Memory leak?

[kryptmoon]

I've read in several different threads that Bon Voyage has a bad memory leak. What exactly is a memory leak and how does it affect one's computer in terms of performance and gameplay? Can something like this be fixed with a patch?

[dusty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

Google is your friend.

[kryptmoon]

Thanks for the info. Although reading all of that gave me a headache, I'll just have to guess that it is'nt safe to play for extended periods until this issue is adressed by EAxis.(Hopefully).

Even on a High Performance machine, with all updated BV hacks, all awesome and a few non-awesome, I have mini second lags constant on any community lot until I leave.(never had that issue before with all options and smooth on high. I have since then turned down the res and smooth edges off, it's still the same.I have no problem with anything else glitches or otherwise. I am assuming this is due to to this.
Apreciate the feedback by the way.

[jolrei]

There are certainly some lag issues, but how much of this is due to a 'memory leak' situation seems to be unclear, as is the question of how serious this is. 

For example, in my game there are occasional lags, normally due to lot loading, visiting sims arriving and departing from a lot, spawining of necessary NPCs etc.  However, I have run the game for periods exceeding 6 hours at a stretch and have not noticed that lags increase in frequency or duration, and I have never had the game crash.

It may help that I disable all non-essential processes on the computer before running the game, turn shadows down to medium, and never play with the computer online.  Lag has been reported to be worse if the game is trying to phone home.  Bypassing the launcher also helps.

[KellyQ]

Hmmm....I had thought the few seconds lag was due to the new "phone home feature" with BV. It's almost enough to make me uninstall it and I just may, after the "newness" of vacations wears off.

[jolrei]

Hmmm....I had thought the few seconds lag was due to the new "phone home feature" with BV. It's almost enough to make me uninstall it and I just may, after the "newness" of vacations wears off.

Bypassing the launcher when loading the game stops some, if not all, the phone home activity, I believe.  Create a shortcut on your desktop pointing to the SIMS2EP6.EXE file in your Sims2 program files directory and use that to start the game.  Presto, no more launcher.

[lemonfresh]

I'm starting to suspect a bad memory leak in BV. That's actually why I got online this morning, to poke around and see if anyone else thought so. I can play the game fine with Awesome hacks and CC, with minimal lag. But as time goes on, the little bouts of random lag (which oddly enough seems to occur more often when EAxis stuff gets clicked on than CC) get more frequent and eventually the game just quits responding. It gets stuck in that blue-screen-hourglass cycle.

Bypassing the launcher does help, but in my game, the SIMS2EP6.EXE file itself tries to dial home 10 *&#%$! times before the game seriously starts loading. (Yes, I actually messed with my firewall and counted the number of times.) I'd like to know WHY this EP is so damned determined to phone home...

[KatEnigma]

To watch for a memory leak, look at Task Manager under Performance to see how much of your memory the game is sucking up after you've started it, leave it running, and then look again after an hour or two of playing. Seasons would take up extraordinary amounts of memory as the game went on. I haven't looked at BV, but I have had my computer start crashing again somewhat regularly while playing, which could be a sign, even if I'm not noticing the lag first.

I'd also make sure you have Pes's antiredundancy hack in. All those damn tour guides generating, if you are lot hopping, will slow you down.

[Zazazu]

Hmmm....I had thought the few seconds lag was due to the new "phone home feature" with BV. It's almost enough to make me uninstall it and I just may, after the "newness" of vacations wears off.

Bypassing the launcher when loading the game stops some, if not all, the phone home activity, I believe.  Create a shortcut on your desktop pointing to the SIMS2EP6.EXE file in your Sims2 program files directory and use that to start the game.  Presto, no more launcher.

I recently put my firewall on tight security, so that it notifies me before every attempt a program makes to dial out. I removed all permissions for my Sims programs. I also finally figured out that I'd been a dunce and was putting my no-CD hack (I have the EALink version, and the dial out to verify that I purchased the game every time annoys me) in the wrong place, so now I'm bypassing launcher and EALink. Last night, I clicked on the shortcut to Sims2EP6.exe and immediately got the message that the program was attempting to dial out. So the bypass isn't stopping everything. Tell firewall to smack it down. Play last night was a lot better...I'd been having slight lag issues on my beach lot, which has a lot of traffic, at max everything.

