I mostly play RSW off of a netbook w/ 1GB RAM, using Win7 Starter and RSW client ver1.0.6.1
Have signed up for 3 games, one open. RSW client memory use is 400 MB, which seems a bit excessive. Open up 2 more games -> little change in memory use. Close client and restart, memory use drops to 78 MB. Re-open single game, mem use climbs to 95 MB. Close single game memory use climbs to 97 MB! Open other games bumps up mem use, but closing them does not drop use. Longer the client remains open the more mem allocated, until system eventually grinds to a halt.
Memory leak?
Client Memory Usage
Re: Client Memory Usage
It's certainly possible that there are memory leaks in there, though most of what you're seeing is some internal caches that get populated during normal usage. This is why closing a game doesn't release much memory, because those caches remain populated; but then opening a new game doesn't increase memory (once the caches are filled) because it continues to use the same caches.
It's true that the client is tuned for a relatively high-memory computer, and there aren't any user options to tune it down. One way to reduce the memory footprint is to change the "World Color" and "Fleet Color" options on all of your games (in the Map menu) to something other than Dimensional or Dimensional + Owner, and also to change the Map Image (in the Preferences window) to "flat".
I should add a global "low-memory" checkbox to tell the client not to keep so much in the cache. That will make everything overall slower on a high-memory computer, because it will have to read and write from the disk more often; but it may make things much faster on a low-memory computer because it hopefully won't consume so much memory.
David
It's true that the client is tuned for a relatively high-memory computer, and there aren't any user options to tune it down. One way to reduce the memory footprint is to change the "World Color" and "Fleet Color" options on all of your games (in the Map menu) to something other than Dimensional or Dimensional + Owner, and also to change the Map Image (in the Preferences window) to "flat".
I should add a global "low-memory" checkbox to tell the client not to keep so much in the cache. That will make everything overall slower on a high-memory computer, because it will have to read and write from the disk more often; but it may make things much faster on a low-memory computer because it hopefully won't consume so much memory.
David
Re: Client Memory Usage
I did some orders on a 10+ yo P4 with 768MB and possibly even older video card today, really slow but still is ok with patience, it threw a bug to david at one point tho
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Thanks. I played around with it a bit more, figured out the client wasn't releasing memory for games. Problem is, each little thing like reading and writing in-game messages ties up more memory that isn't released until the entire client is closed. Can bring my netbook to it's knees pretty quickly.
A low-memory option would be useful for me. I rarely keep game session windows open long-term, and don't find start-up that slow when loading a game for the first time, but would leave just the client running in the background if I could. If the client released the memory for a particular game when the game session/window was closed, that would be helpful.
In the mean-time, I'll just turn off some of the bells and whistles and close the client between sessions.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -Bill Gates (attributed)
A low-memory option would be useful for me. I rarely keep game session windows open long-term, and don't find start-up that slow when loading a game for the first time, but would leave just the client running in the background if I could. If the client released the memory for a particular game when the game session/window was closed, that would be helpful.
In the mean-time, I'll just turn off some of the bells and whistles and close the client between sessions.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -Bill Gates (attributed)