4GB patch for aow3 exe

[CookieMagic]

Just in case you guys want game to crash less when playing with mods and such, because aow3 is 32bit application.

https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

[golfleme]

thank you for the info.
I'll try it my next game

[dakine44]

Have you checked memory usage after using the patch? Mine always crashes when memory usage gets to ~3200mb and it still does that after the patch. Theoretically it should be able to get closer to 4gb if the patch works.

[CookieMagic]

I dont get any crash, even when playing resource heavy custom map like "Fate of Emrilia"

[Fulano]

Huh... I just realized I used to get a crash about every hour... but that hasn't happened in like a year.

[Dunadd]

Originally posted by CookieMagic:

Just in case you guys want game to crash less when playing with mods and such, because aow3 is 32bit application.

https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Thanks for making this, but how do you install it?

[dakine44]

Originally posted by Fulano:

Huh... I just realized I used to get a crash about every hour... but that hasn't happened in like a year.

Damn, I'm the opposite. I never used to get crashes, but since the last update, it crashes when saving every few turns.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by dakine44:

Originally posted by Fulano:

Huh... I just realized I used to get a crash about every hour... but that hasn't happened in like a year.

Damn, I'm the opposite. I never used to get crashes, but since the last update, it crashes when saving every few turns.

What sized maps do you play?

I know for a fact the LAA patch won't do anything to remedy the entity limit of the engine. I poured hundreds of hours into making custom map-gens only to realize that the game engine can't handle them come mid-game.

Really disappointed with that outcome, especially since I can't find a game that is anywhere near as good as AOW3. I've played it so much that I'm no longer content with vanilla limitations. I've been in AOW purgatory ever since.

If I were a rich man I would pay a team for a 64bit rewrite.

[Fulano]

I regularly play large with underground or extra large without. It gets a bit laggy late game on the extra large maps.

[dakine44]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

Originally posted by dakine44:

Damn, I'm the opposite. I never used to get crashes, but since the last update, it crashes when saving every few turns.

What sized maps do you play?

I know for a fact the LAA patch won't do anything to remedy the entity limit of the engine. I poured hundreds of hours into making custom map-gens only to realize that the game engine can't handle them come mid-game.

Really disappointed with that outcome, especially since I can't find a game that is anywhere near as good as AOW3. I've played it so much that I'm no longer content with vanilla limitations. I've been in AOW purgatory ever since.

If I were a rich man I would pay a team for a 64bit rewrite.

Probably this for me too, but I never had a crash until I started replaying the game about a year ago. The game had an update and several mods updated as well. I do play large maps, but I did before and had no issues. Now it crashes every 4 or 5 turns, and every turn once it starts getting to the endgame. I've deleted a lot of the mods I used to use.

It's consistent though. Memory usage goes up every turn and as soon as it gets to ~3000mb, it will crash when saving. If I quit the game before that and restart, memory use drops back to ~2500mb.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by dakine44:

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

What sized maps do you play?

I know for a fact the LAA patch won't do anything to remedy the entity limit of the engine. I poured hundreds of hours into making custom map-gens only to realize that the game engine can't handle them come mid-game.

Really disappointed with that outcome, especially since I can't find a game that is anywhere near as good as AOW3. I've played it so much that I'm no longer content with vanilla limitations. I've been in AOW purgatory ever since.

If I were a rich man I would pay a team for a 64bit rewrite.

Probably this for me too, but I never had a crash until I started replaying the game about a year ago. The game had an update and several mods updated as well. I do play large maps, but I did before and had no issues. Now it crashes every 4 or 5 turns, and every turn once it starts getting to the endgame. I've deleted a lot of the mods I used to use.

It's consistent though. Memory usage goes up every turn and as soon as it gets to ~3000mb, it will crash when saving. If I quit the game before that and restart, memory use drops back to ~2500mb.

Far as I can tell, structure density is a pretty serious compounding factor. At least that's where I reached a critical threshold of instability.

