Extend RAM usage of game

[Chaos]

I have a much RAM that the game could use but it never seems to go beyond 12GB when running the game.

Is there any manual option in a config file where I can change this?

[¥aeko]

why would it use, what it doesnt need?

[zpc]

To keep a long story very short: it doesn't work like that.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Chaos:

I have a much RAM that the game could use but it never seems to go beyond 12GB when running the game.

Is there any manual option in a config file where I can change this?

There isn't. The game will allocate as much as necessary, and will not get more. Though if you get huge number of ships, the memory use will probably increase. A little.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Doom:

Originally posted by Chaos:

I have a much RAM that the game could use but it never seems to go beyond 12GB when running the game.

Is there any manual option in a config file where I can change this?

There isn't. The game will allocate as much as necessary, and will not get more. Though if you get huge number of ships, the memory use will probably increase. A little.

I was thinking in these lines of when the game gets loaded with many items if it would not be better to assign 40GB or more RAM. I have some games that use the RAM well and it does make a difference.
Perhaps in the future there will be some options to adjust it or automatically it will use it. Thanks for comments.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Chaos:

Originally posted by Doom:

There isn't. The game will allocate as much as necessary, and will not get more. Though if you get huge number of ships, the memory use will probably increase. A little.

I was thinking in these lines of when the game gets loaded with many items if it would not be better to assign 40GB or more RAM. I have some games that use the RAM well and it does make a difference.
Perhaps in the future there will be some options to adjust it or automatically it will use it. Thanks for comments.

It is already doing that sort of optimization.

When software allocates an object dynamically (like a ship in a list), it requests memory from its built in memory manager, provided by programming language. Said manager, in turn requests it from OS. The manager often uses a bit more than immediately necessary. However, if a game needs to story X ships in memory, and Y ships, it'll roughly need X*Y bytes. And only that amount. It can also preallocate a bit extra in case it needs Y*2 ships later. But that's it. If you "give" it more memory than it needs, it will have no use for it. Hence there is no such feature.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Doom:

Originally posted by Chaos:

I was thinking in these lines of when the game gets loaded with many items if it would not be better to assign 40GB or more RAM. I have some games that use the RAM well and it does make a difference.
Perhaps in the future there will be some options to adjust it or automatically it will use it. Thanks for comments.

It is already doing that sort of optimization.

When software allocates an object dynamically (like a ship in a list), it requests memory from its built in memory manager, provided by programming language. Said manager, in turn requests it from OS. The manager often uses a bit more than immediately necessary. However, if a game needs to story X ships in memory, and Y ships, it'll roughly need X*Y bytes. And only that amount. It can also preallocate a bit extra in case it needs Y*2 ships later. But that's it. If you "give" it more memory than it needs, it will have no use for it. Hence there is no such feature.

Yes and no. One can see that when you teleport to another sector, there is reloading again. I have not gone into looking in much detail, but I would like to see the sectors I go into often or back and forth are more reserved in a bigger cache so that moving around to regular "favourites", happens quicker. It is obvious this game could do with more RAM and perhaps in time, Egosoft will enhance this.

Lets wait and see. Thanks for comments.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Chaos:

Yes and no. One can see that when you teleport to another sector, there is reloading again.

Ah, got it.

That's loading stuff into VIDEO memory onto your GPU. It is separate from system memory, textures, models and so on take video memory. That's why unused objects are normally purged. NPCs are created on demand, because their appearance is actually dynamic.

You should ask this question on egosoft forums, because that requires developer-level familiarity with the engine, and I'm unaware of any key that does this.

Ask them "Are there any command line keys to enable object pooling, or increase size of object pool so graphical objects stay cached for longer between sector change".

[¥aeko]

Assuming there is enough VRAM, the game doesnt even unload things again.

I frequently see it sitting at 12GB+, and I also dont have the "loading" described here.

[Lethalite]

Originally posted by Chaos:

Yes and no. One can see that when you teleport to another sector, there is reloading again. I have not gone into looking in much detail, but I would like to see the sectors I go into often or back and forth are more reserved in a bigger cache so that moving around to regular "favourites", happens quicker. It is obvious this game could do with more RAM and perhaps in time, Egosoft will enhance this.

Lets wait and see. Thanks for comments.

This is a cool idea...

A "favorites" cache that would be invalidated as the player deviates from their pattern of sector visitation. If you keep visiting the same sectors, great! If you start visiting different sectors and don't visit a favorite soon (based on distance maybe and/or mathematical deviation), purge!

This sounds really complex, however so not sure if the value-add would even be worth it.

Originally posted by ¥aeko:

Assuming there is enough VRAM, the game doesnt even unload things again.

I frequently see it sitting at 12GB+, and I also dont have the "loading" described here.

I still occasionally see assets get lazy loaded with a 16GB VRAM card. Of course, I have no idea if that's because it's the first time that model was loaded in my play session or if it was unloaded then reloaded or what.

I think you're right. I think the game will simply keep stuff in memory if there's enough.
I haven't been closely paying attention, but I think that the lazy loading of models becomes less & apparent the longer you play, provided you have a nice rig.

[cafeteria1860]

Maybe X4 just extends VRAM to the infinity of the computer, that will be by design. Except of some special circumstances, the game should have the most VRAMs, so X4 extending VRAM to maximum is not an issue.
Also, just eating more RAM will not help the game. Of course the game will get some help with additional VRAM, but still limited improvement.

[climbingeastofwinter]

If X4 had a visual novel mode, that could improve performance per unit of ram.

[Aargh Tenna]

Originally posted by ¥aeko:

why would it use, what it doesnt need?

you can have bigger caches, trade memory for speed. Memory is like money - you can never have enough, there are always ways to use more.

[Свисток Прушки]

Really? Did they fix memory leak in 7.5?