[Sagana]

Not allowing the game to connect to the net, putting in anti-redundancy, and putting in a 'no water balloons' hack (essential for me, that was causing all kinds of problems) - that fixed most lag problems for me. I can play for long periods without issues, but haven't been playing that many vacations that long - so if there's still a memory leak, it'd have to be vacation lot specific I think. Is that even possible?

I still haven't figured out my issue with the witch dr's hut (which was totally unplayable) but I haven't been back there so dunno if the above helped.

Oh and  I also have to remember to generate all at once or not allow strays and stupid pet furs/collars to generate or I lag out while the game tries to make them. Worse'n the change appearance wait...

[jolrei]

Last night, I clicked on the shortcut to Sims2EP6.exe and immediately got the message that the program was attempting to dial out. So the bypass isn't stopping everything. Tell firewall to smack it down.

I suppose one of the reasons my game isn't having some of these problems is that I'm on dial-up and disable all connections before playing, including all processes that run the modem.  There is no way for the game to phone home.

[mitchellcjs]

According to my taskmanager, BV Sims2 starts at using 13 percent of my 700-something ram, 3% after loading completely, 48% while loading lots, and during normal lot play, 3% again(normal being generally smooth gameplay).  After 5 hours of playing, BV Sims2 goes to 93% while loading lots, and 48% during normal gameplay (normal in this instance being very slow, with fits and starts).  Crash happens around 6 to 6 1/2 hours of continuous play.  Suspicions of a memory leak may not be unfounded.  I am now limiting gameplay to a maximum of 2 hours per itineration of BV.  I hope Maxis makes a patch that un-borks BV as much as possible SOON.

Mitchellcjs

[lemonfresh]

According to my taskmanager, BV Sims2 starts at using 13 percent of my 700-something ram, 3% after loading completely, 48% while loading lots, and during normal lot play, 3% again(normal being generally smooth gameplay).  After 5 hours of playing, BV Sims2 goes to 93% while loading lots, and 48% during normal gameplay (normal in this instance being very slow, with fits and starts).  Crash happens around 6 to 6 1/2 hours of continuous play.  Suspicions of a memory leak may not be unfounded.  I am now limiting gameplay to a maximum of 2 hours per itineration of BV.  I hope Maxis makes a patch that un-borks BV as much as possible SOON.

Mitchellcjs

Is this with or without CC? With or without hacks (Awesome or Not)? I don't think you even have to be "playing" per se, for this to occur. The first thing I did when testing out BV was to load Veronaville, Monty and remodel the suck EAxis had created. I started getting odd bouts of lag and random blue screen in the process of replacing light fixtures, furniture, walls and floors. It didn't make a difference if all the visual options were turned up high or all the way down. I hadn't even "played" the family or even selected a vacation 'hood yet. This was with CC and Awesomeness.

[KellyQ]

Last night, I clicked on the shortcut to Sims2EP6.exe and immediately got the message that the program was attempting to dial out. So the bypass isn't stopping everything. Tell firewall to smack it down.

I suppose one of the reasons my game isn't having some of these problems is that I'm on dial-up and disable all connections before playing, including all processes that run the modem.  There is no way for the game to phone home.

I use the shortcut as well to bypass the launcher and disable my DSL connection, it still freezes while loading neighborhoods and has little moments of lag that as I said, I assumed meant the game was trying to phone home.  Oddly enough I had installed Zone Alarm to throw up a firewall to stop it but after I had it installed, TS2 wouldn't load at all so I had to remove it in order to play the game.

[Deviancy]

The memory leak varies from time to time.  I've been bypassing the launcher since day one, it doesn't help a whole hell of a lot.  Sometimes it can go hours without the dark blue screen and then the crash.. sometimes it happens after 30 minutes.  A few things that really include lowering the resolution.. using 1024x768 since bv came out.. used to use 1280x1024.. setting shadows to medium.. lowering audio quality (in game) to low and playing on lots with fewer sims/objects.  One sim has real estate on one of the vacation lots, if I only send one sim to that lot.. it's totally lag free for a loong time.  If I go to a lot where sims keep piling up.. trouble.  I'm using very few hacks.  I'm using seethem 2.. the anti spawn hack and I believe perfect plants.  That's it though as far as hacks.. the rest is just meshes.

