Memory System Error

[sunspot42]

Had the third single player game of the evening crash on me - Memory System Error. This last time was extra-glitchy - I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL to get back to Steam.

I think this is the old memory error AOM threw, but Steam isn't handling it well and obviously it was never fixed from the old code...

[sunspot42]

Happened again tonight. Sigh...

[MS Ryz0n]

We are aware of it, but have not been able to pinpoint a specific repro scenario to resolve the bug. It seems a large number of players (AI specifically) is the closest we've been able to narrow down to date. It's basically a memory leak somewhere causing the game to try to expand past ~1.5GB of memory, and the mem manager is not letting it allocate it (to prevent buffer overflows and the like)

[sunspot42]

Maybe I'll try to find some humans onlne to play against fewer AI players...

The odd thing is, it will happen even if you save the game, totally quit AoM, then restart the game and reload AoM. It'll even happen after a full reboot. So whatever it is, the saved game seems to preserve it or cause it to happen again.

[elrawen]

Well memory leak is a dam annoying thing. i also had this same error though. But i know these issues are not easy to fix sometimes.

[DEMON 340 SIX PACK]

I wont buy AOM HD unless this mem error is FIXED!!!

[oMorrogh]

I was really excited to get this during the Steam Sale and am very disappointed to have this Memory Error crashing the game in my first game. I am playing with a bunch of AIs, so your theory that it has to do with overzealous computer players sounds about right. Honestly, since it appears this issue still hasn't been located and mended, I'll be attempting to get my money back very soon...

[Luke]

I have been getting this "memory error 172" or something and it has been ruining every singleplayer 4V4 (Me Vs. 7 AI) I have made, it's very annoying as it means I can't play the game at all how I want to. The games seem to get to about mythic age when the game freezes crashes and then the 172 memory error pops up. Even if you save, the crash still happens but sooner usually. The maps I have been playing when this occured have been, The River Nile and Archipelago on 4v4 singleplayer vs AI on Hard difficulty, random races, with 10min day night cycle. Please find a solution to this asap!

[Luke]

Based upon the responses so far, it doesn't sound like anyone has figured this one out yet. When the game is playing normally, I rarely experience only minor lag when there is a full out conflagration with 5 computer players and I have not shut down any background processes.

When the game freezes, you can see the page file usage graph in Windows task manager go from 607 MB to 2.35 GB until the "unable to allocate memory size" error box pops up. Some sort of cascading memory problem is occuring. It is the sort of behaviour you would expect from a program if you created an infinite loop that allocates a small amount of memory (172 byte or Kbytes), until it crashes. It takes about 3 minutes after the freeze for the PF to max out at 2.35 GB and the error box to pop up. If you search this forum for memory problems you will see a few other cases where others have this exact message including the memory size of "172". I have also found a few references using Google but so far no solutions have been posted. I have also searched the MS website to no avail.

My theory is that there is some sort of driver causing this problem but I cannot detect which one. Once the game crashes, the computer behaves normally and I can often restart AOM and attempt to reload the match, althoough it always seems to eventually crash, as though saving the game has saved the memory leak, and it just happens again every time you reload the game.

[oMorrogh]

My game is myself versus max computers and I did choose to play on River Nile, so if Obadiah also experienced problems on this map, I think it's worth looking into specific maps possibily being a culprit for the Memory Use Error!

[Stormbird]

Still no fix for memory system crash ?? The orginal use to do the same thing. Figured it wouldn't be an issue second time around.

[oMorrogh]

I'm too disappointed, and freaked, to even retry the game right now until I hear something about a fix. What's the point of playing my game if it's going to crash five minutes later everytime? Really regretting buying this during the steam sale... :/ Please keep your players updated with any progress on this matter!

[bottomshelfbob]

I've just recently started getting this error. I played through a few games with no problem whatsoever. Then, Bam! Now my game crashes every 10 minutes with this allocate memory thing. I had no idea this was a problem with the original. When I played it as a kid on an old crappy computer it ran fine. This only adds to the disappointment with it crashing now.

[oMorrogh]

I actually own the original PC one and chose to get the Steam for the expansion bit and play easier with friends. Regretting not just making due with that version... :/

[sunspot42]

Happening constantly in single-player games, especially on water maps. This can't be fixed?

[copenhagen120]

This problem is STILL HAPPENING. It's been like 6 months now, is it EVER going to be fixed? It's causing a solid 40% of my games to crash. This is ridiculous.