Morrowind memory leaks (progressive slowdown) -- any solut..

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
moving between areas, etc.

Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
minutes.

This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
this bad with any other game

Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
thing still happens.

I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)

Have also tried

- fresh install of Win98SE
- setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
becomes just as laggy)
- setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit


Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?


System specs are

- NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
- Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
- 1 GB PC3200
- Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
- GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
tried a few other driver versions with little difference
- Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
- using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
- Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?


thanks!

--
Jordan.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Jordan Hazen wrote:

> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
> moving between areas, etc.
>
> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
> minutes.
>
> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
> this bad with any other game
>
> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
> thing still happens.
>
> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>
> Have also tried
>
> - fresh install of Win98SE
> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
> various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
> becomes just as laggy)
> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
>
>
> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?
>
>
> System specs are
>
> - NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
> - Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
> - 1 GB PC3200
> - Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
> - GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
> tried a few other driver versions with little difference
> - Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
> - using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?
>
>
> thanks!
>

Windows XP will probably do better if you have 1 GB of RAM. With 512 MB
of RAM I had the same problems if I did a lot of traveling. Just
staying in one area (such as a cave) wasn't much of a problem. With 1
GB of RAM the only crashes I have seem to be related to the mod I am
currently using (such as Suran Underworld or Havish).
The only other thing to try is lowering the visuals and seeing if that
helps. I never tried as I spent $400 for a 9700 Pro when they first
came out just for the game and wanted to get my money's worth.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

jnh@aug.com (Jordan Hazen) skrev i meddelelsen news:1106268524.909890
@coelacanth.aug.com:

> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?

Yep. Personally I prefer Win2000 - NTFS filesystem, of course.
Your other specs look fine.

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm

 

[FeliX]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Jordan Hazen schrieb:
> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
> moving between areas, etc.
>
> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
> minutes.
>
> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
> this bad with any other game
>
> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
> thing still happens.
>
> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>
> Have also tried
>
> - fresh install of Win98SE
> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
> various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
> becomes just as laggy)
> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
>
>
> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?
>
>
> System specs are
>
> - NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
> - Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
> - 1 GB PC3200
> - Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
> - GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
> tried a few other driver versions with little difference
> - Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
> - using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?
>
>
> thanks!
>
I think, your processor is to slow. A better processor will do it, AMD
64 3000+ or better.The Geforce FX is ok, 1 GB RAM too.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Felix wrote:

> Jordan Hazen schrieb:
>
>> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
>> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
>> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
>> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
>> moving between areas, etc.
>>
>> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
>> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
>> minutes.
>>
>> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
>> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
>> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
>> this bad with any other game
>>
>> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
>> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
>> thing still happens.
>>
>> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
>> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
>> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
>> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
>> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
>> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
>> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>>
>> Have also tried
>>
>> - fresh install of Win98SE
>> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
>> various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
>> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
>> becomes just as laggy)
>> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
>>
>>
>> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
>> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
>> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?
>>
>>
>> System specs are
>>
>> - NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
>> - Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
>> - 1 GB PC3200
>> - Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
>> - GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
>> tried a few other driver versions with little difference
>> - Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
>> - using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
>> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?
>>
>>
>> thanks!
>>
> I think, your processor is to slow. A better processor will do it, AMD
> 64 3000+ or better.The Geforce FX is ok, 1 GB RAM too.

I don't think his processor is the problem. I ran the game since it
came out until a couple of months ago on a 2 GHz P4 with 512 MB of RAM.
I didn't experience all of the OP's problems most of the time. If I
was exploring an area I could play all night. Only when I tried to do a
bunch of quests in a row using mark, recall, intervention spells, etc.
was I able to crash the game, often within minutes. During this time my
memory usage for the game went from around 250 MB to over 750 MB. I
think this added memory caused the program to lose itself and crash.

