Age of conan, Open beta: May 1st 2008.

[Soukyan]

So I am not a Fileplanet subscriber these days and somehow managed to get an open beta key, so I guess it is truly open. I thought I saw someone mention earlier that it wasn't. Or maybe I'm just lucky. I am lacking sleep, so this post is a rambling mess.

That being said, I saved my little old key code and then glanced back at the download button. 12 GB client download. I am not lacking hard drive space by any stretch, but dear me that's a huge client. A lot of art assets I guess. In any case, it will probably run for shit on my poor old PC. It's funny how I neglected my gaming box when I got my Mac... three years ago. 

Not that it matters. WoW still runs very well on this PowerBook, too. Not that I've played in a while, but still, it reinforces Haemish's point. Which I've forgotten. I'm going to sit in the corner with Signe and mumble profanities at the MMO developers now.

[Sir T]

The point is well taken. I'm sick and tired of shoving new components into this 8 year old box. If something like Conan cant run on it then screw it. I'm not shelling out money I don't have on it.

[Triforcer]

The point is well taken. I'm sick and tired of shoving new components into this 8 year old box. If something like Conan cant run on it then screw it. I'm not shelling out money I don't have on it.

Have you considered washing the piss out of the Sunny D bottles below your computer and depositing them?  I've heard its a surefire moneymaker.

[Sir T]

Have you considered washing the piss out of the Sunny D bottles below your computer and depositing them?  I've heard its a surefire moneymaker.

Sunny D bottles. Damn, now you tell me. I've been using plastic milk cartons. That handle makes it really easy to fling them twords the thrash with the one arm I have that has any strength left. If I'd known that I could be making money *sobs*

[Venkman]

Geez that Sunny-D statement sounds familiar. Either it's been posted before or it was on some sorta podcast 

And if you don't have a recent computer, don't bother with AoC. Never upgrade for a game. Games that require such upgrades are only for people who probably upgrade constantly as a matter of course.

[sam, an eggplant]

That's silly. If people took that advice they would never play any games at all. Just like anything else you need to make your own value judgement.

[Wasted]

So now that AoC is open beta is the NDA down?

[sam, an eggplant]

It's not open until tomorrow and those of us currently under NDA will remain there unless funcom says otherwise. This means that we can't talk about the closed beta, although the open beta is clear.

[Threash]

So I am not a Fileplanet subscriber these days and somehow managed to get an open beta key, so I guess it is truly open. I thought I saw someone mention earlier that it wasn't. Or maybe I'm just lucky. I am lacking sleep, so this post is a rambling mess.

Did you get in through fileplanet? because it keeps taking me to the subscribe page when i click on it.

[Triforcer]

Geez that Sunny-D statement sounds familiar. Either it's been posted before or it was on some sorta podcast 

I must give credit where credit is due- grunk was the first to say it, ironically in reference to AoC upgrades as well. 

[Venkman]

Thanks! It was killing me. I was pulling up last week's 1up podcasts trying to find it. Knew I shoulda done a search here first 

[Soukyan]

So I am not a Fileplanet subscriber these days and somehow managed to get an open beta key, so I guess it is truly open. I thought I saw someone mention earlier that it wasn't. Or maybe I'm just lucky. I am lacking sleep, so this post is a rambling mess.

Did you get in through fileplanet? because it keeps taking me to the subscribe page when i click on it.

Yes. I just clicked the open beta link on the front page and then logged in. Perhaps because I used to subscribe? I have no clue.

[Viin]

Yes. I just clicked the open beta link on the front page and then logged in. Perhaps because I used to subscribe? I have no clue.

This is obviously a bug and the only honorable thing to do is to relinquish your key and give it to me.

[ShenMolo]

So the start time for the open beta has been pushed back 5 hours while Funcom slips in a new patch..

The wailing & gnashing of teeth on the various forums is very nostalgic!

[Lantyssa]

Lamentations of the women.

[Stormwaltz]

Lamentations of the women.

I hope Funcom has the sense to title their tech support forum that.

[Mrbloodworth]

So, it appears that the NDA is down........ For Reporters and news sites.

[Threash]

Well THIS is a news site right? start spilling it.

[Signe]

So I am not a Fileplanet subscriber these days and somehow managed to get an open beta key, so I guess it is truly open. I thought I saw someone mention earlier that it wasn't. Or maybe I'm just lucky. I am lacking sleep, so this post is a rambling mess.

