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BingXueZhiYa
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[Discussion]Some question about the "4GB patch" using for SSE

May 24, 2014 7:52:06 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I have got a 4GB patch from the maelstrom mod(really a brilliant work) these days. The author of M said it would allowed the SSE to run highest opinion with his mod without minidump. 

I searched the developer web of this patch and found it will increase the virtual memory for a 32 program, I test it on my 64 OS Dell and it indeed work:

this is the memory situation before it crashed. The memory_doge is a easy program to apply memory unstoppable.

 

the bellow is the same program with the patch.

 

So, until now the patch works well, but when it comes to SSE, some things interesting happens:

I didn't took a picture on the game without this patch, I think it is no need as the memory use doesn't even exceed 2GB.

I took the picture when I started to feel the speed of the game is slowing down.

The normal game:

the number of entities, I didn't show the mesh situation as they will be released once you move your camera.

The game with the mod maelstrom:

If you find hard to understand Chinese, well, the last number is virtual memory and the number next to it is the memory that really loaded in RAM.

CPU : Core(TM) i7-4500U 1.80 GHz 2.40 GHz X 4

RAM : 8.00 GB

I discussed this problem with a software engineer and he told me that this program may hold its memory usage to not let it exceed 2GB by save some information on ROM and load it when needed( you did't mishear, this program are using the same method used by the CPU to arrange RAM space) 

What more, he tested and told me that the usage of GPU is still not optimistic. . . 


So, could there anyone tell me that how and why this patch is useful for SSE as someone including me found the times of minidump in maelstrom is REALLY decreased.

 

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BingXueZhiYa
mikefacciola
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Reply #1 May 24, 2014 10:44:04 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Hello, thanks for your work here. Is this similar to LAA large address aware?

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BingXueZhiYa
Ryat
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Reply #2 May 24, 2014 11:19:37 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Sounds like it. The typical IT USES MORE THE 2 GB! concept when it reality it merely allows for the game to max out on 2 GB by itself while the rest of your background programs work on the rest of the remaining RAM. Its really not useful anymore as the biggest issue is the CPU usage and lack of proper mutli core/thread support.

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BingXueZhiYa
Hydraling
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Reply #3 May 24, 2014 11:30:11 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Ryat,
reply 2

Sounds like it. The typical IT USES MORE THE 2 GB! concept when it reality it merely allows for the game to max out on 2 GB by itself while the rest of your background programs work on the rest of the remaining RAM. Its really not useful anymore as the biggest issue is the CPU usage and lack of proper mutli core/thread support.

Dont minidumps happen because of the RAM limit?

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Ryat
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Reply #4 May 24, 2014 11:58:47 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Hydraling,
reply 3
Dont minidumps happen because of the RAM limit?

Mini dumps happen for a variety of reasons. RAM limit is one of many and the stock game no longer approaches that limit. Mods can and do sometimes but there are several modder tricks to get around thatas well. The vast majority of mini dumps I have seen or suffered have been due to modder or coding error. With the MP arena, mini dumps happen due mostly to the poor coding as this game was originally intended for single player with the MP as an afterthought/test bed. Moving to Steam has helped with some issues but there still issues laying around and may lay around for the life of this game. Hopefully Sins 2 will be built from the ground up with MP as well as SP in mind.

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BingXueZhiYa
Lavo_2
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Reply #5 May 24, 2014 9:59:04 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Ryat,
reply 2
Its really not useful anymore as the biggest issue is the CPU usage and lack of proper mutli core/thread support.

This is simply not true. A number of mods, such as SoGE and STA3, depend on LAA being active for stability. Without LAA, these mods are significantly more prone to crashes. Maelstrom may fall under this category as well. CPU is not nearly as limiting a factor as RAM is for these mods.

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BingXueZhiYa
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Reply #6 May 25, 2014 12:34:54 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Lavo_2,
reply 5


Quoting Ryat, reply 2Its really not useful anymore as the biggest issue is the CPU usage and lack of proper mutli core/thread support.

This is simply not true. A number of mods, such as SoGE and STA3, depend on LAA being active for stability. Without LAA, these mods are significantly more prone to crashes. Maelstrom may fall under this category as well. CPU is not nearly as limiting a factor as RAM is for these mods.

 

But why when I install the patch the up limit of memory doesn't increase. Or the LAA is another patch that is different with the 4GB patch.