 

[Andy]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Felix" <nagelring@tiscali.de> wrote in message
news:csqjil$1q35$1@ulysses.news.tiscali.de...
> Jordan Hazen schrieb:
>> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
>> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
>> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
>> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
>> moving between areas, etc.
>>
>> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
>> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
>> minutes.
>>
>> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
>> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
>> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
>> this bad with any other game
>>
>> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
>> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
>> thing still happens.
>>
>> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
>> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
>> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
>> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
>> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
>> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
>> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>>
>> Have also tried
>>
>> - fresh install of Win98SE
>> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with various
>> Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
>> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
>> becomes just as laggy)
>> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
>>
>>
>> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
>> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
>> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?
>>
>>
>> System specs are
>>
>> - NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
>> - Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
>> - 1 GB PC3200
>> - Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
>> - GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
>> tried a few other driver versions with little difference
>> - Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
>> - using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
>> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?
>>
>>
>> thanks!
>>
> I think, your processor is to slow. A better processor will do it, AMD 64
> 3000+ or better.The Geforce FX is ok, 1 GB RAM too.

It plays fine on a 1.4 Athlon with 1GB ram and XP; that's my current gaming
rig. I can run from one side of the continent to the other with that.

I won't try Doom 3 on it though...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

In article <mqYHd.7871$8u5.4134@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
Michael W. Ryder <mwryder@_worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>Windows XP will probably do better if you have 1 GB of RAM. With 512 MB
>of RAM I had the same problems if I did a lot of traveling. Just
>staying in one area (such as a cave) wasn't much of a problem. With 1
>GB of RAM the only crashes I have seem to be related to the mod I am
>currently using (such as Suran Underworld or Havish).
>The only other thing to try is lowering the visuals and seeing if that
>helps. I never tried as I spent $400 for a 9700 Pro when they first
>came out just for the game and wanted to get my money's worth.

Thanks to all of you who suggested 98se as the cause. Switching to XP
seems to have solved this problem completely!

I can walk through all the cantons of Vivec now, teleport or take the
silt striders between many different cities, with no slowdowns or audio
dropouts at all after ~4 hours runtime. Area transitions are much
quicker also... I changed DontThreadLoad back to 0, since threads seem
to be less broken in XP, and the loading pauses walking between cells
are now 1-2 seconds max.

Adding another hard drive at the same time might account for some of the
improvement... Morrowind's now on a separate disk from the swapfile.

The only negatives have been a slight drop in framerate, and my first
crash-to-desktop a few minutes ago (right after killing a Steam
Centurion in Arkant...., erm the Dwemer ruin nearest Balmora . Never
had those under 98, although maybe I didn't let it run long enough
before to trigger whatever causes them.

Anyway, thanks again for the tip. I would have tried 2000 first, but
didn't have access to that OS. Hopefully XP with most of its "eye
candy" and unnecessary services turned off isn't much worse.
--
Jordan.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Install Bloodmoon + patch 1.6.1820 and your game should run better. In the
new area (Solstheim) you may in fact experience worse performance than on
Vvardenfell, but this is caused by higher polygon counts, not memory leaks.
But your graphic cards should be strong enough to handle that much polygons.
Just give Bloodmoon a chance...

"Jordan Hazen" <jnh@aug.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1106268524.909890@coelacanth.aug.com...
>I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
> moving between areas, etc.
>
> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
> minutes.
>
> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
> this bad with any other game
>
> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
> thing still happens.
>
> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>
> Have also tried
>
> - fresh install of Win98SE
> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
> various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
> becomes just as laggy)
> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
>
>
> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?
>
>
> System specs are
>
> - NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
> - Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
> - 1 GB PC3200
> - Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
> - GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
> tried a few other driver versions with little difference
> - Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
> - using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?
>
>
> thanks!
>
> --
> Jordan.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

In article <csqjil$1q35$1@ulysses.news.tiscali.de>,
Felix <nagelring@tiscali.de> wrote:
>I think, your processor is to slow. A better processor will do it, AMD
>64 3000+ or better.The Geforce FX is ok, 1 GB RAM too.

Ditching 98SE for XP seems to have solved the leak issue completely, so
it looks like that was my biggest problem.

