255 réponses à ce sujet

[bjdbwea]

Andreas Papathanasis wrote...

Also please don't call that problem a memory leak unless it's been confirmed by a dev that this is what causes it (and I haven't seen that confirmed anywhere).

And that's part of the problem, I haven't seen this obviously existing bug confirmed by BioWare either.

While it's not a major problem, it's been time enough to at least acknowledge the problem.

[whtnyte-raernst]

In the first place, the ummm "person" ranting about the memory leak has no concept of what he is spouting. A memory leak is when one program corrupts the memory space of another. In essence, it has "leaked" out of it's memory sandbox into the sandbox of another program running in memory.



That usually gets it labeled a virus...I don't think I would call Dragon Age a virus.

[Dark83]

My personal belief is that DA:O is failing to unload everything cleanly when we leave an area and load another.

[whtnyte-raernst]

Dark83 wrote...

My personal belief is that DA:O is failing to unload everything cleanly when we leave an area and load another.

You are quite close to the mark there!
I've seen other programs behave like this. It's usually poor variable management.
If you have ever done advanced mathmatics, you may have encounter Quadratic Equations. They can take four pages of calculations to arrive at an answer. Now put something like that in a computer and ask it to come up with a variable for say...drawing an archway in a wall. They can be huge.

I think what the game is doing is, it's keeping those long variables "just in case" they are needed again. So the more areas you visit in rapid succession, the more constipated your memory becomes. Closing the game forces it to release all of it's stored variables and you go again for another 4 hours or so, not really a big deal...at least to me.

[Dark83]

whtnyte-raernst wrote...

If you have ever done advanced mathmatics, you may have encounter Quadratic Equations. They can take four pages of calculations to arrive at an answer.

I have a math degree. I hate higher order differential equations.

[whtnyte-raernst]

Dark83 wrote...

whtnyte-raernst wrote...

If you have ever done advanced mathmatics, you may have encounter Quadratic Equations. They can take four pages of calculations to arrive at an answer.

I have a math degree. I hate higher order differential equations.

LOL, after dabbling in programming, and computer graphic design, I settled in and got my degree in computer forensics.
Math comes very easily for me, but like you, I hate it as much as I hate programming with a passion!

I've search extensively for a relaible source of information on this problem (IE: a tech site, NOT a gamer site), so far there is none to be found.

[4Aces]

Mordigan wrote...

To load an area in Denerim, I have to load another area first... I've also noticed that after long hours of play, areas or levels take longer to load, which is strange because it should be the opposite..

The longer you play the game, the shorter loading times should be because most of the data should be cached at that point right?

Not necessarily.  That means that the saved games are becoming bloated the longer you play.  I wonder if they are cacheing the Party Memebers too?  That would act as if you had everyone in the camp along with you but only three are interactive.  Try kicking everyone out of the camp and see what that does to your game (save first ).  I would but I do not have the same problems (yet anyway).

@Andreas - Can we get the real Core/Data/textures.erf or do you need more time to find it? 

Modifié par 4Aces, 21 décembre 2009 - 09:44 .

[Xaltar81]

ZeroMystic is my hero. I have never laughed so hard at someone who is actually serious. By the way dude, this thread is about TEXTURES, not load times. I won't further derail the thread by trying to make sense of what you are saying.

Your intellect is surely far beyond what we meer mortals could ever hope to grasp. I mean your mastery of the english language is just mind boggling, not metaphoricaly either. I reitterate and repeat and say again, you are my most fovoritist poster in this thread,

The dude kinda reminds me of Mojo Jojo from the powerpuff girls. MM, maybe it IS Mojo Jojo.....

As to the texture issues, it looks to me like some of the LOD models and textures somehow got mixed in with the high and medium packs. If that is so then it is possible that Bioware may have the full res assets sitting on a drive somewhere.

Modifié par Xaltar81, 21 décembre 2009 - 09:57 .

[mejobloggs]

I would love to see some proper high res (or even medium res) textures for this game. Mainly the environment bugs me



All of the high res mods I've looked at actually look worse

[Sammage2k]

whtnyte-raernst wrote...

