STALKER and FEAR a memory hog?

[filibusterman]

First off I'll say that although CS:S does not have big maps it runs fine with my rig. My concern is that all of my ram is used up before the whole game loads so I think I lag once something has to load in the distance. there will be a second or two when going around a corner or into a building where my computer just basically stops. No frames then it strats up again and goes to 30fps or so like normal. Now that i think of this it also happend in FEAR as well. Both seem to be memory hogs, at least on my rig. during the game stalker under the task manager and under rainmeter the mem usage can go up to 700 meg in both the meme usage and the vm size which seems like a bit much. Is there a setting that I am missing because I dont think that most people running the rig in my specs would have the loading shutter problem. I dont think its related to the settings specifically since it will run fine even when looking at anomalies just when it needs to use ram I think there is a problem. any thoughts or comments are appreciated.

 

[xSkyDrAx]

Fear and Stalker are known to be very system intensive games though I would expect Fear to run okay on your system though you're not saying what's your settings. Stalker OTOH is known to the kick the crap out of all but the latest systems unless you're running it with static lighting. It would help to know what setting's you're running it at. Also I would expect the 1 gig of ram to be a limiting factor too.

 

[apoppin]

x850xt, huh?

what *resolution* are you playing at?

that is the single factor most limiting performance in your system ... both games would run pretty well at 10x7 on your rig

 

[Mem]

My rig:
Processor:AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 146 ~2.9GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Hard Drive: 37GB Raptor 320GB Segate
Video Card: RADEON X850xt AGP
Monitor: View Sonic Vx2025wm (1680x1050)
Sound Card: SB Audigy 2 ZS Pt
Speakers/Headphones: Logitech 5.1 x-530
Keyboard: Logitech mx-duo wireless
Mouse: Logitech mx500 on func pad

I'm playing the game at 1680x1050 res with 4GB ram on Vista x64 and still had to turn some details down,probably due to my 7800GT OC card,anyway try static lighting,grass/shadow detail down,try lowering texture quality.

Btw I have read that the performance of how it handles/uses ram etc.. in game needs more tweaking and has not been optimized yet,so I'm hoping to see in the the next patch better performance.

 

[shortylickens]

I'm not sure guys.
I have a 7900GTX and an Athlon64 4800+ (939).
When I moved from 1 to 2 gigs of RAM I didnt see a performance difference in STALKER or FEAR.

 

[filibusterman]

ok well im running it in 1680x1050 with high settings but with static lighting (dynamic drops me down to single digit fps LOL). I don't think the issue is with the gpu as in fields i am 50-60fps and i never dip below 24 except for when I experience hiccups mainly because of what I think the game is trying to load textures or something and those data are probably in the virt memory as opposed to the actual ram? If anyone can check if you have 1 gig of ram and you look at ram usage to you see your computer using the full gig of ram and like 1.5 gig more of virt memory. This just seems insane to me. I don't recall how much FEAR used off hand but not as much as STALKER. I was thinking of a small upgrade to a pci-e mobo and vid card but if the problem is the amount of ram I might use a diff strategy to upgrade. I will try to decrease the visual distance and see if that helps but if anyone else has the issue maybe we can find something in common thats happening.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Mem

My rig:
Processor:AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 146 ~2.9GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Hard Drive: 37GB Raptor 320GB Segate
Video Card: RADEON X850xt AGP
Monitor: View Sonic Vx2025wm (1680x1050)
Sound Card: SB Audigy 2 ZS Pt
Speakers/Headphones: Logitech 5.1 x-530
Keyboard: Logitech mx-duo wireless
Mouse: Logitech mx500 on func pad

I'm playing the game at 1680x1050 res with 4GB ram on Vista x64 and still had to turn some details down,probably due to my 7800GT OC card,anyway try static lighting,grass/shadow detail down,try lowering texture quality.

Btw I have read that the performance of how it handles/uses ram etc.. in game needs more tweaking and has not been optimized yet,so I'm hoping to see in the the next patch better performance.

Mem, you DO have 1:1 pixel mapping for your LCD, right?

try turning DOWN your resolution to 14x9 ... ore even lower for "smoothness"

i *bet* it's your weak-ass CPU ... for 16x10 😉
-it's seriously "struggling"

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Mem

My rig:
Processor:AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 146 ~2.9GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Hard Drive: 37GB Raptor 320GB Segate
Video Card: RADEON X850xt AGP
Monitor: View Sonic Vx2025wm (1680x1050)
Sound Card: SB Audigy 2 ZS Pt
Speakers/Headphones: Logitech 5.1 x-530
Keyboard: Logitech mx-duo wireless
Mouse: Logitech mx500 on func pad

I'm playing the game at 1680x1050 res with 4GB ram on Vista x64 and still had to turn some details down,probably due to my 7800GT OC card,anyway try static lighting,grass/shadow detail down,try lowering texture quality.

Btw I have read that the performance of how it handles/uses ram etc.. in game needs more tweaking and has not been optimized yet,so I'm hoping to see in the the next patch better performance.

Mem, you DO have pixel mapping, right?

try turning DOWN your resolution to 14x9 ...

i *bet* it's your weak-ass CPU ... for 16x10 😉

I'm happy with performance of the game,its trying to save and loading of saves that are giving me major issues,see my Stalker patch thread.

