Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: ChronoReverse on March 25, 2004, 11:36:57 pm
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This isn't a real SCP problem, but it seems very strange to me.
Here's the scenario:
I look at my page file usage, 99MB used. Nothing special there, I have only 256mb of ram.
I look in my data/maps directory. 99MB used. Everything normal.
I look in my data/effects folder (e.g. double clicked the folder name in explorer). 635MB used. Instantly. After 1 minute my system slows to a crawl and it's 1.2GB used. This memory is not freed unless I manually end the explorer task and restart it. It is freed instantly.
Does anyone know what could be causing this and if they have the same problem (try it)?
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What OS? There is a small possibility that (if you are running XP) the system is trying to generate preview clips for the backgrounds and such and either can't, if format-related, or won't, if memory related. I'd need to know a bit more about your system before I could even offer up a decent guess.
EDIT: Do you have all of Lightspeed and Co's high-res effects installed? They could easily be eating up a lot of RAM if explorer is trying to generate and cache previews for all of them.
Set the view for that folder to details and see if it helps.
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XP? slow computer? lots of stuff in there?
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It's XP but I've already disabled caching of images ages ago. I have all of Lightspeed's effects. All my folders are in detail view.
My computer isn't really slowing down, it's just that memory usage is suddenly really high (without HD grinding either).
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I have similar things, windows sucks, get used to it :doubt:
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or upgrade to linux
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As soon as they settle on a standardized desktop I'll be doing that. Oh and a way to change resolutions, colour depth and refresh rate on the fly would be nice too.
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it's obvious you have no clue about linux :doubt:
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for once i didn't have to say it
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Last time I checked, there were still two competing GUIs KDE and GNOME. Additionally, last time I checked, I had to edit a conf file and restart KDE to change my refresh rate.
Tell me that I was being silly and that there's a way to simply click a button and select a new setting.
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you didn't upgrade to XP because the Luna and Standard themes were compteting?
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No I was using XP already, went ahead and tried a distro of Linux. Got it setup the way I wanted and then suddenly decided that there really wasn't any good reason to use Linux since winXP isn't that unstable (and security flaws can be avoided by simply being careful).
I also decided that xChat isn't as good as mirc (since I had a lot of scripts) and that if I'm going to run it under wine, why not just run winxp?
And themes isn't the beef I have with Linux, it's the existence of two different enough desktops that I'm more annoyed about. If it was just a surface thing like skinning it wouldn't be a problem.
The other thing I don't like is how a lot people who have used linux for a while don't bother explaining things to newbies ("Oh you don't know how that works? That's the way it works in windows. Let me explain how it works in linux to you") but rather take the opportunity to bash microsoft, or bash me for asking such a "simple question" or that I'm one of the "unwashed windoze lusers".
Of course, there were some rather nice people who did in fact help me with setting up my system, but those were mostly people I actually knew.
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Chrono: there are many X config programs calling KDE and GNOME "GUI"s shows your ignorant as to how it works anyway - those are WINDOW MANAGERs - they give the GUI it's appears, but they are not the GUI.
it's not Restarting KDE, it's restarting the XServer - and guess what? WINDOWS DOES THAT TOO [restarts it's gfx server] - unfortunately sice they're sticking strictly to the X11R6 protocol on linux, like pretty much every other unix/unix-like they cannot "pause" the client-side while they're restart the Xserver.
Color Depth and Resolution is now changable _HOT_ in that the XServer doesn't even need to be restarted - and it is possible that they added refresh rate to that without me paying attention -- I only need to set my color depth/resolution/refresh rate ONCE
*whine* you have mIRC scripts therefore xChat is inferior because you didn't bother to get off your arse and google
PS: Most of those "simple questions" to linux people is like asking about FS3 to us. RTFM
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See, here's the problem. It's the attitude. In fact I did have to go and read the ****ing manual. Since the webconfig for SAMBA refused to work, I had to go and manually create a conf file.
And I'm perfectly aware that linux uses the x protocol. But what you arguing about is semantics. If I used the wrong term, you immediately jump all over me when my meaning is still quite clear.
And even the x thing isn't that clearcut anymore, not with xfree86 changing their licensing and some people up at arms about it.
Did I say xChat was inferior? No, I said it wasn't as good as mirc. This obviously meant that, _to me_ , xChat wasn't what I had in mind since I wanted a client that had scripts available easily. Again you jumped at this and lashed out.
And you just proved my point. So resolution and colour depth is now hot changeable. Great. Why don't you just quickly state how it could be done instead of screaming at me? I didn't find it in the documentation and it wouldn't be that hard to put a quick explanation (like "the controls for that is hidden in xyz" or "type this into a terminal").
The linux community isn't even as good as the HLP about FS3. At least there's a single FAQ you could point to for people asking about FS3. There isn't such a thing for linux that everyone likes to point to. For a group so rabid about getting people off windows they sure don't do a good job of it.
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what distro were you using? I've never had a problem with redhat-config-samba
y "wasn't as good as" x means y is inferior to x - definition
there are PLENTY of FAQs that could could easily google for, trying to say there isn't is laziness.
Normally I'm more than helpful, but it pisses me off when people ***** about things because they didn't even bother to see if there was a manual.
What Distro were you using? Slackware? Debian? SuSe?
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I was using Mandrake (and yes I do know now that it's not a great distro, but it's easy to install).
There wasn't anything truly wrong with the file (since (the few) people who looked it over and said it should've been fine). But it didn't work. So I gave up and just rewrote the entire thing and then it did work. I'm betting it's just a fluke accident though.
