I added up all the memory usage that was pretty close (did rough rounding in my head on each indivudial program). While in Freeport the commit charge dropped to 415.
Now I'm completely logged out of EQ (haven't rebooted yet). My commit charge is 99M but a quick adding of the mem usage comes up with 73M (including internet explorer at 15 megs).
Rebooting now and will run with EQW all models/options loaded next.
Edit 2:
Ran EQ using EQW. This time also will all options and models turned on. Very similar results so it doesn't appear to have much/anything to do with EQW vs. native EQ running.
Edit 3:
Ran EQ using EQW. All options and models turned off. Similar results but far less memory used. In the bazaar there was 228megs being used in eqgame.ext and 339megs in the commit charge. While in Nektulous forest 227 megs were being used with 342 in the commit charge. Interesting thing is why would there be about the same memory usage in these two zones when the polygon count decreases dramitically between the zones? Possible carryover memory usage from the bazaar this time?
Completely out of EQ now. Approx 80 megs are being used but the commit charge is showing 101 megs (once again, this is with IE and Taskmanager running and included).
Final note/question. I'm usually very leary using 3rd party programs until I get some good confirmation from several reliable sources that it's a good shareware/freeware program. This is probably why it took me forever and a day to finally download and use EQW. Now some people have been talking about a program called EQplaynice or something like that. It supposedly helps EQ with the memory leak issue and/or resource hog issues. Have you heard anything about it? If it's a good program and will help EQ not eat half of my ram I'll probably get it but the threat of worms, viruses, trojans, etc scares the begeezers out of me (doing all of my financial transactions on this computer makes me worry about bad nasties infecting my prescious - hehe).
Thanks again K, appreciate the help/advice.
Edited, Sat Mar 27 12:41:14 2004 by Madahme
Edited, Sat Mar 27 12:54:15 2004 by Madahme
Edited, Sat Mar 27 13:20:42 2004 by Madahme
I have heared of it, i have never personally used it since an occasional restart is not that much of a bother to me. It isn't scumware or anything like that near as I can tell.
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