9 réponses à ce sujet

[lead341]

Hi,

I am currently playing Dragon Age Awakening, with the current patch 1.04, on a good system (I7-2600k, 8 GB Ram, Geforce 570 GTX, Win 7 64Bit, Intel SSD Disc). Due to very good cooling the system has no overheating issues (tested with MSI Afterburner etc.)
Whenever I start a game, performance is excellent. Loading occurs almost instantaneously (maybe 1 second loading times) etc. After a while playing, like half an hour, loading times increase (sometimes up to 10 seconds and even more) and I start experiencing lags during gameplay (for example when opening the inventory, when hitting the "tab" key i norder to highlight objects). When I then close the game and restart everything works perfectly.
So far there haven´t been fps issues or crashes (which is also kind of strange: fps are always on top level and remain constant, no issues with that, just loading times and these lags).

I am somewhat aware that this might be the memory leak issue that has been frequently reported. Yet what puzzles me is that even with patch 1.04 this was not resolved. Aren´t there any fixes - maybe even inofficial ones - that might solve this problem?

greetings lead

[sami jo]

The game seems to have issues with multi-core processors. Setting core affinity to one or two core seems to help this issue. There is also a third party (very much a use at your own risk) memory clean-up tool that some have reported has helped with game performance. Directions for both are linked in the solutions round-up thread pinned to the top of this forum.

BW attempted to address what was thought to be memory leak issues with the last two patches. Work on the most recent patch (1.05) which is still in beta has shown more issues with increasing load times that they have had difficulty tracking down. There is a long load times data gathering thread pinned to the top of this forum as well. Devs are still soliciting information in that thread and the private beta group has been testing variations on that patch to try to identify the problem code.

[lead341]

 Thank you very much for this detailed reply. I wasn´t aware of this multi-core issue. I will also search the fix that you proposed.
Generally speaking, there is one thing that I don´t understand: I have been Bioware-Fan since the old days of Baldur´s Gate and it is for me the very best "game creater" ever. And their games usually also have a very good support. But why didn´t they manage to fix these issues? I am no computer expert, but is this really such a complicated issue? I could theoretically imagine that this is something deeply related to the engine which maybe cannot be undone (for example, Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2 which is running on another engine never had these problems).

Greetings lead

PS: How I exactly can I change the core affinity in the game so that it uses only one core?

And regarding the fix, I can´t right find it. I was searching in the roundup section and found this:

*Use at your own risk* - A possible way to address virtual memory leaks in 64-bit machines having performance issues.  Please note this has not been tested by more than one person, and it involved searching for and downloading 3rd party software... so tread carefully!
http://social.biowar...8/index/6364831

Yet when I go to the link, it talks about another issue.

Modifié par lead341, 10 août 2011 - 12:46 .

[sami jo]

In the same thread there is a link to directions for setting the core affinity. It varies slightly by OS. I'm currently away from my desk and typing on my phone, so I will have to check on the other link later.

As for why the number of bugs in DAO, I'm not a dev, so I couldn't give you a definitive answer. I suspect it was partly a functions of the high complexity of the game combined with a new engine and some staffing changes late in the development cycle. The devs have been far more responsive recently, so I am hoping for fixes. The slowdown issue has stumped everyone. It was a sporadic issue before 1.04, with a few reports that could be written off as something else. It got more common with 1.04, but again wasn't a huge issue for many. With the latest beta patch it became an issue for pretty much everyone who applied the patch and despite months of testing, tweaking and code trawling, it is still defying all attempts to identify the problem code.

I too have been a BW fan for a very long time, and DAO is probably my favorite game of theirs, even with the bugs. I do run with several of the fix mods in the community fix-it project, though. Many of the most glaring bugs have been fixed by modders.

[sami jo]

Hmmmm, I can't find the link either. I have PMed someone I know uses it and one of us should get back to you with a link for the memory clean-up tool. Again, this is a third party-use at your own risk sort of thing, but I know many people here are running it and claim it helps with no other issues.

[Thandal N'Lyman]

Not sure about the multi-core issues (even  though I'm running with an Intel Core2Quad Q6600 myself  )
But I had excellent success overcoming CtD problems that started immediately when I installed 1.04 by using a utility to, errrrm...  modify my daorigins.exe file to enable the "Large Memory Area" flag in the program header. 

See my post on the topic (about a quarter of the way down the page) here: http://social.biowar...8/index/3174657.

Good Luck!

[PPoikilothermism]

Sami jo, when you find the link to the clean-up tool, would you mind posting it here as well? It would be very much appreciated.

[sami jo]

Hunting still. I haven't had a chance to hunt for it. I haven't forgotten. If anyone else has the link, please feel free to hop in.

Edited to add: I've found references to people using a memory cleaning utility but no links to the utility they are using.  Google pulls up a host of them, but I would be hesitant to suggest any of them.  Hopefully, someone who uses one of those utilities will stop by this thread, and I will an eye out for mention of one as well.  For those not patient enough to wait, you can certainly google for a clean memory utility yourself.  Use at your own risk, obviously.

Modifié par sami jo, 14 août 2011 - 01:20 .

[PPoikilothermism]

Thank you for keeping an eye on this, I really do appreciate it and will be watching this thread.

Edit: I found a link buried miles deep in the Solutions Round-Up thread referring to NTCore's 4GB application patcher, is that what you're looking for?

Modifié par PPoikilothermism, 16 août 2011 - 03:34 .

[sami jo]

That is what Thandal linked. I have seen reference to folks using clean memory utilities and thathelping with some of the issues. It seems to be more of an issue on some systems than others. Some people clearly see huge increases in memory usage while others, like me, don't.