Hardware wise, I suspect the 5700LE is my bottleneck in a few areas...
e.g. walking outdoors near a coastline, it'll dip below 10 fps sometimes
(playing at 1280x960, view distance maxed out, shadows slider at ~20%),
but turning off pixel shading more than doubles the frame rate. I hate
to give up the pretty water effects, though and do get 20-40fps
everywhere else.
--
Jordan.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

In article <csrqfh$fc9$1@anderson.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de>,
Rico Roßberg <rosr@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> wrote:
>Install Bloodmoon + patch 1.6.1820 and your game should run better. In the
>new area (Solstheim) you may in fact experience worse performance than on
>Vvardenfell, but this is caused by higher polygon counts, not memory leaks.
>But your graphic cards should be strong enough to handle that much polygons.
>Just give Bloodmoon a chance...

Oh, forgot to mention I did install Bloodmoon after moving to XP and
adding the second hard drive, so that new 1.6.1820 morrowind.exe version
might have improved things too.

--
Jordan.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Felix <nagelring@tiscali.de> skrev i meddelelsen news:csqjil$1q35$1
@ulysses.news.tiscali.de:

> I think, your processor is to slow. A better processor will do it, AMD
> 64 3000+ or better.The Geforce FX is ok, 1 GB RAM too.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

I have this prob. allso on Win 98.....but it takes 3+ hours to become
annoying...I have allways thought this type of slowdown was due to the use
of game save/loads ...perhaps the game will run ok longer if you avoid save
game reloads as much as possible....had same prob. with Splinter Cell...(and
some other games)..but (nearly) all cured with the latest driver for my
Radeon 9800 ....perhaps you should try getting your latest Video Cards
driver...just changing video settings ..lower resolution etc.. wont
help....its not about the processor....but is about Win 98 ....XP would
prob. be ok...
P4 3ghz....Win 98(Not SE) ....Radeon 9800 pro.
Mouse

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

trimble bracegirdle wrote:

> I have this prob. allso on Win 98.....but it takes 3+ hours to become
> annoying...I have allways thought this type of slowdown was due to the use
> of game save/loads ...perhaps the game will run ok longer if you avoid save
> game reloads as much as possible....had same prob. with Splinter Cell...(and
> some other games)..but (nearly) all cured with the latest driver for my
> Radeon 9800 ....perhaps you should try getting your latest Video Cards
> driver...just changing video settings ..lower resolution etc.. wont
> help....its not about the processor....but is about Win 98 ....XP would
> prob. be ok...
> P4 3ghz....Win 98(Not SE) ....Radeon 9800 pro.
> Mouse
>
>
The problem was not the video drivers as I tried a number of them over
the years. The problem was that the memory usage could triple if you
did a lot of "fast" traveling and the game got "lost". It didn't matter
if you did a lot of game saves but a lot of reloading previous saves
could also trigger a crash. The reason I mentioned the video settings
was to lower the load on the hardware if it is marginal. Plus some of
them (like shadows) can really slow the game down.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

You mentioned the latest patch. Are you aware that their is an expansion
called Bloodmoon and a patch for it and that is actually the latest pass.

Also, change the max FPS in the ini fron 240 to around 60 to 80.

Finally, use the construction set to make a plug in that makes the weather
sunny good most of the time. THose ash storms realy eat pc cycles.

Good luck.








"Jordan Hazen" <jnh@aug.com> wrote in message
news:1106268524.909890@coelacanth.aug.com...
> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
> moving between areas, etc.
>
> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
> minutes.
>
> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
> this bad with any other game
>
> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
> thing still happens.
>
> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>
> Have also tried
>
> - fresh install of Win98SE
> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
> various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
> becomes just as laggy)
> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
>
>
> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?
>
>
> System specs are
>
> - NF7-S motherboard, nVidia nforce2 chipset
> - Athlon XP2400+ running at 11 x 200Mhz (~XP2700-ish performance)
> - 1 GB PC3200
> - Maxtor 7200rpm EIDE drive, 45 GB
> - GeForce FX 5700 LE, clocked at 420 / 420 MHz, Forceware 61.76...
> tried a few other driver versions with little difference
> - Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller, Toshiba SCSI DVD-ROM
> - using onboard motherboard sound & Ethernet
> - Windows 98SE, FAT32 filesystem - would 2000 or XP work any better?
>
>
> thanks!
>
> --
> Jordan.

