Persistent World 4.5.1 - download and general discussion

[Splintert]

Vornne must have forgotten to put in the changelog that he applied a death clock so people don't play too much 

 

[ZeroFighterR]

Vornne must have forgotten to put in the changelog that he applied a death clock so people don't play too much 

Crashes your game to tell you to play outside 

 

[BlitzKrieg-BoB]

But it's so bright outside... I might even get a tan with all this snow! 

 

[TDC_Overlord]

But it's so bright outside... I might even get a tan with all this snow! 

Yep, -10 degrees celcius, get the sun bed out!

 

[Armie_knock]

-10? Lucky bastard, I would kill for a warm winter like that.

 

[Shinobido]

What are you talkin about! Germany feels like Stalingrad at the moment. A few weeks ago it was alright and we didnt had to turn the heater on 4-5 which is pretty much full power.

Damn good old times throwing snow at everyone and everything

 

[BlitzKrieg-BoB]

What are you talkin about! Germany feels like Stalingrad at the moment. A few weeks ago it was alright and we didnt had to turn the heater on 4-5 which is pretty much full power.

Damn good old times throwing snow at everyone and everything

Lol, your heater has a setting? We just have a thermostat where you rotate until it shows the temperature you want.
Besides, I have the attic room. If I want to assault people with snow; All I have to do is listen for someone to walk by and then open my window, burying them under an avalanche of snow crashing down from my roof. All this can be done while sitting comfortably on my bed. Sadly, it's a one time use only. 

Enough small talk! Back on topic; Since we seem to have pinpointed the crashing problem now, I was wondering if we could expect a hotfix for this?
It seems that the majority of players are affected by this, apart from a small group of big spenders who have ****loads of RAM installed in their PC. 

Also I was wondering if now that we know the crashing is most likely caused by a memory leak, if this also means you know what is causing the memory leak.
In short: How long would it approximately take to get that hotfix released? I am eager to get back to enjoying PW for longer then 20-30 minutes every time I log in. xD

 

[Splintert]

It doesn't matter how good a computer someone has, 32-bit applications can never use more than 3GB of RAM (which is why it crashes at 2.9GB).

Speaking of which, I remember back in the earlier versions of PW, there was a sort of leak that would cause a player's FPS to drop over time no matter what. Eventually it was linked to the player's names hovering over character's heads causing the game to slow down refreshing something about a presentation. Is there any chance that the default mode to hide faction names is causing this issue?

 

[Nimueh]

We were thinking some of the glitches could be causing the clients to crass.  I'm not a python guru but one thing out of wack could cause the issue.  It just makes it hard because you haven't crashed on your end yet. 

 

[S0mebody]

We were thinking some of the glitches could be causing the clients to crass.  I'm not a python guru but one thing out of wack could cause the issue.  It just makes it hard because you haven't crashed on your end yet.

Conceivable, but I crash and I have never glitched, nor have I used an item intended for a higher class.

It doesn't matter how good a computer someone has, 32-bit applications can never use more than 3GB of RAM (which is why it crashes at 2.9GB).

Sadly not quite right, according to Microsoft Specifications a Large_Address_Aware 32bit application (Which Warband is) can access up to 4GB RAM as detailed in this Microsoft table from this link:

Spoiler

Memory type: User-mode virtual address space for each 32-bit process
Limit in on X86
2 GB
Up to 3 GB with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE and 4GT

Limit in 64-bit Windows
2 GB with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE cleared (default)
4 GB with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE set

 

[Vornne]

Also, are there any restrictions on editing the default map and releasing it as an extended version or something? I've always personally liked the overall layout, it just needs a few tweaks. Most of the playerbase hasn't even seen it by this point.

Go for it.

Now I don't necissarily crash everytime I am mounting a horse myself, but I am curious if it might have something to do with the new animations?

I wondered about that, but haven't seen anything conclusive to support that guess yet.

Crpg is fund raising to get their own game. While it's not similar to PW4 it's interesting to see how they plan this.

Can't see the thread; but in any case I have no interest in developing a new game for money. PW development is done just for fun, and I want to keep it that way.

This was on a non-steam version I downloaded to test that theorie. MYTH BUSTED!!! .... .... yeah, it still sucks though.

OK, thank you for trying.

It would also explain why some maps have the error and others don't.

Has the beta6 default scene ever caused you to crash?

I am having  alot of complaints about clients crashing as soon as they join the server now.  I don't really know what to tell them.  Everything was fine until we moved to beta6.

