Ram question....

[Hicks12]

Well i just built my new computer like last week or 2, iam having trouble playing hellgate, recently it will crash due to lack of memory available. I have 2gb dual channel corsair ram, now the big question is, should i buy another of the same set? or should i just hold out forawhile or even buy the set and just use 1gb stick as i am using 32bit XP.

My motherboard is an asus p5n-d, any1 know if they have issues with 4x1gb sticks? i know alot of mobos do.

[Disturbedguy]

I cant find any decent information reguarding the specification of this game but I cant see 2Gb not being enough to run it.

Have you checked to make sure your RAM isnt faulty?

Do you actually get a message static that the game crashed because of the lack of memory in the system?

Are there any patches out for the game that might solve the issue?

[Hicks12]

from what i can tell it is the ram, on one occasion i managed to get out of the game when it crashed(ctrl+alt+del) and when looking at memory usage it was at 1.98GB. I had core temp running and ati tools, monitoring temps and they were fine. The ram itself should be good as all other games work fine.

The game recommends 3gb of ram, i thought it was insane when i was going to be building this comp soon but it appears it isnt.

I managed to get it working but i have to shut down anything that isnt needed, music etc which is really annoying as i cant play games without my music xD as it gets boring.

[Disturbedguy]

hmm thats a weird one, is that 3gb ram to run at full specs or just run the game, maybe try running it on lower settings and see if that helps in anyway?

Have you got a link to the spec as my googling skills let me down.

[kalniel]

Well i just built my new computer like last week or 2, iam having trouble playing hellgate, recently it will crash due to lack of memory available.

It shouldn't do.. but if it does then putting more memory in isn't going to help you - it'll be crashing due to going over the ~2.3gb per process 32bit limit. The only benefit you'd get from more memory would be if you had a sudden performance drop from it having to use the swap file after running out of physical ram.

Make sure you have a swap file, try adding the /3gb switch to your boot ini, and look up ways to make the program get around the 2gb limit (bcdedit).

[Hicks12]

isnt it a 3.5gb limit? well they said around that as 32bit cant use it properly.

Well i got the box right here and the specs are:
OS: Windows XP with SP2 or Windows Vista
* Processor: 1 .8GHz or faster (2.4GHz for Vista)
* RAM: 1GB or more (2GB for Vista)
* Video: DirectX 9.0c/10 compatible device w/ 128MB RAM or better and Pixel Shader 2.0 support; requires NVIDIA GeForce 6200/ATI Radeon 9000 chipset or greater
* Audio: DirectX 9.0c compatible device
* Disc drive: 8x DVD or faster
* Hard drive: 6 GB or more free space
* Input: Keyboard and mouse
* Internet: Connection required for multiplayer

I seem to remember the recommended saying 3gb somewhere.
I use XP. my specs are:
E8400-3ghz
2 x1gb dual channel corsair pc6400(overclocked to 950mhz)
8800GTS OC edition from bfg, 512mb one.
Asus p5n-d.

Thats about it. thing that i dont get is that at this time i am usisng 500mb (with firefox etc) so that would leave atleast 1.5gb for the game to run which seems insane.

I just changed the virtual memory to like 3069, is that right? it was on 2gb-4gb now i set to 3-4. Is that what you mean?

[kalniel]

No I wasn't really talking about the virtual memory size - I was just making sure you had something at all.

There is a limit for 32bit programs of about 2gb memory usage. Yes, your 32bit operating system can see 'up to 4gb' but actually each program can normally only use up to 2, beyond which it will crash fairly nastily. The first game I encountered that had this problem was Supreme Commander, which on a 81km 8vs8 map can go over 2gb after about 40 minutes.

To get around this 2gb program limit you need to set a flag in the program itself to make it aware of memory past the 2gb limit, and set a flag in windows to keep itself snug in only the last 1gb of the 4gb allocation rather than the last 2gb by default. You use a program called bcdedit for the former, and you add a switch to the boot.ini parameter for the latter. Neither workarounds are guarenteed to be stable - the latter may especially cause you problems with other applications, so it's best to create a new line in the boot.ini specifically for it so that you effectively 'dual boot' with one option a 3gb aware system and the other at default.

Once the program is happy going over 2gb windows will page out other stuff to the swap file to make room for it - if the usage over 2gb is temporary (for example uncompressing an area) then you won't have any speed problems - it'll just take a bit longer to load. If it stays above 2gb (as for supreme commander) then all this swap file usage will slow things up, and then having more than 2gb of physical ram might help.

I am purposefully not going into exactly what you need to do because it's explained better in various guides on the internet and if you want to do it you should read them through carefully.

[Hicks12]

thanks for the help, just another question though...... if i had say, vista 64bit it would be fine right?.

And i think the problem has solved itself but i will try it again later if it has then i wont even bother buying more ram till i get a 64bit version, either vista or xp. I have vista but it has dx10 which is barely anything xD>

edit: also, any1 have any idea what settings will reduce ram usage? ingame that is, as i thought all of it was rendered by the graphics cards ram, am i wrong?

[kalniel]

If the game actually uses a 64bit executable then yes, all these problems go away completely on a 64bit OS. Thing is, I've no idea if it does, sorry

[Lucio]

One thing, Hellgate has multiple EXE files, make sure you're running the DX 9 version and not the DX 10 version.