 

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On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:55:46 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
<mwryder@_worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>Windows XP will probably do better if you have 1 GB of RAM. With 512 MB
>of RAM I had the same problems if I did a lot of traveling. Just
>staying in one area (such as a cave) wasn't much of a problem. With 1
>GB of RAM the only crashes I have seem to be related to the mod I am
>currently using (such as Suran Underworld or Havish).

Haven't tried Havish but found no difficulty with Suran Underworld. (I
do have 1 gig with lots of disk space)

I _do_ continue to have lots of crashes though I seem to have more
crashes when I use teleportation a lot - not sure precisely why...



>The only other thing to try is lowering the visuals and seeing if that
>helps. I never tried as I spent $400 for a 9700 Pro when they first
>came out just for the game and wanted to get my money's worth.

 

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jnh@aug.com (Jordan Hazen) wrote in
news:1106268524.909890@coelacanth.aug.com:

> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
> moving between areas, etc.
<snip>
I remember doing some experiments when I played (and it was quite a while
ago, so I may be mixing it up with something else). My conclusion was that
it wasn't precisely a memory leak. They just weren't unloading some area
data. I could play for many hours if I was exploring some region, but when
I was doing some quests requiring a lot of jumping between different
locations, memory usage was quickly growing and finally when a significant
portion of physical RAM was used, windows memory manager was starting to
swap some data on disk which was killing performance. Using fixed swap size
area on a separate partition (or better a separate drive) should
somewhat help, but the only reliable solution that I know is to restart
Morrowind.

Alex.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

In article <1p22v0ls3g39j3urfvfa8rvk4hdr42dnif@4ax.com>, mike_noren2002
@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk says...
> Thusly Felix <nagelring@tiscali.de> Spake Unto All:
>
> >I think, your processor is to slow. A better processor will do it, AMD
> >64 3000+ or better.The Geforce FX is ok, 1 GB RAM too.
>
> Nonsense, Morrowind played just fine on AMD XP 1800, so a 2400 is
> definitely more than enough.

In fact I have played it on a system with a 1.4 Mhz Celeron in a BX
motherboard, and a measly Nvidia MX 400 video card (still using the
latter, albeit with a Barton 3200+ CPU now). Works fine every way.

Memory is more of a problem than raw processing power with Morrowind.
I.M.O., y.m.m.v. et cetera, naturally.

-Peter

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

alexti wrote:

> jnh@aug.com (Jordan Hazen) wrote in
> news:1106268524.909890@coelacanth.aug.com:
>
>
>>I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
>>of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
>>time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
>>slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
>>moving between areas, etc.
>
> <snip>
> I remember doing some experiments when I played (and it was quite a while
> ago, so I may be mixing it up with something else). My conclusion was that
> it wasn't precisely a memory leak. They just weren't unloading some area
> data. I could play for many hours if I was exploring some region, but when
> I was doing some quests requiring a lot of jumping between different
> locations, memory usage was quickly growing and finally when a significant
> portion of physical RAM was used, windows memory manager was starting to
> swap some data on disk which was killing performance. Using fixed swap size
> area on a separate partition (or better a separate drive) should
> somewhat help, but the only reliable solution that I know is to restart
> Morrowind.
>

The fixed swap space is not a solution as I had the problem with a 1 GB
fixed swap space. I think the game itself got lost. I could tell when
it was going to occur when the hard drive started churning and the game
lagging seriously. The only other thing I can think is that maybe it
loaded the same areas more than once and confused the game.
In "normal" use the game used about 256 MB of memory. When it was going
to crash it was using over 500 MB of memory. While this may not be a
memory leak it seems that the game's memory management went haywire.