In the first place, the ummm "person" ranting about the memory leak has no concept of what he is spouting. A memory leak is when one program corrupts the memory space of another. In essence, it has "leaked" out of it's memory sandbox into the sandbox of another program running in memory.

That usually gets it labeled a virus...I don't think I would call Dragon Age a virus.

Don't know if I'm the "person" you're referring to, but since I did mention a memory leak and I did mention that I work with software, it's possible. Not sure if I can be characterized as ranting though and I know I have at least a concept about what I spout off about.

The definition you're using for memory leak isn't the common one I was aiming for with the term. With your advanced degree you probably know something I don't but your definition above isn't the one I was using.

The pretty common understanding for memory leak among those of us without advanced computer science degrees (but who none the less earn our living coding, debugging and supporting software) is when your code allocates memory but doesn't deallocate it when it's done with it so the memory becomes unavailable to any other process. These types of leaks are very common and are not referred to as virii.

Now of course not everything that acts like a memory leak IS a leak but just about everyone I know still refers to it as such if some of the basic symptoms are there.

From what I've read and experienced the symptoms here seem to match what I normally call a memory leak. Now, no one at Bioware has said such a thing exists, so I'll stop calling whatever is happening that here on the boards.

What shall we call it though?

Oh, and your later theory about holding textures just in case seems pretty plausible. Still seems like something that a dev could verify and say something about to stop us all from running around in circles.

Modifié par Sammage2k, 21 décembre 2009 - 11:38 .

[Bullets McDeath]

Almost sure he's talking about ZeroMystic and not you, Sammage, but that could be irrational hatred of ZeroMystic talking.

[Sammage2k]

: )

[whtnyte-raernst]

outlaworacle wrote...

Almost sure he's talking about ZeroMystic and not you, Sammage, but that could be irrational hatred of ZeroMystic talking.

Yes I was refering to "He whose name must not be spoken"
I've found if one talks around it, and pretends it's not in the room, it tends to go away.

[Mordigan]

Sammage2k wrote...

The pretty common understanding for memory leak among those of us without advanced computer science degrees (but who none the less earn our living coding, debugging and supporting software) is when your code allocates memory but doesn't deallocate it when it's done with it so the memory becomes unavailable to any other process. These types of leaks are very common and are not referred to as virii.

This is the definition of memory leak that seems to fit what I've experienced playing DAO..

The game isn't deallocating VRAM properly, so when you go to new areas, you may not have enough VRAM to support that area and you end up with flashing or corrupt textures, or no textures at all..

These problems (ie flashing or missing textures) only occur if you have a texture mod installed (4Aces and/reative's), as the game uses considerably more memory with one installed than with the default textures, and seem to only affect Denerim market place; probably due to the relatively large size of the area and the density of NPCs.

But it's very indicative of how flawed and inefficient DAO is with memory allocation.  There's no point in 4Aces finishing his texture mod until Bioware fixes this issue.

[robotnist]

Xaltar81 wrote...

etherhonky wrote...

i know nothing of texture work. from what little i pretend to know, an artist creates the assets for a given item, for example "boulder_1" or "dungeon_wall_2" etc... wouldnt increasing the resolution of that given item help its res out in and of itself, and then repackaging them?

In a word no. Basicly all you will be doing is scaling the existing texture. Say a 256x256 "upresed" to 512x512 still only contains the detail of a 256x256 only now its blurred and crap looking. What most amatures do then is throw massive ammounts sharpening on the image to make it look sharp again. This does not look good nor is it a high res texture.

To truly upres a texture you have 2 choices:

1. Most common, make it from scratch with a new source image being sure it tiles correctly and looks close enough to the original that it does not conflict with the existing assets.

2. Not as applicable to environment work, up the resolution of the existing texture to the size desired and then basicly paint in the details again with pixel brushes and the like or, use overlays to add detail to the texture that looks good.

As you can see, both of these options are time consuming. Bioware might well release a higher res version of the game in years to come, maybe a GOTY enhanced edition or the like but you have to understand that its not cost effective to simply release it as a patch or DLC.

