Test Update 12/13/2023 - New Bugs Only

Reporting a pretty easily reproducible runaway memory blackhole when zoning! I first noticed it when guildies started complaining about extra long zone times, causing me to investigate. It is particularly bad if you have 2-3 boxes online in the same group, then "/kickp task" everyone so the whole group zones at once. Even in plain Windows task manager, you can watch each everquest.exe instance's RAM usage skyrocket during the zone load.

I've watched mine climb to a max of 12 gigs used. Once the character finishes the zone loading process (which takes an unusually long time), the RAM usage fairly rapidly drops back to 1.5 used. I'm not sure what happens if RAM is actually exhausted, as my CPU grinds to a halt trying to allocate faster than the RAM runs out.

This was happening on beta with the DX11 changes to me, frequently 12 min zone times because EQ would redline my ram, initially had 32 gb installed, then installed 128 gb, still maxed it...when zoning 6 characters simultaneously. It would start zoning characters faster if I CTRL ALT DEL and end tasked 3/6 of the boxes.

This CANNOT go live, it is simply an unplayable experience and was told it had something to do with D3D.

I have encountered the same issue. Here is a screenshot that shows 2 EQ instances while the characters are trying to zone in. Switched over to a live server and the problem went away.

This bug was fixed in this Test update.
Please make sure you've run LaunchPad.exe to patch your Test client. In your Logs\dbg.txt file you'll see a line that lists the version of the graphics library. It should be this:

Graphics DLL Version 3.00.23122

Updated and it still continues.

That is indeed what version I have. Test did *NOT* have this bug at all until this version, in fact.

Additional Info - there is an in-game rumor that the bug is related to a new Win 11 update. This is a red herring and it just so happened that Win11 updated the same day as this patch. I've tried both with and without the update including a freshly formatted system and the bug is present regardless of that update or other OS state. I was wrong on CPU grinding to a halt -- that isn't what grinds the system to a halt, but the system trying to flush the filled RAM to disk.

Watching eqgame in procmon shows that all the process is doing the entire time is opening .eqg/.s3d files, presumably loading data from them. It continues this process until your "Modified RAM that must be written to disk before it can be used again" fills all available RAM, which triggers a flush-to-swap that brings the computer to its knees.

I completely concur with Allayna. Prior to this bug, DX11 had achieved "Still terrible, but doesn't completely break the game" status on Test unless you went into a zone that'd been active without resets for a while (guild hall frequent customer here). This bug renders Test unplayable and you're going to have a riot if you release this to Live servers. Perhaps just undo whatever "fix" you made, because it was an anti-fix lol

I appreciate the detailed feedback. However, I cannot reproduce this memory issue on Test (or Beta) with my machines (Windows 10 and 11).

If you're affected by this regression, please send me a complete dbg.txt file. Thanks!

Happy to! To where should I send it?

Please send it to my Inbox here. Thanks.

I'm back to redlining my GPU but only under the 3D aspect when running 7 instances as of this morning on live. I cannot wait till whatever mess with D3D and DX11 goes live.



This is while standing around and started after I zoned into a Hero's Forge mission. I had to restart because the video lag was unplayable.

It's hit and miss for me but every 2-3 times I zone with 4-6 toons at once it will definitely peg out my entire 64GB of RAM. My HW monitor shows 99.8% RAM usage. I've seen instances of EQ hit over 15GB for one sometimes.

The entire contents of my ouse poofed. No more epics, ts trophies, etc.

Please fix my cats. (and all other trophies which I cannot regain due to playing)

I did a fresh install of Test client. I launch the client from LaunchPad.
I've been zoning in at out of Pal`Lomen all morning (with side trips to sharvahltwo) and memory usage is nominal. My modified memory remains under 100MB consistently.
I'm also testing different eqclient.ini settings.

Are you zoning 6 characters on 6 accounts in and out? That is the key that seems to trigger the bug. This is not specifically a single character/single account issue. It's when someone is boxing 6 on a single system and somehow it triggers a memory leak and each client does what Kodaji talked about in detail in his comments.

You are unlikely to replicate this issue on a single character. But for testing purposes try Frontiier Mountains, Laurion's Inn or any of the other zones that had issues since DX11 was introduced several months ago.

If you're not running mutliple accounts at the same time and zoning them at the same time, you're not really reproducing the issue people are reporting.

Sorry folks, I have been zoning multiple characters into the same zone and into different zones. My memory usage remains nominal in every case.

I have to guess that something else is going on in these use-cases and that I need more information from you all.

Thanks for the help!

I sent you a log file that may or may not be helpful. Zoning 1, 2 or even 3 at once usually will not trigger it for me. It's usually only when 4+ zone and only when they all zone at one time like when you /kickp task so they all zone at the same instant. Staggering them zoning even by a few seconds will usually not cause it to trigger or at least heavily mitigates it.

After talking to everyone I know who's experiencing the bug, we ALL have Nvidia GPUs. Is anyone with AMD experiencing it?