I BELIEVE I FOUND YOUR MEMORY LEAK (most cases)

[MrRellics]

like most people i warp between ststems a lot on this game and i have active quests that are located in previous systems, i noticed after a while that my games fps was drastically slowing down, long story short abandon all your quests you have no intention of doing or you can ignore and your fps should increase

It looks like the game is still trying to 'anchor' the unnecessary data in that system and as a result having multiple quests in multiple systems will cause this issue.

Compare it to a house, when you go to shut a door you don't turn around and see a hole in the door exposing the sofa, same when we warp there shouldn't be a theoretical hole that exposes the quest causing unecessary data to be loaded.

if i'm wrong then i'm wrong but i found this helped me, i went from less than 30 to over 60 consistantly with no more issues.

HOPE THIS HELPS :)

[Nannok]

Publicado originalmente por Xammond:

Seriously anyone on the edge of consistent fps, try even closing the main Steam window.

NMS does appear to run a form of 'garbage collection' every now and then. If things get bad it will usually be after a lot of base editing, just reloading the scene can recover fps... Certainly reloading the game will, after several hours that's fair enough imo.

Garbage collectors can be a real hard to debug if it had one. NMS has been plaged with memory leaks in the past but nothing like this one. But I think the FPS probs are video card related. My game dose not slow down FPS it gets unresponsive to comands. In or out of game. Its like a wall and I have to reboot.

[Freesoul]

It seems to be true. I have a GTX180 + 16G on utlra wide screen, I was getting the problem described here (~15FPS). I alt-tabed from the game and found this post => I had an old mission from a previous system, without leaving the game i went and complete the mission. Instantaneous FPS gain to normal rate as soon as the mission was complete.
Thank you !

[Nannok]

Publicado originalmente por ZombieHunter:

You can't say there is a leak without more proof. Those numbers that Task Manage reports are not enough info.

I can say what I like. I can program and I have eyes. Its experience that I am using not proof for you.

[ZombieHunter]

Publicado originalmente por Nannok:

Publicado originalmente por Xammond:

Seriously anyone on the edge of consistent fps, try even closing the main Steam window.

NMS does appear to run a form of 'garbage collection' every now and then. If things get bad it will usually be after a lot of base editing, just reloading the scene can recover fps... Certainly reloading the game will, after several hours that's fair enough imo.

Garbage collectors can be a real hard to debug if it had one. NMS has been plaged with memory leaks in the past but nothing like this one. But I think the FPS probs are video card related. My game dose not slow down FPS it gets unresponsive to comands. In or out of game. Its like a wall and I have to reboot.

If this is C++ it's garbage collection is a simple delete or delete []. They probably have an abstraction though or are using smart pointers since all of this was put into of MSVS 2015 as well as a ton of threading suppoer added to the std library.

I don't know if NMS is using a cusotm stack allocator, pool allocator or hybrid therein or if it is just using the standard new and delete

But proving there is a leak is extremely difficult on systems with a lot of memory unless the leak is very large and very easy to spot.

One good way is to add counters from the memory section in Performance Counter. But a small leak is going to be very hard to find. And over time you will see memory rise and fall and unless you know a lot about the app and it's max usage it is very unlikely you will find anything from the output.

If the app gets slower or begins to only use disk access and page faults start to go through the roof then it is possible it is out of the RAM allocated to it by the OS and is using the swap file as memory which is great but very slow. But since games use the swap file all the time via memory mapped file I/O in Win32 this is also very hard to track. Let me tell you I've tracked down leaks in C++ and C# and even with the code and much better tools at my disposal they are extremely hard to find and track down.

Publicado originalmente por Nannok:

Publicado originalmente por ZombieHunter:

You can't say there is a leak without more proof. Those numbers that Task Manage reports are not enough info.

I can say what I like. I can program and I have eyes. Its experience that I am using not proof for you.

If you are a developer then you also know that claiming 100% that there is a leak is fraught with issues when you don't even have the source or using any of the tools provided by MSVS to track it down and when you know nothing about the codebase in question.

[Nannok]

Publicado originalmente por Freesoul:

It seems to be true. I have a GTX180 + 16G on utlra wide screen, I was getting the problem described here (~15FPS). I alt-tabed from the game and found this post => I had an old mission from a previous system, without leaving the game i went and complete the mission. Instantaneous FPS gain to normal rate as soon as the mission was complete.
Thank you !

That is prob. just data over load not a leak. A memory leak is where the system thinks it being used and the program is done with it. when the progam ask for more memory it cant use the leaked memory that was not unallocated. Not an FPS prob in most cases. the system runs fine tell it askes for memory and cant have any and it will hang up at somepoint as resorses are not avaliable.