"y "wasn't as good as" x means y is inferior to x"
I was implying not the xChat is a poor program, but that it didn't offer what I wanted. I want easy-to-use scripts that are also easy-to-find and compatible with the myriads of mirc users out there.
Of course, the biggest thing was how you got so defensive about it and started saying that I was whining when I simply decided I prefered mirc.
And then calling me lazy. You don't seem to realize that I did read and follow the FAQs that had been pointed out to me for newbies (as well as some I found myself). But since linux is in fact a complex program that differs even across distributions (with different possible methods of doing that same thing), some of the instructions didn't work. Not to mention how many faqs there exists (can't they make a nice indexed one? or have they finally done that in the past year or two?).
Since I don't have an intuition for linux yet (having simply read some FAQs and a book), I couldn't work through them. The community wasn't very helpful either.
Finally, I complained that I couldn't change my resolution, colour depth and refresh rate on the fly. How hard would it have been to say "But you can!" instead of going on the rampage?
And if I didn't use the correct term (but still readily understandable) why jump on my back? I didn't say I was a guru of linux. I just stated something that bothered me when I _tried_ it.
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fedora is easier to install and easier to configure
you said the FAQs didn't exist - PS Linux itself is just the kernel - everything else is GNU
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I said that a SINGLE compiled faq that everyone can point to doesn't exist whereas in the HLP there is a FAQ you can point to (kara's).
[edit] I suppose I wasn't clear enough when I originally stated it [/edit]
And here's the semantics thing again. I know linux is just the kernel. But since I'm coming from the windows world, can it please his majesty to make concessions for me still using terminology used in the windows world?
Because the package the kernel come in is just as important to most users as the kernel itself. It doesn't help that the distros package linux is so many ways.
And I'll keep in mind the Fedora thing.
[edit] and while you're on the topic, which file system do you prefer to use? [/edit]
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ext3
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Does anyone know what could be causing this and if they have the same problem (try it)?
I've seen this a couple of times on my system but it was a long time ago and I'm a little hazy on details.
I think one time was while Explorer was set to one of the thumbnail/preview views that generates the icon based on the content of the file. This one was probably a corrupted file, fixed with chkdsk.
The other was in details view (my usual one). Whenever I viewed a directory with a video file in it, my system almost immediately crawled to a stop and mem usage rose dramatically. I think XP was getting screwed up accessing the file's details when I opened the dir (dir'ing it in a command prompt caused no problems). It was definately the video - all problems stopped when I deleted it.
I'd run chkdsk on your drive, if it doesn't find anything maybe use a command prompt or something other than explorer to move the file into a different dir until you can isolate the problem file(s).
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First thing I did was a chkdsk :(
I've disabled caching of thumbnails and I'm also in detai view :(
@kazan
That's what I used. Some zealots claimed I was a fool to do so and should've used reiserFS. Which is why I asked.
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How many files are in the directory to read? And have you turned off that search speeder-upper thing?
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i see no advantages to reiserFS
some nerd's need to have a "Holier than thou" complex
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I've turned off indexing if that's what you mean.
The drive is a NTFS drive.
There are 203 files in the folder for a total of ~65mb.
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Yup, that's what I meant Chrono.
Hmmmmmmm... I think I might agree with Bobb here, Explorer is a complete memory hog in my experience, and occasionally it will fill up memory and crash 'because it feels like it'
I actually disable Explorer from the Task Manager when I am doing things like rendering etc, it speeds things up quite a lot ;)
I'm, quite frankly stumped, I've no idea whatsoever why it only does it in this one directory :(
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Hmm, even weirder is that when I look in the same folder using Photoshop, the same thing occurs. Except the memory doesn't get cleared until I quit Photoshop instead of ending explorer.
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The last time I had anything even approaching that problem, it was a virus in the directory I was opening, but since you only have image files in there, I don't see how this can be the case. :(
The only other, somewhat far-fetched option I can think of, is that your drive needs a defrag, and that the contents of your effects folder is spread out all over the hard drive. That way, I guess it is possible, since NTFS uses tiny data 'blocks' to store data, that all that memory is being taken up by reference data. Nonetheless, it's bloody wierd that it should only happen to that one directory :(
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if i was home, i could write a program that moves files from directories one at a time so you can see which file was doing that. and once you found it, delete it in dos. i had this happen once with XP interpreting a Freespace ANI file as a windows cursor (and it tried to generate a preview). it started hogging up about 150MB+ of RAM.
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I bet it's the ani thing. As soon as I get home I'll test it out manually.
BTW I just defragged no less than 2 weeks ago.
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LOL Well, that's another theory shot down ;)
Ah well, 2 weeks is a long time when Windows is managing your Hard Drive ;)
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Windows doesn't manage my harddrive. I've always used a 3rd party program to do so. This includes the winxp partial defrag that occurs for boot-time speed up. I've relegated it to a 3rd party program.
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The ANI idea sounds good - .ani and .cur are the extensions for windows mouse cursors. I'm fairly certain that explorer generates the icon for mouse cursor files from the file itself instead of using a single icon for the file type, no matter which view you're in. I assume Photoshop uses the standard windows file open dialog, so that'll do the same thing as explorer.
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Hmmm.... Have you tried any of those alternate Windows file managers floating around? That might help with your problem.
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It won't help when I look in the folder using Photoshop though.
BTW, the final verdict is: .ani files are causing the problem. After I moved them out of the folder this didn't occur anymore. Then when I renamed them one by one, by restarting explorer, the memory usage when looking in the folder with .ani's dropped.
So I'll be moving them into a VP I guess.
/me looks for a copy of VP builder