*NEW* behavior with /unloadgfx
By
Derek_Icelord,
Posted on: 2011-09-16 16:23 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
I can't tell if what I'm getting is the splash screen since it passes so quickly, but I can verify that something different is happening than what it did pre-I21. Windows 7 x64 so it's not a Mac issue.
It blinked something on the screen so fast I couldn't tell what it was.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
I think this might have something to do with the new ability to shift resolutions in game without needing to exit and restart. I'm guessing it's restarting the whole 3D engine with the new resolution which is why you are seeing the splash screen.
But that's an educated guess on my part.
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I use /reloadgfx and I notice it 'twitches' now, and didn't before.
�Many things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.�
Additional Datapoint for this issue.
Any time you click a door to exit the interior of a building in a zone (police station, bank, trading house in Imperial City, Studio 55, etc.) you will see the Zone Splash Screen and the graphical conflict between 2D and 3D that I mentioned earlier. In fact, it looks exactly like the behavior of /unloadgfx is being applied when you exit the interior of buildings inside a zone.
I also repeated my test of /unloadgfx in Underground Imperial on multiple occasions with multiple characters on Virtue server, and *apparently* I'm not seeing the Zone Splash Screen when using /unloadgfx like I do when above ground in Praetoria. I suspect that the reason why this may be so is because when underground, the sight lines are so much shorter and thus there are far less graphics to load ... meaning that the graphics are reloaded into the engine so quickly (especially from a SSD) that the Zone Splash Screen isn't give enough time on screen to register on the Player's visual sensors. Anyway, the "Underground Discrepancy" on this issue makes for yet another Interesting Datapoint in the new behavior of this command.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, until he opens his mouth.
So, here I am, a fool, asking this question.
Why are you typing /unloadgfx ? I've not seen this in the CoH help section for addressing lag or anything.
My best advice would be to just stop using it, and you won't have those problems.
But, then again, assuming this command clears up some memory to improve performance, I'd have to ask why is this even necessary? Surely the game knows what details are needed, when they are needed and when they are no longer needed. ... doesn't it?
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
Quote:
In short no|
Originally Posted by Ukaserex
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, until he opens his mouth.
So, here I am, a fool, asking this question. Why are you typing /unloadgfx ? I've not seen this in the CoH help section for addressing lag or anything. My best advice would be to just stop using it, and you won't have those problems. But, then again, assuming this command clears up some memory to improve performance, I'd have to ask why is this even necessary? Surely the game knows what details are needed, when they are needed and when they are no longer needed. ... doesn't it? |
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Quote:
Note that the above was posted on 12-14-2010, 04:02 PM in this very forum. Do a search for the term "unloadgfx" and you can find posts mentioning it as far back as 2006(!!).|
Originally Posted by Master-Blade
CoH is a 32-bit program. Most operating systems (even 64-bit ones) will only allow 32-bit programs to utilize about 2gb of memory. At that point, it crashes. It doesn't matter how much physical memory you have in your computer. You can still run the game if you only had 1g of ram, or even 512mb, but it'd be much slower as the system will use your hard drive for the extra memory instead of the ram.
As for a "fix", there might be some tricks to tweak your OS, but somebody else would have to answer with that. I never messed around with it myself. Other than that, we can only hope that the CoH Devs come up with a way to manage the memory usage better. It likes to hold onto tons of information that it never really uses (information about people you've teamed with, zones you've been in, chat, contents of windows you've opened, and other info). I mean.. it does actually use some of it later, but it's not like it would drop our overall performance to just load it again when it's actually needed instead of hoarding it all "just in case". People have been complaining about memory usage for quite some time, and have crashed in the past with as little as 1.5g reliably. Each issue release brings more game content and more things the game apparently loads and saves. I've seen my average CoH memory usage (after "hours of play") go from 900mb when I started playing in 2006, to the 1.6g I see today. Eventually, my client reaches about 1.9g and crashes as well. Something you might be able to do in the meantime: /unloadgfx$$clearchat That should free up a little bit of memory (sometimes VERY little), but if you really want to make sure your memory usage doesn't cause you to crash is simply to check on it once in a while. When it gets to about 1.7g or so, you might consider closing your client and opening a fresh one. |
As for whether or not the game "surely knows" what details are needed and no longer needed ... all available evidence points to the game client being very STUPID about memory management, at this point, and that it has been for at least the last 5 years. Here's hoping that Second Measure will create a Mission for the Programming Team to go into the Code Matrix and Defeat All Memory Leaks. Extra special bonus points to Second Measure if he makes it a Timed Mission ...
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Quote:
You're assuming that the Operating system that your running knows how to use/release memory properly as well I'd gather. ;-)
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Originally Posted by Ukaserex
But, then again, assuming this command clears up some memory to improve performance, I'd have to ask why is this even necessary? Surely the game knows what details are needed, when they are needed and when they are no longer needed. ... doesn't it?
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I use the /reloadgfx command if I have been playing for a long time or I experience lag (which isn't often, eve thought i have a putersaurus.) It has always worked greatly.
�Many things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.� Well, that was educational. And I thank those of you who took the time to answer my question. I hope I am not guilty of thread-jacking.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
You aren't. Well, not really. However, Search is your friend.
Using the Advanced Search to search for the keyword unloadgfx and narrowing it to only this forum section yields 170 posts. It's probably been more than that but the forum purges wipe some things out from time to time.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
It used to be that /unloadgfx did a great job trimming the memory usage. But that stopped working over a year ago. Using it last night actually *increased* memory usage.
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Does /reloadgfx do the same thing(s) as /unloadgfx?
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?
Quote:
Yes.
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Originally Posted by Derek_Icelord
Does /reloadgfx do the same thing(s) as /unloadgfx?
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Quote:
Whiskey|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
It used to be that /unloadgfx did a great job trimming the memory usage. But that stopped working over a year ago. Using it last night actually *increased* memory usage.
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Tango
Foxtrot
?
Just how "broken" is the memory management of the game client NOW?
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Something I noticed when I started playing (finally) yesterday ...
/unloadgfx
Prior to Issue 21, the video would pause (briefly) to clear, and then reload all of the graphics in the 4 cardinal directions (N, S, E, W). Solid state hard drive sped up this process dramatically over a spinning platter hard drive, but the behavior was essentially the same.
Now in Issue 21, using the /unloadgfx is doing something new. Now it is causing the Zone Splash Screen to appear (uh, why?) while the reload of graphics in the 4 cardinal directions takes place. Even better yet, the graphical reload causes a "graphics clash" between the 3D zone to be rendered and the 2D Zone Splash Screen (again ... uh, why?).
This ... bug ... seemed to be Infinitely Repeatable and was definitely present in:
- King's Row
- Atlas Park
- Imperial City
- First Ward
For whatever reason ... it seemed like I didn't see this particular "feature" happening when using /unloadgfx when in the Imperial Underground after zoning in from the Resistance Entrance.I am making note of this *NEW* peculiar behavior for /unloadgfx here, simply because it is such a clear, and easy to replicate, departure from previous behavior(s) of the game client.
Oh and just in case it is necessary for troubleshooting purposes, I'm playing using the Mac Client on OS X 10.7.1 for these results.