Last I played I was testing games with only 4 AI as opposed to 7, as a means to figure out how much of it was related to Ai activity, but did not foresee that 4 AI will eventually create the same amount of cities and units as 7 in the long run.

For reference, the point of failure for me came about 130 turns in with a map-gen similar to the following:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013832519
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013832971
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3260747043
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3260747067

At that point you have something close to 300 cities and likely over a thousand unit stacks on the map not accounting for native entities. That by itself might be problematic but I think the tipping point was the added structure density. I say that as I don't recall having any massive issues in vanilla using maximum map and AI parameters.

I would have loved to have been able to upload these gens as they make for some stunning cities both for player and AI as well as supreme campaign longevity in relation to dungeon capacity.

I guess that was 250+ hours down the drain lol.

[dakine44]

Originally posted by spaceweezle:

Originally posted by dakine44:

Probably this for me too, but I never had a crash until I started replaying the game about a year ago. The game had an update and several mods updated as well. I do play large maps, but I did before and had no issues. Now it crashes every 4 or 5 turns, and every turn once it starts getting to the endgame. I've deleted a lot of the mods I used to use.

It's consistent though. Memory usage goes up every turn and as soon as it gets to ~3000mb, it will crash when saving. If I quit the game before that and restart, memory use drops back to ~2500mb.

Far as I can tell, structure density is a pretty serious compounding factor. At least that's where I reached a critical threshold of instability.

Last I played I was testing games with only 4 AI as opposed to 7, as a means to figure out how much of it was related to Ai activity, but did not foresee that 4 AI will eventually create the same amount of cities and units as 7 in the long run.

For reference, the point of failure for me came about 130 turns in with a map-gen similar to the following:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013832519
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013832971
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3260747043
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3260747067

At that point you have something close to 300 cities and likely over a thousand unit stacks on the map not accounting for native entities. That by itself might be problematic but I think the tipping point was the added structure density. I say that as I don't recall having any massive issues in vanilla using maximum map and AI parameters.

I would have loved to have been able to upload these gens as they make for some stunning cities both for player and AI as well as supreme campaign longevity in relation to dungeon capacity.

I guess that was 250+ hours down the drain lol.

Well I did start using the mod that lets builders make structures, so that might not be helping. I edited the minimum distance between cities and dwellings and I also started using the mod that lets you increase domain size. Those have both helped to a degree. I managed to get to turn ~150 doing that, but it runs into the same problems.

It also seems like something is causing a memory leak at times, but I haven't been able to figure out what. I've tried removing various mods, but it always ends the same way.

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by dakine44:

Well I did start using the mod that lets builders make structures, so that might not be helping. I edited the minimum distance between cities and dwellings and I also started using the mod that lets you increase domain size. Those have both helped to a degree. I managed to get to turn ~150 doing that, but it runs into the same problems.

It also seems like something is causing a memory leak at times, but I haven't been able to figure out what. I've tried removing various mods, but it always ends the same way.

I'm thinking there is some other characteristic involved as having a look at the most recent map, I ran into problems as early as turn 124, And from memory, could not get past that point.

Odd because there were a comparatively low number of AI cities on the map in that game. The only real difference is that I was using/testing a pretty freaky map-gen.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262060523
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262060834
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262060745
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262064448

Notice that on the overworld map there aren't nearly as many cities. Though the structure density was quite high, probably highest I've ever gone. That might suggest that native treasure structures have an abnormal taxation on engine resources.

Something I forgot to mention is that part of my map-gen also involves higher numbers of defenders for some structures as well as boosted defender strength overall. I haven't played the game in the longest time because of said issue, so it's not that clear in my head.

It's certainly seems like a memory or data caching issue on the back-end. Why else would these maps run fine but only for a finite amount of turns. People have reported this even for vanilla which might indicate there is more to it than just memory throughput/retention. Perhaps some poorly written code there.