32bit game memory usage explained

Suffered this for a while and tried this method and it worked great! Thanks for the soloution to one of my problems at least.

Levatino wrote:

Ooh! Man, I hope it works for me, too, since I have very similar issues. Frankly, I have WORSE than only 2 GB of RAM, but it was never an issue until this week, on Test Server (Erollisi Day is already up there). Why, I have no idea, but here's my info:
Processor: Pentium IV 3.00 GHz (Enhanced)
RAM: 1.50 GB; 2.99 GHz (approx.)
Graphics Card: Chaintech GeForce FX-5200 128 MB DDR VRAM (for the longest time, this and my RAM were enough to run EQ2 fairly well; no bad crashes at all until this week)
Operating System: Windows XP
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 60 Hz
Frames Per Second: Put it this way: I rejoice when I'm up to double-digits. This has actually decreased a little since the whole new, more complex log-in screens bit went up (including the leaving of Launchpad on [it has NEVER dropped of its own accord for me; I've always had to shut it off manually using Windows Task Manager], and the interestingly-named AwesomiumProcess.exe. When I killed those two, the Mem Usage of EverQuest2.exe went way down, until I actually got into game...or couldn't, rather, since I'd shut LaunchPad off prematurely. D'oh).
I've tried adjusting various Graphics settings under Options->Advanced recently, and while it did help with my FPS, I had a limited time to enjoy it until the Critical Error messages piled up (twice in a row this week, it's been 6 error messages to 1 EQ2, and I've had to do Close Group to finally kill them all). For all I know, it's an issue with something on Test Server; when I play there, I do so with "native" characters created for the purpose. I'll just dash off to a Live server for a bit and see what happens.
EDIT: Okay, this is weird. Went on Crushbone server for a couple of hours; it got a little high, Mem Usage-wise, at one point, but nothing too scary (the last time I was on Test, last night, I was on less than a half an hour before getting the bad kind of Crits). Was able to fight some annoying critters that attacked me, finished some quests, even got into our T2 Guild Hall without too many issues, though that got me into scary-ness with over 1 GB of Usage. I was going from the GH to my South Qeynos 6-room house when I got 5 of the usual 6 Critical Errors...but with only 200,000+ K Mem Usage, so I have to wonder if that has anything to do with it, or any indication that it's about to go kerphlooey. :-/
Uwk
P.S. If this switch allocates more to EQ2 (and other large-ish programs) and less to the OS, how will this affect any anti-virus programs? If the answer is, "not at all," sign me up (if possible)! --U.

You have got to be kidding me.
Seriously.
What changed inthe game between the last expac and Age of Discovery to cause this memory error? My computer hasn't changed during this time...just the game.
Now the solution to this, is to mess with properties in my windows files, that I really have no intention of touching (and could potentially mess up other things in my computer). Instead of say, figuring out what the heck happned, to the program it'self, to make it cause the memory errors.
I use to love this game, play it all the time, I reccomended it to everyone...but now it's broken.
This is madness.

I have two identical machines. Both have 4GB of RAM and are running Win XP. One has the 3GB switch set, the other does not. Both show 2.75GB available (My Computer > Properties > General). Where can I check that it's working?
Oh, and both machines STILL suffer out of memory crashes in EQ2.

Well. I enabled that nifty little comand over a month ago. All the crash and memory issues went away as soon as I rebooted. It has helped with all the games on my system in fact. So I went ahead and did it to my wife laptop and big difference there. She is a Sim3 player, and it took the game from run 10 seconds, freeze 10 seconds to smooth sailings.
I would say this is a good piece of info that is well worth the time to use.

Aemm@Splitpaw wrote:

If you just have 4 GB and after starting the computer, you only have 2.75 left, that is cutting it close for the game, especially if you are going to be running a browser or other things at the same time.
Check your Startup folder to see if any non-essential programs are loading to free up some RAM (quicktime, instant messengers, etc all have options to not load at startup. Use those options first before removing them from the startup folder or stopping them in the checkboxes within System Configuration.

If you are still having issues with memory you can also use a nifty program like Gamebooster.
When you want to run a game like Everquest 2, first run this program it will shut down unneccesary game related windows services plus also additional other programs you don't use during gaming, thus creating more memory to use for your game. If you are done gaming just press restore to get them back.

Velenda wrote:

The cause of the crashes turned out not to be pure memory related as some thought. Working with two other players who commented on this thread we figured out it was due to memory pointer corruption due to the large memory flag they enabled on the executable. That is not to say that that corruption was the cause of all the crashes people have experienced. Some are truly related to memory leaks.