 

[apoppin]

i'm sorry ... i thought you had to turn some setting down to run at a satisfactory FPS 😱

my whole point is that you are talking about upgrading your GPU when you should also be considering a CPU upgrade ---for your relatively hi resolution of 16x10

*all* you will get with your GTS is more "details" ... more AA/AF ... ZERO improvement on Frame rates

 

[apoppin]

i'm sorry ... i thought you had to turn some setting down to run at a satisfactory FPS 😱

my whole point is that you are talking about upgrading your GPU when you should also be considering a CPU upgrade ---for your relatively hi resolution of 16x10

*all* you will get with your GTS is more "details" ... more AA/AF ... ZERO improvement on Frame rates

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: apoppin
i'm sorry ... i thought you had to turn some setting down to run at a satisfactory FPS 😱

my whole point is that you are talking about upgrading your GPU when you should also be considering a CPU upgrade ---for your relatively hi resolution of 16x10

*all* you will get with your GTS is more "details" ... more AA/AF ... ZERO improvement on Frame rates

That's all I want is more AF/AA really.

Getting back to my problem,its weird one.

Loading a quicksave will cause a lockup on loading, when I shut the game down after a lockup it displays a bug problem followed by BSOD and reboot.


Autosaves and Quicksaves don't load period.

Named saves load only if I exit the game and launch it again,ie if I die in game I try to load a named saved, it lockups on trying to load,if I exit game and try to load a named save it works .

 

[apoppin]

sounds awful

try uninstalling and reinstalling the game, patch it and defrag your HD

or put it away 🙁

i am not meaning to "pick" on your rig ... whatsoever ... just trying to get into the relationship of the CPU/GPU to playable frame rates ..
i would have got a 16x10 IF i had upgraded my CPU first 😛

now my 14x9 will play 2nd "fiddle" in a dual display rig ... sometime after the QC upgrade. 🙂

yep, the GTS or HD will be an *awesome* choice for more details/aa/af

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: apoppin
sounds awful

try uninstalling and reinstalling the game, patch it and defrag your HD

or put it away 🙁

i am not meaning to "pick" on your rig ... whatsoever ... just trying to get into the relationship of the CPU/GPU to playable frame rates ..
i would have got a 16x10 IF i had upgraded my CPU first 😛

now my 14x9 will play 2nd "fiddle" in a dual display rig ... sometime after the QC upgrade. 🙂

yep, the GTS or HD will be an *awesome* choice for more details/aa/af

I'm happy with my PC,as I said my next major upgrade is on my backup PC for quad core etc...one of the reasons I want to get a new video card is it gives me a longer gaming life span(plus in my case two PCIe cards,handy for testing).Think of my main PC has becoming my backup PC,you can see why I don't want to spend a lot of money on it,not until it becomes my main PC again in a few years time down the road(I like rotating my main and backup PCs upgrade wise).


Stalker crashed again on trying to load a named game file right after I died in game, so its a bug of some sort and I can repeat it as often as I like.

This patch seems ok to tell you the truth,game seems a bit smoother but hard to say since I have not had a very long time in game for obvious reasons.

 

[filibusterman]

there is a problem with this game if your windows user name is not one word. your quicksaves wont work unless you have a single name for the longin account. there is a fix but i don't recall what it is...I would say google it

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: filibusterman
there is a problem with this game if your windows user name is not one word. your quicksaves wont work unless you have a single name for the longin account. there is a fix but i don't recall what it is...I would say google it

My name is one word,I'm going to try the fix below,btw seems to be a common problem.

This bug bit me twice, so I squashed it!

The first time I saw this bug, I just restarted from the autosave at the beginning of pripyat and did the city in one run without saving. The second time through I wanted to kill everyone in the city so I was saving incrementally and decided to fix the bug instead of work around it - because I would had to have redone quite a bit of play.

There is a bug in the city that seems to save something (an NPC name or a setting) with a "nil" name. That causes a simple call to a lua function named format to fail - throwing the error you see.

The error is thrown by this function in the file "_g.script" (around line 18):


function printf(fmt,...)
log(string.format(fmt, ...))
end


The line throwing the error is the second one, specifically it is the string.format() function call which expects two parameters minimum and only gets one in the case of our broken saved games.

I fixed my crashing problem (it allows you to load "bad" saved games and continue playing and saving like normal) by changing the function above to read:


function printf(fmt,...)
if (arg ~= nil) then
log(string.format(fmt, ...))
end
end


Thats it! Worked for me. I should get paid something for finding and fixing a bug that is literally a show-stopper for many playing this game.

To make it easier one everyone, here is a zip with the file in the proper directory structure: http://www.voxclandestina.com/wp-content/uploads/fix_for_bad_pripyat_saves.zip

Just unzip that file into your stalker directory and set the second line in the file "fsgame.ltx" (also in your stalker directory) to:

$game_data$ = true| true| $fs_root$| gamedata


The same change every other mod requires, so if you have mods already installed you shouldn't need to do anything. Once done you should be able to continue playing the best (and only) city in the game - worry free!

Jon

 

[apoppin]

didn't work, did it? 🙁

too bad ... STALKER is such an excellent game - otherwise

is there any 'buzz' as to WHEN this next patch is due?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: apoppin
didn't work, did it? 🙁

too bad ... STALKER is such an excellent game - otherwise

is there any 'buzz' as to WHEN this next patch is due?

I tried the -noprefetch command in exe. of stalker so far that's working,I need more testing to confirm 100% success .

 

[apoppin]

you shouldn't have to do this

for any game



glad its working ... so far ... good luck!

--shall i tell everyone where the guide is also 😛

 

[Mem]

I spoke too soon,still got the save/load game bug in that pripyat area 🙁 .