> Alex.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:48:45 -0600, Jordan Hazen wrote:

> Any other ideas? From reading other posts about this on Google,
> apparently not everyone runs into the memory leak issue. Is there
> anything else I should try to at least lessen the problem?

Try playing "vanilla" without the mods first and see how it is. If it plays
ok then start adding the mods one at a time and play for a while seeing how
it reacts. It may not be the mods and if so check out as someone suggested
the Bloodmoon patch.
--
RJB
1/24/2005 12:26:44 PM

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is
something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.
--Albert Einstein

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

RJB <robartle@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> skrev i meddelelsen
news:1ev9vn1fg4u7t.dlg@robartle.nospam.hotmail.com:

> seeing how it reacts. It may not be the mods and if so check out as
> someone suggested the Bloodmoon patch.

You need to install Bloodmoon to use that. Right? Otherwise it won't
work...

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

jnh@aug.com (Jordan Hazen) wrote in
news:1106268524.909890@coelacanth.aug.com:

> I just started playing Morrowind ("Game of the Year" edition) a couple
> of weeks ago... love the game, but can only run it for 1-2 hours at a
> time between restarts. After that it starts getting progressively
> slower, with pauses every few seconds, sound cutouts, long delays in
> moving between areas, etc.
>
> Cities are the worst for bringing this on, especially Vivec, and if I
> travel around a lot the slowdowns can start after as little as 30-45
> minutes.
>
> This seems to be a well-known memory leak problem that Morrowind's had
> from the beginning, which unfortunately even the latest patch from
> Bethesda ( v1.4.1313 for Tribunal) hasn't fixed. I've never seen leaks
> this bad with any other game
>
> Upgrading my gaming PC from 512MB to 1 gig allowed MW to run a bit
> longer before symptoms of the leak show up, but eventually the same
> thing still happens.
>
> I don't run with many mods, just the Better Heads, Better Bodies, Visual
> Pack texture upgrades, but removing those doesn't help. Had started
> with just the base Morrowind install (1.2.0722), but added Tribunal
> later for its journal-sorting feature. Presence of Tribunal doesn't
> seem to affect the leak much, if at all. I haven't installed the
> Bloodmoon CD yet, as from what I've read it only makes this problem
> worse (perhaps only in the new areas?)
>
> Have also tried
>
> - fresh install of Win98SE
> - setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in SYSTEM.INI, along with
> various Pagefile settings (turning off Virtual Memory
> completely seems to work best with 1GB installed, but it eventaully
> becomes just as laggy)
> - setting DontThreadLoad=1 in MORROWIND.INI ... helps a bit
Just to check something...
Do you have vcache settings in system.ini?
For example for 12Mb of cache (for filesystem):

[vcache]
minfilecache=12144
maxfilecache=12144

In Win9x caching algorithm leaks badly, it will eat all the memory it can
up to the maxfilecache size, so the more your applications access disk, the
more memory cache takes. If you have more than 512Mb of RAM you actually
*have* to limit cache size, because when it grows over 512Mb it breaks down
completely. And in any case, it doesn't make sense to set it greater than
32Mb or so, unless you know that some application needs more and understand
why (for example, some legacy application that stores database in .dbf
files and has a lot of data).

Also, there's another parameter in system.ini:
[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=30000

which is need to make Windows work correctly with 1Gb of RAM

Concerning the pagefile, if you don't have maxfilecache set, having
pagefile only makes things worse. First Windows use RAM to cache some files
and then it swaps the content of memory back on the disk

Alex.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

I play morrowind since 2 years or more on a Intel celereon 1.1 GHZ
512 MBRAM and a Geforce 2 pro, and i had never problems with
morrowind (expect low fps, but thats logically with my computer)

maybe the morrowind fps optimizer can help, it helped me a lot
download it at http://www.lowgenius.com/games/mwind/mwindfps.asp

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