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Ryat
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Reply #7 May 25, 2014 2:36:16 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting BingXueZhiYa,
reply 6
But why when I install the patch the up limit of memory doesn't increase. Or the LAA is another patch that is different with the 4GB patch.

Its the same. What is happening is that a 32 bit engine (which is what Sins is built upon) can only use 2 GB. Nothing more. If you are operating a 32 bit operating system then you are limited to 2 GB for everything including the OS and any other program that is running in the background. 64 bit operating systems can now operate at a much higher RAM level but 32 bit game engines are not taught to see all of that extra RAM and will mini dump out when everything hits the 2 GB point even though you have more RAM and an OS that can use it. The patch you are refering to makes it so that the game sees that extra RAM and then no longer worries about the OS and other programs that are operating in the background and focus exclusively on what the game is using. Hence the overall system begins to operate at higher levels of RAM but the game will still stay inside the 2 GB limit but without other things that can trip it up and so the game can use more of the limit.

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GoaFan77
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Reply #8 May 25, 2014 3:23:43 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Good thread, but just out of curiosity does anyone else only see chinese adds in the pictures he linked? 

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BingXueZhiYa
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Reply #9 May 25, 2014 3:39:02 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting GoaFan77,
reply 8

Good thread, but just out of curiosity does anyone else only see chinese adds in the pictures he linked? 

 

God damn Baidu, I upload my picture on my baidu album, and now it is what you have see...

I will upload them to another album sooner or later.

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Ryat
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Reply #10 May 25, 2014 10:43:04 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting GoaFan77,
reply 8

Good thread, but just out of curiosity does anyone else only see chinese adds in the pictures he linked? 

LOL Kind of wondered that myself. I just knew from his description what he was talking about.

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BingXueZhiYa
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Reply #11 May 26, 2014 4:16:15 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Ryat,
reply 10


Quoting GoaFan77, reply 8
Good thread, but just out of curiosity does anyone else only see chinese adds in the pictures he linked? 

LOL Kind of wondered that myself. I just knew from his description what he was talking about.

Well， I have just re-upload the picture from another album, hope it will work

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Ryat
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Reply #12 May 26, 2014 10:00:35 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Hate to say it but its even worse. Now we just see white boxes and when you click on them, they just say errors are occuring.

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BingXueZhiYa
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Reply #13 May 27, 2014 5:59:53 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Ryat,
reply 12

Hate to say it but its even worse. Now we just see white boxes and when you click on them, they just say errors are occuring.

Is that true? I could see it here with no problem...... I thought it works...

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Reply #14 May 27, 2014 6:08:33 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Ryat,
reply 7


Quoting BingXueZhiYa, reply 6But why when I install the patch the up limit of memory doesn't increase. Or the LAA is another patch that is different with the 4GB patch.

Its the same. What is happening is that a 32 bit engine (which is what Sins is built upon) can only use 2 GB. Nothing more. If you are operating a 32 bit operating system then you are limited to 2 GB for everything including the OS and any other program that is running in the background. 64 bit operating systems can now operate at a much higher RAM level but 32 bit game engines are not taught to see all of that extra RAM and will mini dump out when everything hits the 2 GB point even though you have more RAM and an OS that can use it. The patch you are refering to makes it so that the game sees that extra RAM and then no longer worries about the OS and other programs that are operating in the background and focus exclusively on what the game is using. Hence the overall system begins to operate at higher levels of RAM but the game will still stay inside the 2 GB limit but without other things that can trip it up and so the game can use more of the limit.

You mean we can't see the increase of RAM use in task manager but it indeed increase? Quiet strange, I think.

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BingXueZhiYa
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Reply #15 May 27, 2014 8:58:47 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I have been running rigs with 6+ gigs of ram for years, and i have seen Sins before the days of The Optimization Project, and Rebellion use up to 1.9 gigs in task manager. Without any kind of LAA patch. So Sins will use the 2 gigs if it is available.

What he is trying to say is that even with the patch Sins still will not use more than 2 gigs of ram. It is impossible for the game to use more than 2 gigs. It is a 32 bit game. What the patch does is it makes sure Sins has 2 gigs available strictly for the games usage, and the rest of your ram for system use (you would think your OS would do this by default).

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Seleuceia
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Reply #16 May 27, 2014 2:40:01 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I won't speak for the success of this particular patch, but I will contest the notion that Sins cannot use more than 2 GBs...