The crashing is getting very bad, it has killed our population, and no NA server has any players besides our 16-26 who say they crash sometimes but can still stay on for a while.  I don't know what to do.  Should we roll back to beta5 until this is worked out?

Ok we are going to rollback.  Beta6 is totally unplayable for 68% of people.  lame.

That sort of moaning is very annoying: I stated in the release announcement that I expected bugs, so servers that didn't want to test it should not update, and then restated it in this thread more recently. If you don't want to help test, leave new versions alone, don't come whining to me.

Crashed at that point.

There you go, crashed at ~2900mb each time too.

One hour 27 minutes then:

Server had 39 players. Higher player count appeared to accelerate the leak.

Ahh, that's a starting point. I finally got the same problem after about 3 or 4 hours connected to a server (only 10 - 20 players though, less around in the evenings at my time zone).

Since we seem to have pinpointed the crashing problem now, I was wondering if we could expect a hotfix for this?

While your and other people's testing has been very helpful, the problem has definitely not been pinpointed yet, only hinted at generally - the module system does no memory management, so it is a case of trying to work out what combinations of module system operations trigger previously unrevealed engine bugs. Since it has been reported that disabling all the added meshes doesn't prevent the crashing, I am getting the sinking feeling that the agent modifier operations have never been tested with long running missions, and might cause memory leaks: basically all other code added is standard stuff of the same type that has been used before without problems. Meaning that a major part of the last version that took a lot of difficult work might need to be entirely dumped: the ability for any troop to pick up any weapon or armor for looting or trading purposes  . But then again, it runs on the server as well, so should cause that to crash even faster. Hmm, maybe the new music playing system is the cause? It only runs on the clients.

It is impossible to say when a fix could be expected without any definite cause from module system code. If it is not getting too much of a tiresome bother, more testing to try narrow the likely cause down even further would be appreciated. I need to get some sleep now.

It seems that the majority of players are affected by this, apart from a small group of big spenders who have ****loads of RAM installed in their PC. 

I have 8 GB RAM and a fully 64 bit Linux system, but the limitation probably depends on how Warband is compiled, since I also crashed after leaking to about 2.9 GB, as said above.

 

[Dark_Hamlet]

  This suggestion sounds very silly, but what if the weapons and armors restrictions were increased by one strength point (excluding bows and shields)?

  The problem may be related to the number of players in the server. I have a dedicated server I use to test my scenes alone and I didn't experience anything out of ordinary yesterday. I've kept testing the scene for 2 or 3 hours and more 4 or 5 hours because I forgot to close the programs (the server and the client). I didn't knew about this new problem until I saw the replies here.

 

[DuckSoldiers]

Hello,
I request helmers and new armors
for example like this
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,76943.0.html

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,230895.0.html

 

[xristos10]

It doesn't matter how good a computer someone has, 32-bit applications can never use more than 3GB of RAM (which is why it crashes at 2.9GB).

A 32-bit application can handle 3,25 gb ram.
Windows 7 32bit already needs 1 gb ram (2gb ram for 64bit) .
Windows vista home premium needs 512 mb ram (1gb ram for everything else)
Windows xp needs 128mb but recommended 256mb ram.

and any news about a fix?

 

[BlitzKrieg-BoB]

[quote author=Vornne]While your and other people's testing has been very helpful, the problem has definitely not been pinpointed yet, only hinted at generally[/quote]

Yeah I was affraid it wouldn't be as easy as just this. "Pinpointed" was if not a poor, then at least a very optimistic choice of words. 
I am willing to crash some more with various settings en-/disabled and report results. It's just that I am slowly running out of ideas of my own atm...
Guess I can try the default map for now, like you asked earlier. I'll get back on it later...

[quote author=Splintert]
It doesn't matter how good a computer someone has, 32-bit applications can never use more than 3GB of RAM (which is why it crashes at 2.9GB).

Speaking of which, I remember back in the earlier versions of PW, there was a sort of leak that would cause a player's FPS to drop over time no matter what. Eventually it was linked to the player's names hovering over character's heads causing the game to slow down refreshing something about a presentation. Is there any chance that the default mode to hide faction names is causing this issue?
[/quote]

Yeah, I am not all that knowledgable about that sort of stuff. I roughly know what it does and what the standard in modern computers is, but that's about it.
The only reason I posted that was because I seem crash really fast with my 3GB of RAM (Yes, I know...) and others who had considerably more seemed to last a whole lot longer.
Logic implies that there was some sort of link between them. "My logic" does, anyways... 
It's most likely due to the fact that 3GB is my max and that other stuff besides warband uses a bit of RAM space as well.