I'm also using the beta drivers from nvidia.. it helped quite a bit in regards to the gpu cutting the signal off to the monitor.  Same damn issue Seasons had until either their patch fixed it or the July nvidia drivers did.. hard to say.

[jolrei]

I use the shortcut as well to bypass the launcher and disable my DSL connection, it still freezes while loading neighborhoods and has little moments of lag that as I said, I assumed meant the game was trying to phone home.  Oddly enough I had installed Zone Alarm to throw up a firewall to stop it but after I had it installed, TS2 wouldn't load at all so I had to remove it in order to play the game.

I get the odd black screen lag while loading the hood (may mean that the game is trying to find a way to call out, but I have really not checked) and the odd bit of stutter/lag/slowdown while playing, but nothing that did not exist previously with large complex lots or lots with a high number of visitors (I enable a fair number of visiting sims, because I don't like comm lots with nobody at them).  In all cases, lag is temporary in my game and smooth running resumes after a few seconds.  I may try monitorying CPU usage to see if the memory leakage thing is happening to me.

[mitchellcjs]

Is this with or without CC? With or without hacks (Awesome or Not)? I don't think you even have to be "playing" per se, for this to occur. The first thing I did when testing out BV was to load Veronaville, Monty and remodel the suck EAxis had created. I started getting odd bouts of lag and random blue screen in the process of replacing light fixtures, furniture, walls and floors. It didn't make a difference if all the visual options were turned up high or all the way down. I hadn't even "played" the family or even selected a vacation 'hood yet. This was with CC and Awesomeness.

I have only awsomeness in my downloads folder, the MATY Director's Cut (the most recent version, I check twice a day).  No other cc or hacks.  I have all EPs and all SPs at the moment.  I was not complaining, merely offering stats I had noticed that may support the as-yet-unconfirmed-by-EAXIS memory leak.

Mitchellcjs

[KatEnigma]

 I may try monitorying CPU usage to see if the memory leakage thing is happening to me.

CPU= Processor
RAM=MEMORY

Watching your CPU usage won't tell you if there is a memory leak.  It will tell you that TS2 is a resource hog, in general, but that's not the question at hand. LOL

[jolrei]

CPU= Processor
RAM=MEMORY
Watching your CPU usage won't tell you if there is a memory leak.  It will tell you that TS2 is a resource hog, in general, but that's not the question at hand. LOL

True enough - then again, my brain has been suffering memory leakage all day, so I'm not surprised I'm making terminology errors.  I may print your correction just so I remember it later this evening when I can finally get to my game machine. 

[mitchellcjs]

My deepest apologies as well.  When running BV, pagefile usage goes through the roof, though.  Under the performance tab, "Physical Memory (K)" lists Available as dwindling rapidly. How do I monitor actual memory usage in real time?

[B]

Look in Task Manager under the Processes tab.  You will see a column for "Mem Usage".  The amounts given (in kilobytes) refer to how much of your RAM a given application is accessing.  If it keeps climbing after your game is fully loaded, a memory leak might be the culprit.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Check out Cacheman.

http://www.outertech.com/

[mitchellcjs]

Look in Task Manager under the Processes tab.  You will see a column for "Mem Usage".  The amounts given (in kilobytes) refer to how much of your RAM a given application is accessing.  If it keeps climbing after your game is fully loaded, a memory leak might be the culprit.

Thank You.

[Hook]

Interesting.  McAfee was set to allow EP2 and EP5 access to the Internet, but had no setting for EP6 (BV).  I just blocked EP2 and EP5 and started the game, and the first thing that happened was McAfee reported that EP6 was requesting access to the Internet.  Ain't gonna happen, guys.

Cute bastards.  If you can't get there through the current EP, you try previous ones.

Hook

[MutantBunny]

Hmmm....I had thought the few seconds lag was due to the new "phone home feature" with BV. It's almost enough to make me uninstall it and I just may, after the "newness" of vacations wears off.

.
There's another nice feature BV added: SecuROM which you can NOT uninstall. And once the game is uninstalled you may not be able to reinstal lit again because of the SecuROM. SecuROM has quite the reputation........Thanks for that EAXis.

I had fish swimming in my street today...happened not long after the game ate my sim into never never land stuck between vacation and home forevermore--thanks for that too EAxis.