I hope this makes a few things clearer for those of you that don't know much about the guts of game design. I say again, the mods will come and DAO will get a facelift, just give it time.

best post here.
thanks xaltar!!! this should help other like myself understand why certain things may not be updated. for example if bioware had "X" amount of time and money left and decided that they could either make a floor texture look better or finish tweaking certain combat aspects, i would much rather them work on the latter.

and im sure they did the right thing thats why im playing an incredible game.

[4Aces]

Mordigan wrote...

But it's very indicative of how flawed and inefficient DAO is with memory allocation.  There's no point in 4Aces finishing his texture mod until Bioware fixes this issue.

Actually, I just got a fairly large donation and a request to retexture the Core Textures myself.  If I were to redo them all it would be a 700+ hour project, but I could use the same techniques that I used for Fallout 3 to minimize game impact.  While there are 2000 256^2 textures, this "I-am-not-a-console-game" uses triplicated textures.  The extra two are just 1/2 and 1/4 the dimensions of the first.  These are likely LOD textures (textures seen at longer distances), and why they did not use the Mipmaps in the main texture is still unanswered.  That means that I only have to do 1/3 of the 2000 (resising/renaming the other two takes about 60 second total).

I am not noticing the VRAM not clearing, but I also find that I play for an hour or two at a time.  I am about to start a 4 hour gaming session, and I will play stright through (no shut downs).  I did one test where toggliing the Buffer Effects and V-Sync (just for the heck of it), going back into the game for .5 seconds, then toggling them back on (in Denerim) seemed to improve things.  So maybe it is at least partially a VRAM issue.

As for the Denerim market having a larger area with more people than say, Redcliff when you first visit (militia and a lot of extras around), I would have to discount that as the reason.  Well time to play the market as see if I can figure anything out. 

Modifié par 4Aces, 22 décembre 2009 - 12:50 .

[Bibdy]

Quickest way to see if you're having the loading time issue.



1) Play the game continuously for a few hours.

2) Just before you jump to a new area, save the game.

3) Go through the transition and see how long it takes to load into the area.

4) Quit to the main menu.

5) Reload the save game.

6) Go through the area transition again and time how long it takes.



If the time to load between 3) and 6) drops from about 15-20 seconds to 3, there's a good chance you're having the loading time issue...

[whtnyte-raernst]

Ummm, this has been discussed adnauseum in the pc forums, can we please let 4aces have his graphics topic back?

I'm anxious to see what he comes up with )

[Koralis]

whtnyte-raernst wrote...

In the first place, the ummm "person" ranting about the memory leak has no concept of what he is spouting. A memory leak is when one program corrupts the memory space of another. In essence, it has "leaked" out of it's memory sandbox into the sandbox of another program running in memory.

That usually gets it labeled a virus...I don't think I would call Dragon Age a virus.

Actually no. 

A memory leak is when memory gets allocated, but never gets deallocated. 


Example:
Memory is allocated for every Table, Chair, Plate, Knife and Fork when you enter the Dining Room.
Memory is released for the Table, Chair, Plate, and Fork when you leave the Dining Room.

The Knife constitutes a memory leak.  If you enter the Dining Room it allocates a Knife.  When you leave, it doesn't deallocate the knife.   If you enter and leave the room 2000 times there are 2000 knives allocated that are serving no purpose, but the program has forgotten about them.  Over time memory leaks turn into big pools of memory that's simply wasted, and cause legitimate users of memory to work with less, forcing the OS to page out memory to the hard drive, etc.

[Mordigan]

4Aces wrote...

Actually, I just got a fairly large donation and a request to retexture the Core Textures myself

Thats great to hear..  Once you finish, I'll eagerly send some money your way.  Or maybe I'll do a down payment first 

As for the Denerim market having a larger area with more people than say, Redcliff when you first visit (militia and a lot of extras around), I would have to discount that as the reason.  Well time to play the market as see if I can figure anything out. 

Can you load a saved game in Denerim market place?  With the texture mod installed, I can't load a save game in Denerim at all without crashing.  I have to load a save from another area first, before loading the one from Denerim..

