is there a memory leak?

[Dirty]

I keep crashing after a few hours of playing. I noticed my memory goes for 2100mb to 3500mb when the crash occurs

Plus for some reason my GPU is showing 98% usage for this game no matter how low or high I have the graphics set

any ideas?

[Daemonjax]

It's a 64bit game, so 3500mb isn't much.

Do you get an error when the game crashes?

The game's rock solid stable for me. Are you sure your system is stable? Can you run prime95 without errors for more than 15 minutes?

What GPU do you have? The gpu usage not changing is caused by your fps going up when you lower the settings.

[TEKnowledgy]

i do think there is one, I'm sitting idle in command bridge watching task manager. The game previously today was eating up 14gb memory. Right now idle in command bridge its eating about 100mb memory every second. So far I haven't crashed but I do believe there is a serious leak. Also seems to be maxing my video memory i have 8gb rx580 its taking every drop of it at 1080p. Maybe vram leak and when cant get enough its taking the system memory next. I notice long as game isn't minimized memory isn't being ate rapidly, but if you minimize game that's when it goes crazy with memory eating. Try it yourself you'll see what I'm talking about. But after you maximize it is not dumping this used memory it will stabilize round where ever you went from minimize to full screen.

[Alan]

I'm stable at 1.4gb memory (both open and minimized), though GPU reaches ~80% in game with max settings (open, 20% minimized).

[TEKnowledgy]

I'll take video of it later with obs. When i watch goes up slowly at first just 1-2 mb watch it for about 5 mins after awhile start eating it up like 100mb/s it keeps going until you run outta memory but if you go back in game it stabilizes stops eating it. Very weird i never had this issue back in 2020 when i played a lot. Never seen this with any other game i own i have 930 games on steam alone lol so like i said though i'll see if i can get a video of it later.

[TEKnowledgy]

here ya go video of it sorry for shabby quality i forgot take it off my twitch streaming settings also pay no mind to big black square usually where my ugly mug would be when i stream lol. If i need redo vid i can memory leak is very repeatable lol Watch in full screen so you can better see my task manager window also make sure use the 720/60 video setting dont let yt auto you on 480p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znx0dgKK6NE

I don't know this makes difference or not but I'll state it anyways.
My OS is windows 10, in 2020 my OS was windows 7

I can't confirm if the prophecy exe does it, I have complete game so I only use martyr exe. I don't think it's leaking when game is not minimized because, even yesterday I fell asleep while playing the game it ran maximized for 12 hrs straight with no issues no crashes no memory eating. At least as far as I know because, i didn't notice or pay no mind until tonight about the memory eating. So not positive what it's doing while in game. I might have to put hwinfo on always on top let it sit there watch it for little bit.

[TEKnowledgy]

it is a video memory leak, i loaded up game like i did video let it sit at bridge with hwinfo always on top for long as that video was. vram was showing 2,900 mb 2.9 gb which typically normal i run max settings 1080p, sys ram using normal 1.5gb for the game soon as i minimized game vram jumped to 3500 mb which 3.5gb instantly just kept eating once it filled up started eating system ram. Like in the video. So starts at vram and eats till it gets to sys ram. Crashes at around 8 mins total start to finish while minimized. If you got bigger vram might take a bit longer before it consumes your vram so might take longer to reach max consumption than 8 mins start to finish like it did for me. Also sys ram going to also extend that if you packing more than 16gb. Far as I can tell from watching it doesn't seem to be leaking while game is in focus be it full screen or window/borderless.
Anyways, that's all i can really do from my end, about all the info I know to give for information but if something else is needed don't be afraid to ask.

Pro tip: Don't minimize the game until this is fixed, unless you don't mind restarting client every time you do so because of massive vram and sys ram consumption lol. I tested going through steam browser to surf the net that doesn't seem to bother it so atleast you can use that without triggering the memory leak. Also 2+ monitor setup might could get around it. Don't know don't have that setup to test.

[Deviance]

Thanks for the info @TEKknowledgy, I opened up a thread relating to the crashes I was experiencing when running 3-5 missions of Unholy Cathedral / Maelstrom here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/527430/discussions/0/3051735285580923611/

The above information would explain my issues too. I'll trying running without minimising and see if there is a noticeable difference.

[tcg]

I sometimes think there is SOMETHING going on.
A couple of days ago, the game was lagging/stuttering hard when visiting the shops.
It stayed like this for more than a day.
I don't know if their databases were being worked on or what...but it was quite annoying.