I've got a major re-write I'm going to be putting up some time this week for this. I want to have it reviewed first so as not to catch the TSR unaware.

That's worse with this /3GB, my browser is lagging, and EQ2 can't even launch.
Without /3GB, I could enter the game (then crash).

The minimum specs are still listed as 512MB -> http://www.everquest2.com/faq#Q43
While it makes sense that the game needs some more memory these days, I think 2gb is quite a lot. Why do we even run into these problems?
Is there a setting to more aggressively 'garbage collect' so release inactive bits of memory?

Now I was happy this workaround helped. No crashes anymore with application ran out of memory in EQ2. And now guess what? EQ1 does not like this change at all. Screen freezes as soon as someone casts something with effects.
I changed this /3GB thing back and voila EQ1 works again and EQ2 crashes again..... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ritten@Splitpaw wrote:

There is but I'll have to look it back up for you. I know there is something related to /low_mem. Try doing a command search when in the game by typing in /low and press TAB.

I did this on a Dell Insiprion 530 (Spec's below), using Windows Vista 64-bit; and my in game FPS went from 40 to 3!! how do I revert back to defaults? This has messed up everything from internet lag to any game that I've been playing.


CPU 1.8GHz Intel Pentium E2160
Memory 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics 128MB Nvidia GeForce 8300 GS
Hard drive 320GB, 7,200 rpm


Also running a second graphics card which is a GeForce 8400 GS

EDIT*** Semi-fixed this by setting the VMA to 2070; fps is back up to 15, which is at least playable; and suggestions to revert it all the way back to normal?

PaRaGoN3434 wrote:

The problem is you ran it on a system with only 2Gb of RAM. It's only really recommended for those with 4Gb and above.
Click on the Start menu, type in cmd.exe. Right click on cmd.exe and click Run as Administrator. Once the command window pops up type in bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 2048 and press enter. Restart your computer.

UPDATE** I was wrong about my computer information above, I do have 4gb of ram, I was lazy and did a generic search on my computers info, forgetting I have slight modifications. Edit** MS Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2 Intel Core2duo CPU E7300@ 2.66 Ghz, 4G Ram, Running both a Nvidia 8400GS, and a Nvidia 8300GS I don't know if this also matters, but my Window Experience Index is a 3.6 lacking in performance for windows Aero (everything else is above 5.5). I have since not been able to find the source of my in game lag, everything on the computer is well maintained; and is regularly cleaned. Thinking I may have to take it into a tech specialist to find out why I'm lagging on the simplest of games now. Thanks for your help!

PaRaGoN3434 wrote:

Then it's most likely that since the video cards are using your system RAM as additional VRAM that it's essentially causing the system to run out of memory between the VRAM, system cache and the game. I suppose I should add a disclaimer in regards to that in the original post.
Have you tried doing a System Restore to a point before you did the modification? Also, how much space is left on your hard drive. There may be a chance where if it's running out of RAM it's paging out to the page file on the hard drive. If there is less than 15% of space left you'll suffer even worse than simply having something in the page file (which is bad enough as it is).

I did system restore to a point about a week earlier, it didn't change anything; I then reformatted my computer; and the problem still exists, as far as memory goes; the computer is using


Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB
~~~~~Available Physical Memory 2.37 GB~~~~~
Total Virtual Memory 8.21 GB
~~~~~Available Virtual Memory 6.23 GB~~~~~
Page File Space 4.29 GB


EDIT** Extra information regarding the system Information

OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Version 6.0.6002 Service Pack 2 Build 6002
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name PC
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Inspiron 530
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU E7300 @ 2.66GHz, 2667 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 1.0.15, 6/20/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume3
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6002.18005"
User Name PC
Time Zone Pacific Daylight Time

PaRaGoN3434 wrote:

It might be something else causing it then. I would go ahead and have your system checked out. Might be as simple as the computer overheating from a clogged fan.

I'm just curious..... Is there ANYONE out there that is still able to run this game without frequent memory crashes on a 4Gb Win XP SP3 system with a 1Gb graphics card? It's been about a year now, and I've seen many, many posts of people having issues, and no real solutions. Some folks are having success with the /3GB switch, but like many, it just slows my system to a crawl and causes EQ2 to fail to launch at all. Very frustrating... One idea that comes to mind... perhaps I should just backgrade to my 8 year old X850XT Radeon card - at least that would recover some addressable memory?