Also, I noticed the problems with the corrupt or missing textures when entering multiple areas within the Denerim market place..

For example, entering the tavern and exiting, then entering the Emporium and exiting, then entering some where else and exiting will always end up with corrupt and missing textures..

Thats what led me to believe the game wasn't deallocating  VRAM properly.

BTW, I'm playing at 2560x1600 with 4xAA and 16xAF, everything maxed.  Lowering the graphical detail from very high to high seems to help these problems, but doesn't eliminate them entirely.

Modifié par Mordigan, 22 décembre 2009 - 02:31 .

[Aduilawen]

whtnyte-raernst wrote...

In the first place, the ummm "person" ranting about the memory leak has no concept of what he is spouting. A memory leak is when one program corrupts the memory space of another. In essence, it has "leaked" out of it's memory sandbox into the sandbox of another program running in memory.

That usually gets it labeled a virus...I don't think I would call Dragon Age a virus.

This is called a buffer overflow.  Not a memory leak.  Buffer overflows can be a payload for a virus or other malware intended on overflowing the allocated memory for a particular service in order to disable (read: crash) it.  This of course not what the other posters are referring to.

[DragonRageGT]

Xaltar81 wrote...

ZeroMystic is my hero. I have never laughed so hard at someone who is actually serious. By the way dude, this thread is about TEXTURES, not load times. I won't further derail the thread by trying to make sense of what you are saying.

Your intellect is surely far beyond what we meer mortals could ever hope to grasp. I mean your mastery of the english language is just mind boggling, not metaphoricaly either. I reitterate and repeat and say again, you are my most fovoritist poster in this thread,

The dude kinda reminds me of Mojo Jojo from the powerpuff girls. MM, maybe it IS Mojo Jojo.....

As to the texture issues, it looks to me like some of the LOD models and textures somehow got mixed in with the high and medium packs. If that is so then it is possible that Bioware may have the full res assets sitting on a drive somewhere.

heh... I guess the whole thread devoted to him was deleted by the Mods. Either that calmed him down or he got another "prize" from them too. If you read my posts about his gamespot/faqs record, you might laugh a bit with his owened forum threads history. The guy was doing here what he's done there and won the Champion of the Lock award!
http://social.biowar...m/234883/#forum

From what I read about loading time issue in some BW guy reply somewhere, frequent alt-tabbing could make that happen. I can say that when I wasn't doing my DA movies and didn't alt-tabbed at all I didn't noticed much of this problem. After I started with fraps, eventually I'd get some long loading times when I was back to the game. Closing and restarting the game would fix that, as suggested by that BW guy.

I run the game everything maxxed with pretty decent FPS (40-60). Would a high-res texture pack have a huge impact on it? My gpx card is not that bad considering how cheap I paid for it but it's not top either. Win7 64, Quad9550@2.83GHz, 8GB ram, GeForge 9600GT running at 1366x764 (but I might get a 22" monitor soon).

[Torias]

This thread is for discussing Textures with a high resolution.



Any other discussion or meta-discussion is inappropriate for this thread and is derailing it. This is includes complaining or joking about other forum members, such posts are often just as disruptive as (or more so than) the original behavior.



Please, stop derailing this thread and allow a productive discussion of high resolution textures to continue.



Thanks.

[Xaltar81]

That depends on how much video memory your card has, if its a 512mb verison or higher it should be able to handle some higher res textures. It will lower your FPS significantly on that card though. In time we will start seeing some proper high res texture packs created by modders that actually know what they are doing rather than simply resizing a texture from 512x512 to 2048x2048 and hitting sharpen 50 times. There is no need for any texture in this game to be larger that 1024x1024, the nature of the game camera system would mean that you would not see any difference between a 2048x2048 and a 1024x1024. For most environment pieces a 512x512 is sufficient. Retexturing things takes thought and planning. A large object might warrant a 1024 whereas an object half the size should be 512 to keep pixil density even and avoid having low density and high density textures in the same view (like the wagon and other low res textures stick out currently).

[phordicus]

i'd love to see some real numbers on this, such as on a clean install with 0 mods, how much ram is used on a fresh startup and load of the market.