[BUG] video memory leakage, frame freeze/stutter

[Elthore]

I have made a few posts about this, and I believe I am now able to confirm that there is some sort of memory leakage and that this is related to the infamous stutter. Will try to make this as brief as possible, here are my observations.

5 maps played in a row, NO RESTART of M&B, number of players were fairly consistent at between 28 +-5

the columns are as follows
MAPNAME / Free Video Memory / Free Texture Memory / System Memory Used (by M&B) / my observation of stutter

unknown(oops) / 73 / 285 / 658 / none
field by river / 69 / 272 / 621 / none
snowy village / 77 / 280 / 623 / slight, except when the barn was camped
snowy village / 75 / 278 / 616 / a lot of lag, very difficult to play
random med / 70 / 275 / 643 / near unplayable

here is the kicker!  I then restarted M&B, nothing else was changed, server is reconnected by next round

random med / 85 / 295 / 632 / NO STUTTER at all

I apologize for my earlier post where I said that the AGP fast write/read option would remove the stutter completely, but I could not confirm memory leakage and my observations were flawed because of this. Before these options were enabled on my system I sometimes noticed the freezing at 640x480, but with the adjustment I could run 1024x786 without any stutter....of course only for one or two maps.

I hope this can help the developers find a permanent solution to this problem, I can provide any additional info upon request. GOOD LUCK 

 

[johncage]

testing in multiplayer might be unreliable as there are other factors that may contribute to lag and performance problems.

one thing i have noticed is that the stutter is most prominent in versions of the beta where some form of streaming is apparently used.

another interesting thing, i don't know if it's relevant or not, but after patching the multiplayer beta to .720, i played without the single player exe and the game was noticeable smoother. once the exe came out and i applied it, the game became slower again.

there seems to be a pause when interacting with lords, village elders, as if their materials were being generated on the fly. it is this way in version .720. however in several previous versions, loading npc dialog was instantaneous.

 

[Elthore]

hey, odd thing is I dont notice any of the freezing in singleplayer, even with battles set to 100 players. Wonder why. I cant say ive tested with 5 different battlefields in a row though. The testing I did with MP took me more than a hour, and it is something I have had a suspicion about for a long time too. Can someone confirm or deny these findings? Because I can repeat these results and reach the same conclusion.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I am speaking of this problem. Tylertfb created a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4hBGmjO10Q

 

[Monk]

hey, odd thing is I dont notice any of the freezing in singleplayer, even with battles set to 100 players. Wonder why. I cant say ive tested with 5 different battlefields in a row though. The testing I did with MP took me more than a hour, and it is something I have had a suspicion about for a long time too. Can someone confirm or deny these findings? Because I can repeat these results and reach the same conclusion.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I am speaking of this problem. Tylertfb created a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4hBGmjO10Q

I get the lag in this video on occasion, but the more frustrating stutter I get is the one where the frame seems to stick until you either apparently crash or as I do alt-tab out and back in. Bug sucks...bad, and it's made the game overall significantly less appealing for me. I know it's likely to get fixed, but I find myself playing less now because of it.

 

[armagan]

Elthore, thank you very much for posting that data. This and the fact that Alt+Enter doesn't fix it suggests that the issue is not related to video memory fragmentation. We'll keep working on this. Please, keep us posted if you discover anything else.

I get the lag in this video on occasion, but the more frustrating stutter I get is the one where the frame seems to stick until you either apparently crash or as I do alt-tab out and back in. Bug sucks...bad, and it's made the game overall significantly less appealing for me. I know it's likely to get fixed, but I find myself playing less now because of it.

That does sound like a video memory issue. Did you try lowering texture detail all the way down to the minimum?

 

[Monk]

I get the lag in this video on occasion, but the more frustrating stutter I get is the one where the frame seems to stick until you either apparently crash or as I do alt-tab out and back in. Bug sucks...bad, and it's made the game overall significantly less appealing for me. I know it's likely to get fixed, but I find myself playing less now because of it.

That does sound like a video memory issue. Did you try lowering texture detail all the way down to the minimum?

I haven't been able to play the last few days, but I'll see if I can't try it on the lowest texture detail soon and post the results.

 

[Seawied86]

I have the same problems. Lowering texture detail does not fix the issue.

 

[Halcyon]

yea i was going to say that... the effects might be less pronounced at low detail for people with high end computers, but it is still there.

Armagan as you should know everything i have tried was always on low detail.

 

[armagan]

I know, I was addressing that to Monk. He sad his problem is fixed by Alt+Tab, so it's a different problem.

 

[Turanien]

I know, I was addressing that to Monk. He sad his problem is fixed by Alt+Tab, so it's a different problem.

I would like to add to this, Armagan.

If you would very kindly spend a moment of your time to read over my post here regarding this specific issue:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,72532.msg2501456.html#msg2501456

It's very annoying, to say the least.