[ZombieHunter]

Keep in mind that poor performance over time or degrading performance with time is NOT always an indication of a leak but can be an indication of a fragmented heap. When you allocate and deallocate small chunks of memory over time the default allocation scheme will fragment the hell out of the memory. This is why most performance oriented games don't rely on it b/c over time it seriously degrades performance. Allocating the memory required upfront and then dishing it out as needed in blocks will mitigate the fragmentation. A deallocation is not a release of the actual memory rather it marks the memory that was allocated as free and the next object requesting memory can use the freed block. But if the freed block is not large enough then you can still run into fragmentation issues regardless of block size b/c now you don't have a span of contiguous memory so rather than allocate a block at base + (blockSize * index) bytes you would find a section that has contiguous blocks that are free that can be allocated.

No solution is perfect. The main reason for using a custom allocator is that new and delete are under the hood using Win32 calls to allocate memory and they are a bit slower and the default allocation scheme is prone to fragmentation. If you pre-allocate and then hand out memory from a custom memory manager you only take the hit for the new at the start of the application and the rest is just managing offsets into the giant allocated chunk of memory. The default new and delete and malloc and free have gotten much faster over the years though so not all codelines rely on custom allocators.

[Nannok]

Publicado originalmente por ZombieHunter:

Publicado originalmente por Nannok:

Garbage collectors can be a real hard to debug if it had one. NMS has been plaged with memory leaks in the past but nothing like this one. But I think the FPS probs are video card related. My game dose not slow down FPS it gets unresponsive to comands. In or out of game. Its like a wall and I have to reboot.

If this is C++ it's garbage collection is a simple delete or delete []. They probably have an abstraction though or are using smart pointers since all of this was put into of MSVS 2015 as well as a ton of threading suppoer added to the std library.

I don't know if NMS is using a cusotm stack allocator, pool allocator or hybrid therein or if it is just using the standard new and delete

But proving there is a leak is extremely difficult on systems with a lot of memory unless the leak is very large and very easy to spot.

One good way is to add counters from the memory section in Performance Counter. But a small leak is going to be very hard to find. And over time you will see memory rise and fall and unless you know a lot about the app and it's max usage it is very unlikely you will find anything from the output.

If the app gets slower or begins to only use disk access and page faults start to go through the roof then it is possible it is out of the RAM allocated to it by the OS and is using the swap file as memory which is great but very slow. But since games use the swap file all the time via memory mapped file I/O in Win32 this is also very hard to track. Let me tell you I've tracked down leaks in C++ and C# and even with the code and much better tools at my disposal they are extremely hard to find and track down.

yep. I am an old programer learned on Quick C 30 years ago. Thay tought us pascal and fortan in school. My last programing job was uing MS foundation class 4 so I am a bit out of date. Its just a feeling. No proof. The game works fine. I jsut reboot.

P.S. I had to write a garbge collector for windowns 98. I used a program called ICE to single step through the OS as it alocated memory. Got a vitural mouse and keyboard driver I used to bot Everquest and WoW tell honorbody bot cam along. Missed the poker bot craze could have made some cash.

[Mad South]

Publicado originalmente por ZombieHunter:

There is not enough information about memory usage before, after, etc in this thread to verify there is a leak. It takes a lot of digging and testing and research to actually prove there is a leak.

And there are several types of 'leaks'. A true leak is when memory is allocated but never given back to the OS and since the OS thinks it is allocated it cannot then be used for anything else. This happens when a pointer goes out of scope before the memory being used by the object is cleaned up.

It is very hard to find memory leaks even when you know there is one and when you have the code much less when you are shooting in the dark. There are methods to find them without having the code but it amounts to far more than is presented in this thread.

There is plenty of information. I have done tests since 1.51v and yes there is a Vram leak, it grows in small portions but never gets better until you restart the game else fps starts to tank Lod issues etc so yeah look with all do respect , i think i and the dude who posted this are sure of it. I wouldnt be talking about it right now if i wasnt 100% sure .If you took the time to test instead of telling people they're most likely wrong and saying there isnt enough proof , when you have not proved proof yourself ? So look do the testing yourself im sure you know how to lol and see for yourself..

[Asmosis]

Publicado originalmente por The Mad SouthAfrican:

There is plenty of information. I have done tests since 1.51v and yes there is a Vram leak, it grows in small portions but never gets better until you restart the game else fps starts to tank Lod issues etc so yeah look with all do respect , i think i and the dude who posted this are sure of it. I wouldnt be talking about it right now if i wasnt 100% sure .If you took the time to test instead of telling people they're most likely wrong and saying there isnt enough proof , when you have not proved proof yourself ? So look do the testing yourself im sure you know how to lol and see for yourself..

what plenty of infomation are you referring to?

There's only been a generic idea put out with absolutely no evidence to back it up, just some anecdotal stuff.