Several people have been able to cap at 3 or 4 GBs using various tricks...Thoumsin was able to get it up to 12 GBs and had screenshots of his resource manager...IIRC, his computer used a Linux OS and he was running the game through Wine...

 

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WOEaintME
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Reply #17 May 27, 2014 6:04:32 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

From a mathematical point of view 2^32 = 4 GB  but generally the first bit must be zero resulting in 2^(32-1) = 2 GB.

The jump to 4 GB can be easily shown but the jump beyond 4 GB, while doable, is not something that can be easily done. This is obviously for a 32 bit program, 64 bit programs are essentially limitless (2^(64-1) = 2 billion GB).

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Reply #18 May 27, 2014 8:37:26 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Seleuceia,
reply 16

I won't speak for the success of this particular patch, but I will contest the notion that Sins cannot use more than 2 GBs...

Several people have been able to cap at 3 or 4 GBs using various tricks...Thoumsin was able to get it up to 12 GBs and had screenshots of his resource manager...IIRC, his computer used a Linux OS and he was running the game through Wine...

 

So, it depends on the OS, right? Linux always surprises me......And did him or her have a better game feeling as the RAM has increased.

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Seleuceia
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Reply #19 May 27, 2014 9:14:31 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Strictly speaking, a 32 bit process cannot use more than 2 GBs...what Thoumsin did is make the game run as multiple processes, giving him far more than 2 (or 4) GB.....I don't really know how he did it other than he did, and it required a lot of tinkering...he might have even used some special software to do it beyond just the OS and Wine...

As for performance, I really have no idea how it was affected...generally speaking, the amount of memory you have doesn't affect performance unless a lack of available RAM forces the harddrive to be used for memory...if I had to guess, his performance probably wasn't any different....

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BingXueZhiYa
Major Stress
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Reply #20 May 28, 2014 12:55:28 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

So on a windows system forget it. its not gonna happen. Unless there is something new i am not yet aware of out there.

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Seleuceia
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Reply #21 May 28, 2014 7:17:06 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

If I remember his discussions correctly, I think you can get 3 GBs on windows...I am less sure about 4 GBs, people have done it using Linux but that doesn't mean it requires Linus....

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Reply #22 May 28, 2014 8:09:50 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Seleuceia,
reply 21

If I remember his discussions correctly, I think you can get 3 GBs on windows...I am less sure about 4 GBs, people have done it using Linux but that doesn't mean it requires Linus....

Indeed, 'could' doesn't mean 'require'. But I didn't see anyone could get 3GB yet. The modder of maelstrom said he could only drive it a little bit more than 2GB in a huge map (while in Diplomacy).

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Seleuceia
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Reply #23 May 28, 2014 9:20:05 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/400175/page/1/#2823654

This isn't the only thread on the issue, but it does summarize some of Thoumsin's findings...look at reply 5...as you can see, it is possible to exceed 2GB but it is by no means an easy feat, and it has huge limitations (mainly no MP)...

In short, the naysayers are technically wrong but fundamentally right...this issue gets brought up from time to time, but at the end of the day nothing groundbreaking is achieved and the vast majority of us are stuck with the 2GB limit...

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Reply #24 May 28, 2014 10:36:17 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Seleuceia,
reply 23

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/400175/page/1/#2823654

This isn't the only thread on the issue, but it does summarize some of Thoumsin's findings...look at reply 5...as you can see, it is possible to exceed 2GB but it is by no means an easy feat, and it has huge limitations (mainly no MP)...

In short, the naysayers are technically wrong but fundamentally right...this issue gets brought up from time to time, but at the end of the day nothing groundbreaking is achieved and the vast majority of us are stuck with the 2GB limit...

What a sad story ... ...

So let us make a conclusion: Any kind of these so called "RAM helper" will not work on SSE as the reason Thoumsin said. The feeling of it works is just a kind of “placebo”.

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BingXueZhiYa
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Reply #25 June 4, 2014 10:04:08 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Have been testing Rebellion (Malestrom) 1.82 with the "4GB patch".

Random Huge and Vast maps, 10 players, highest settings for all graphics effects.

Whereas normally Rebellion (without the patch) would crash around 1.7GB RAM usage with the '4GB patch' I can get stable operation to about 1.95 GB. I have had RAM usage peak just above 2GB before a crash.

PS: My System is as follows: OS is Win 7 64-bit pro, 8GB RAM, Intel i7-2600 @3.4GHz. Graphics is AMD Radeon HD 7900 with 3 monitors.

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