Also, if the problem is really caused by by the faction showing as default in nametags, would that mean it could be solved or relayed by playing with/without nametags?
Or is it more likely the sole excistence of the option that causes the leak?
(BTW: I know for a fact that the Faction name showing is default in both Beta5 and Beta6, unless you actually used the banner configuration or have turned off nametags altogether.)

[quote author=Vornne]Hmm, maybe the new music playing system is the cause? It only runs on the clients.[/quote]
Does that mean it would be worth trying to disable music in the launcher and then run the mod?
I think doing so doesn't do much more then putting the volume to the minimum, rather then really disabling it until you change it in the launcher again.
Ok, so it does disable it properly. Not sure where I got the idea it didn't.

I could also just scrap some files and see if that does it, but then I'd need a push in the right direction as to what files need to be removed or edited (text based).


PS. Sorry about the sheer amount of posts that came rolling off my keyboard again, yesterday.
I have a tendency to do so and usually forget I could also just modify and add the info to a related older posts and I know this isn't always appreciated!

 

[TDC_Overlord]

-10? Lucky bastard, I would kill for a warm winter like that.

It's getting lower. Here we hate snow, the entire country goes to a panicking standstill, I for one see old women relentlessly attacking the snow with walking sticks... to no appease. When it rains, we call it normal life and everyone goes out to town and does their shopping. When it's sunny, it's unusual and in the minds of the government it means we will die of thirst, so they place restrictions preventing civilians from using hosepipes for 3-4 weeks, then a humungous storm comes and flooding occurs, which makes people casually pile sandbags in front of their doors. Hmm, well I hope for heavy snow tomorrow, there's some particular people I would very much like to pelt.

 

[Vornne]

I am willing to crash some more with various settings en-/disabled and report results. It's just that I am slowly running out of ideas of my own atm...

Could you test watching the memory usage until it is nearly going to crash, then disconnect from the server and see if that clears the leak (memory usage drops down again). I will make some patches to disable music and whatever else I can think to try, later; maybe some other ideas to test as well (can't think very well yet, in the morning).

Also, if the problem is really caused by by the faction showing as default in nametags, would that mean it could be solved or relayed by playing with/without nametags?

Highly unlikely to be the cause, didn't change in last version, and the disable faction option only switches a few lines of simple and common code.

Have to go to work, will reply to others later.

 

[Armie_knock]

-10? Lucky bastard, I would kill for a warm winter like that.

It's getting lower. Here we hate snow, the entire country goes to a panicking standstill, I for one see old women relentlessly attacking the snow with walking sticks... to no appease. When it rains, we call it normal life and everyone goes out to town and does their shopping. When it's sunny, it's unusual and in the minds of the government it means we will die of thirst, so they place restrictions preventing civilians from using hosepipes for 3-4 weeks, then a humungous storm comes and flooding occurs, which makes people casually pile sandbags in front of their doors. Hmm, well I hope for heavy snow tomorrow, there's some particular people I would very much like to pelt.

You're more than welcome to visit me here in the northern Scandinavian, plenty of snow for the whole continent.

 

[BlitzKrieg-BoB]

I am willing to crash some more with various settings en-/disabled and report results. It's just that I am slowly running out of ideas of my own atm...

Could you test watching the memory usage until it is nearly going to crash, then disconnect from the server and see if that clears the leak (memory usage drops down again). I will make some patches to disable music and whatever else I can think to try, later; maybe some other ideas to test as well (can't think very well yet, in the morning).

I suffer from the same kind of temporary mental degradation in the early morning... 

Anyways, I still run on windows XP because my parents have a hard time getting used to changes on the computer. (Or operating the computer in general)
And since they nearly lynched me when I changed the default browser from IE to Firefox, I shudder to think what would happen if I upgraded to a whole new OS.
I haven't figured out how or (Not sure if that is the newer OS' taskmanager) with what S0mebody measures the RAM use of specific programms.

What I am getting at; Could someone else please try the "disconnect just before warband is about to crash and see if it clears the memory" test.
Or perhaps give me a link to a tool that could be used for this that isn't too much of a hassle to download and install. 

 

[Splintert]

Windows Task Manager displays memory usage for running programs. Just run Warband in windowed mode next to the task manager waiting for it to get to around 2.8GB of RAM usage, then disconnect and see if it flushes.