You have exactly 0% understanding of how the game is handling memory correct?

[Mad South]

Publicado originalmente por Asmosis:

Publicado originalmente por The Mad SouthAfrican:

There is plenty of information. I have done tests since 1.51v and yes there is a Vram leak, it grows in small portions but never gets better until you restart the game else fps starts to tank Lod issues etc so yeah look with all do respect , i think i and the dude who posted this are sure of it. I wouldnt be talking about it right now if i wasnt 100% sure .If you took the time to test instead of telling people they're most likely wrong and saying there isnt enough proof , when you have not proved proof yourself ? So look do the testing yourself im sure you know how to lol and see for yourself..

what plenty of infomation are you referring to?

There's only been a generic idea put out with absolutely no evidence to back it up, just some anecdotal stuff.

You have exactly 0% understanding of how the game is handling memory correct?

Jesus can you get any more generic ? I dont talk to generic stereotypes nor trolls. But if you think we all need to have programming experience and game design experience to figure out wether there is a memory leak ? You out your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind dude lol gtfo

[Asmosis]

Publicado originalmente por The Mad SouthAfrican:

Jesus can you get any more generic ? I dont talk to generic stereotypes nor trolls. But if you think we all need to have programming experience and game design experience to figure out wether there is a memory leak ? You out your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind dude lol gtfo

That's some A+ analytical skills to show your thorough understanding of how NMS memory works.

oh wait no, it just demonstrates what i said. You have no idea what your talking about.

[MrRellics]

Right i'm gonna clear a few thing up one zombie hunter don't come in here throwing what your opinion around when you provide no actual proof that what i found isnt the issue, when posting this you can see that i stated if im wrong im wrong but the method i employed to increase my fps by simply making sure i didnt leave a system with quests still active fixed the issue for me, i have been studying games for years and one of the most common things they drill into you is how to bug test and analyse a game in a way that you break in the most unlikely of ways.

Finding this issue and then find a simple but very effective fix for it was the intended goal here and getting enough people to test it themselves and show enough backing on the thread that hopefully hello games would fix this really silly issue that is taking up unecessary power (and just to specify a memory leak doesnt necessarily have to 'leak' power for it to be classed as a memory leak, so long as data is being taken and then not being put back in any way shape or form is considered a leak and poor optimization).

So for the sake of getting this really daft bug fixed, test it, go out and place waypoints around multiple planets on multiple systems and they ont cause you an issue, go and accept a load of quests throughout multiple systems and you will find your fps is dropping substancially, then abandon all active side quests and watch your fps go back to it's original value.

[Mad South]

Publicado originalmente por Asmosis:

Publicado originalmente por The Mad SouthAfrican:

Jesus can you get any more generic ? I dont talk to generic stereotypes nor trolls. But if you think we all need to have programming experience and game design experience to figure out wether there is a memory leak ? You out your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind dude lol gtfo

That's some A+ analytical skills to show your thorough understanding of how NMS memory works.

oh wait no, it just demonstrates what i said. You have no idea what your talking about.

Dude you are trying to sound smart and you have a massive ego issue. You have to be right and prove something ? Just log off and stop making yourself look like an absolue ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ . You the dude that no one likes at parties because you seem to know it all when in reality you talk ♥♥♥♥ and make no sense. Saying we havent got enough information to say there is a leak , who the ♥♥♥♥ are you ? You program ? Are you a dev by any chance ? No so what makes you think you can tell others ? Also no one has to provide the information we have been gathering over almost 2 weeks of testing , You wanna fight with randoms on the internet and im not being bated any longer lol. ♥♥♥♥ me i fell for the troll..Go back to that basement troll.

[Mad South]

Publicado originalmente por ZombieHunter:

Publicado originalmente por Nannok:

There is a leak. Run the game all day and even after you exit your machine is hosed. Taking for ever to load explorer after game exit. Takes a reboot to clear it up. The longer you run the game the less memory you have and its not realocated when game exits => LEAK. A common programing error is not freeing memory when destroying and an alocated object. The system has no way to use it because its not been freed up by the creating process.

You can't say there is a leak without more proof. Those numbers that Task Manage reports are not enough info.

Task manager ? Vram leaks dude Vram......Im not sure on Ram i see the game uses like 8gigs out of my 16 but thats not the issue. But if you watch Gpu-z for some time you can see for yourself the leak right before your eyes.. It also takes time but its there ..

[Ghostlight]

Publicado originalmente por MrRellics:

like most people i warp between ststems a lot on this game and i have active quests that are located in previous systems

Why warp when you can teleport to every station you've been to for free and instantly? The game even puts quest markers on those stations where you're old quests are still located. It takes minutes to teleport around and clean up all the old quests. Pick up a half dozen suit upgrades while you're at it.