Low RAM warning

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by temeter, September 8, 2014.

  1. varrak

    varrak Official PA

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    OK you lovely people. Here's where my little memory vanquishing experiment has ended up so far. First, a summary of what changed:
    1. Fixed an issue where each feature impostor was creating it's own depth buffer (at around 40k or so each). On the battlefield system, that was around 10MB wasted.
    2. Trimmed some excessively large textures down to reasonable levels (saved around 600MB on the battlefield system)
    3. Fixed an issue where sometimes, some textures would be loaded twice.
    4. Fixed an issue where the temporary data we loaded containing texture pixels wasn't cleared when the texture was created. This resulted in an extra CPU-side copy of the data that wasn't needed, saving another 600MB on battlefield).

    Before I started poking around, the battlefield system started out at 5.5GB on my machine.
    Final result (at least so far): 4.1GB.

    So, 1.4GB of RAM saved. So far. I think there's more we can do.

    In fact, next step will be to add an option to the graphics settings "Texture Quality" or similar, that just trims off the top mip-level of textures when they're loaded. This should save another couple of hundred megabytes. Good times... good times...

    Anyway, @websterx01 - it looks like you owe me a beer... :)
    Vernam7, whisperr, ozonexo3 and 33 others like this.
  2. drz1

    drz1 Post Master General

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    I don't really understand all this in terms of what this RAM is doing etc., but it sounds like you rock at saving it :) great to hear the gains you are making, and I hope the rest of the team is boofing development as well as you! I may have to celebrate by having a browse through the armoury for new comm skins...
    cwarner7264, Remy561 and varrak like this.
  3. selfavenger

    selfavenger Active Member

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  4. websterx01

    websterx01 Post Master General

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    That is the most well earned beer I've ever seen. Now to get one from Ohio to you, while being under 21 :p
    squishypon3, Remy561 and varrak like this.
  5. varrak

    varrak Official PA

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    How about I drink a beer, and pretend you bought it? That works for me :)
  6. mjshorty

    mjshorty Well-Known Member

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    Well we want to know more about optimization, offline-mode and save features then buying beer :(
  7. websterx01

    websterx01 Post Master General

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    This thread has turned into an unofficial optimization update thread. He reduced the RAM usage by 1.4GB! That's a HUGE leap forward, in fact, that will allow a lot of people much better performance all across the board. They're obviously working on that stuff, you don't see much interactions from devs, which usually means they're working on something important.
    drz1, Remy561 and varrak like this.
  8. DeathByDenim

    DeathByDenim Post Master General

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    Don't you see? The trick it to send lots of beer to Uber in exchange for enhanced bug solving/feature implementations. I'm sure that'll work out just great. ;)
    squishypon3, cdrkf and Remy561 like this.
  9. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    [​IMG]
    careful
  10. varrak

    varrak Official PA

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    I was wondering how long it would be before somebody brought up the Ballmer peak. We have beer and whisky in the office for a reason...

    But seriously, we are still working hard to make things run better. For those of you having less than ideal experiences, don't give up on us yet.
  11. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    I wish this crazy government would let a minor buy a beer for someone legal to drink it.

    Since it thinks its great to prevent someone legal from buying a beer for a minor, you'd think they'd allow it vice versa :rolleyes:
  12. xanoxis

    xanoxis Active Member

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    Hah, for me its fascinating, because you as a team made this engine by yourself, and now we as backers see how it grows. When I play games like BF4 or Dota2 I dont know if I could have better fps or not, because I know nothing about that engine comparing to this one. Its great to know what is happening and what is possible.

    Anyway, about ram consuption, I think UI process is worth checking out.

    And gratz about release of fixes to build! <3
  13. varrak

    varrak Official PA

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    Thanks!

    Yeah, we're looking at the UI processes, too - there's some definite trimming to be done there.
  14. doud

    doud Well-Known Member

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    As usual, brilliant :cool:
  15. Remy561

    Remy561 Post Master General

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    Awesome work Varrak!! I really love these small updates :)
  16. vyolin

    vyolin Well-Known Member

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    I suggest that instead you convince your fellow devs that all armory proceeds for the next day are transferred directly to your bank account. Either that or you will have to wait quite some time for all that delicious beer arriving from Old Europe.
    drz1 likes this.
  17. xanoxis

    xanoxis Active Member

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    [​IMG]

    RAM usage at 25 minutes into 5 FFA game, not that big because two planets crashed, but that is still awesome.

    Great job!
  18. mikaeldeity

    mikaeldeity New Member

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    I would love to see offline soon but first the game must be stable for big game with 10 players (admitting everyone have horsepower). Game runs 60 fps for me in 2-3 planets system. More crash as I load the game. I7 3770 oc 4.2 GHz 8 gigs and a 7850 2gb oc should be enough for this game to run at least 30 fps on big games. It crashes all the time.The engine is great but ram usage is too much an issue to prefer offline. I use to play land parties and every time there's a issue that keeps us fixing it we lose time and don't have fun. Organise a party is not easy due to work and busy life. I want the game to be solid so we can play, even online. Then offline will come and we will go back playing in the basement!
  19. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    You shouldn't crash on large systems, it's usually just a bit slow... A couple of things to check... 1: make sure your drivers are up to date for graphics (get direct from amd), 2: ensure windows page file is on and set to automatic. 3: ensure all your windows updates are installed.

    I was playing on a phenom II x3 (updated finally to an fx8320 yesterday :) not an i7 but still massive boost in pref) with 8gb ram on a large 6 planet system with no problems (fps was low but its an old machine) so your machine should be fine.
  20. temeter

    temeter Well-Known Member

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    Awesome, RAM usage improved quite a bit. Last time i tried, I got a ram-crash for two 1.3k planets in system editor, now i'm left with 2gb free while having one browser open.
    Although that might have been be my fault to some degree. Still notably better.

    Also improved framerate in system editor. When going for one of the big planets, the fps changed from ~35 to ~45. Nice work.
    Last edited: September 11, 2014
    cdrkf likes this.

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