[TEKnowledgy]

Yeah try not minimize until they fix this it's a nasty leak it consumes quickly when minimized. Took about 3 mins consume 8gb vram then about 5 to consume my sys ram obviously this will change depending what any body elses vram is and sys ram is. Not everyone has 8gb vram and 16gb sys ram could be more or could be less on either. I've been a gamer for 36 years a PC gamer for about 26 years, never seen such an aggressive memory leak. I've seen memory leaks before even in triple A titles, I mean it happens. This one is a really nasty leak, like a memory dam break lol.

Far as I can tell it's only triggering when minimized. (not saying it couldn't be while in focus I obviously cant watch it constantly while I'm actually playing, running through missions etc) This morning when I was watching it while on command bridge just chillin light moving around and opening menus, everything was stable while in focus but on minimize it became very hungry. Imagine cookie monster with the munchies and my vram/sys ram was cookies. lol

Anyways, all we can do is wait and hope they drop a hot fix for this. Just remember not to minimize, if you need the web remember steam web browser doesn't trigger leak. (Far as I could tell during testing)

[Denatare]

There defo was leak before 2.4 patch. Seems to be fixed since 2.4 though.
Posted about it here: https://neocoregames.com/en/community/hub/performance-issue-mem-leak-micro-stutter

[TEKnowledgy]

its not fixed 100% that video post #5 i took was this morning. I'm happy to repeat it as much as necessary. hey if it would prove it even more so I'll live stream it on twitch from start of game run until the game crashes. Be a short stream only takes about 10 mins from desktop to game crash. It's possible they just worked around the first one but didn't fix it fully maybe just a quick patch till they had more time to debug it. That just personal assumption and i can't state it as a fact. It starts in vram then once all of it is consumed starts taking your system memory only does it while game is minimized. This why i assume what I did. Most people wont even notice it I do/did because I pay attention to whats going on with my PC and games just who I am as a person very observant person and always determined and/or driven to solve/detect problems games, PC even real life. I'm like that always lol.

[Deviance]

Originally posted by A.D.:

There defo was leak before 2.4 patch. Seems to be fixed since 2.4 though.
Posted about it here: https://neocoregames.com/en/community/hub/performance-issue-mem-leak-micro-stutter

I can confirm I'm getting it post 2.4.0b. I can easily recreate it with a few runs of Unholy Cathedral / Maelstrom. I run a multi monitor set up, so I'll occasionally minimise the game when switching to read a forum post or look at a void crusade map. So this ties in with TEKnowledgy's findings. Hopefully there will be a few more stability fixes, it's a good game, but the crashes make it difficult to play.

[TEKnowledgy]

Technically, I don't even notice it i don't get stutters or lag or anything like that. I'm only seeing the memory leak during minimizing, if minimized to long game eventually crashes. I reset hardware info this morning after posting all my results here, just played normally for about 1hr 40 mins, after I quit game looked at HWinfo game had maxed at 4gb vram and 6gb usage of system ram which is fairly normal for sys ram, even before game runs my pc sits at 20-25% usage. Win 7 never consumed that much but irrelevant to this topic. So I'm personally not seeing the leak while game is in focus.

For deviance, like he said he minimizes here in there, since it triggers during minimizes it starts its leak. He goes back into game, vram probably maxed because of the leak. When he loads into big mission with mass amounts of enemies at this point, the game is storing video memory assets in system ram, all computers do this when vram is maxed. So it starts using his sys ram this is where the stuttering comes from, because your sys ram is waaaaaaay slower than your vram so game starts stuttering because textures etc is being loaded from the sys ram instead of vram. BY this point, depends how long he was minimized, how much ram he has and vram so starts loading all that shxt into ram instead of vram eventually pushing it over his limits then bam game crash. That is my quick analysis of that.

A memory leak is when the program isn't freeing up the unused data instead just keeps consuming without releasing old unused memory. Just put that here for people that don't really know what memory leak means. Heard the term just not the definition.

[TEKnowledgy]

be careful guys what I talked about here isn't fixed from todays patch wanted check to see but it hasn't been so be careful with game minimizes if you wanna check your self get a app like HWInfo and watch video ram slowly fill up during minimize once hits it's max will start eating your system memory. Long as you do not minimize game it wont leak though. everything i said above is still valid though.

Edit:
Hmm little more investigating I wonder maybe this what effects me, I dont use discord but i do use a 3rd party overlay for gpu temp (i actually dont even need it after my new pc no idea why i still use it) so I will test and see.
https://neocoregames.com/en/community/hub/alt-tab-memory-leak
I'll update my findings.

Edit: well I be damn i believe that solved it. Wish I knew sooner would have saved me loads of time and trouble lmao.

Well minimizing is fine as long as you don't have any 3rd party overlays active. (steam overlay doesn't effect it luckily) that is weirdest I ever seen. but least i know why it was happening.

[BlankFX]

This is still not fixed. Sadly.