Did you get in through fileplanet? because it keeps taking me to the subscribe page when i click on it.

Yes. I just clicked the open beta link on the front page and then logged in. Perhaps because I used to subscribe? I have no clue.

Do you have Comcast?  Evidently you get a free subscription to Fileplanet and Founder's Club if you do.

[Draegan]

I stole this from a guy who stole this from the General Beta boards, however, being in general beta I could of stolen it myself, but I was to lazy.  It's a technical thing-a-majig

--------------------

Blatently stolen post from the GB forums. Frankly, its too valuable not to share. Kudos to Stonescape, who wrote it.

Are you wondering how to run this game as smooth as possible ? Would you like people to test, change and retest stuff until they eventually come up with pre-chewed checklist so you can see in the blink of an eye what to improve about your computer to run this game smooth at release time ? Well, look no further because I have done the work for you. Hope you enjoy. This guide was last edited to reflect the 30 april build.
List of impact per hardware pc component:


1. Central processing unit (CPU)

medium, depending on which video card you use you will need a stronger processor. Nvidia cards draw their power greatly on the processor and thus generate extra load. ATI cards operate at maximum speed pretty much independent of the processor. In both cases the game itself requires a considerable deal of continuous processing. I used to have some clear results here but those are always from ageofconan (the game itself) + the debugger which swallows up huge resources. The mainstream thing that we are able to see is that the load is almost never divided over 4 cores (if you have a quadcore) but over either 1 or 2 cores. Mostly 2 cores but the more I test the more I start believing that it's the debugger that makes us see that while once it's gets stripped (at should be gone at releasetime) we might very well see that only 1 core is really doing the work here. Because I don't have the option of disabling that debugger and get clear readings I'm suspending all cpu testings till further notice.

The only thing I can tell you is that most of the time 1 core is up to 70-90% (pretty much always) on a Q6600 and a second core is at 50%. The other 2 cores are at rougly 10%. That's why I see mostly. Exceptionally 4 cores are used but it might be the debugger using them under Vista instead of the game and it's engine. I expect the cpu load to be less at releasetime when the debugger is gone


2. Random access Memory (RAM)

The amount of memory installed in your computer is absolutely critical to running this game smooth. The game itself has been developped as a 32-bit executable with LA (large address awareness) enabled. What does this mean? 32-bit executables are by design restricted to 2GB per running process on a 32bit OS. (ageofconan32.exe = 1 process = the whole game) As you zone to the inn or other zones, the executable size in memory will try to cache all this information (= keep it loaded in memory in the form of ageofconan32.exe growing in memory usage size) to give you a smoother gaming experience. I have noticed that the "working set" of the executable grows to as large as 2.6GB (since latest checkup), this is how much of your physically present RAM is being used by the game. If you don't have that amount of free ram BEFORE starting up the game, your game will slow down after zoning enough times and slow down even further over time until you restart it to make the game use less memory again. For this reason you need under XP at least 2.5GB in your computer to run this game smooth and under Vista at least 3GB. Aside from the physical usage there's also the virtual size (the actual size of the process) which I have seen to grow as large as about 2.9GB after zoning alot. It used to be up to 3.5GB in betaclients before 14april but that is gone.

note: on a default 32-bit windows XP or Vista for that matter, no processes are allowed to grow over 2GB even though the maximum limit of a 32-bit process is 4GB per process. The game will simply crash when it reaches that size unless you make modifications. (you may be experiencing this right now). If and let me stress that only IF you have 3GB or more (4GB preferably) you can configure your Vista or windows XP installation to allow processes to grow over 2GB (at the cost of decreasing your OS's reserved kernel mem however...) so they no longer crash but instead run smoother. This change may be better OR worse for you. On page 4 (post 73) I explain how and why. Do this at your own risk and NEVER if you don't have 4GB of memory in your computer installed. Windows XP 64-bit and Vista 64-bit are by default enabled to allow up to 4GB for any 32-bit process do this so they do not require changes and your executable will not crash when it reaches 2GB on such an OS. Just make sure you have 3GB or more in your computer

note: 4GB is the ideal amount needed to run this smooth along with whatever other stuff you run on your OS (services, background apps, the OS memory itself) Vista will even use the extra memory to help cache other stuff. I have 8 and beyond 4GB you do not notice much more improvement in speed and smoothness so 8GB is NOT necessary for running ONLY this game while having all other apps closed. However having 8GB will help cache other stuff under Vista as well as allow you to simultaneously run a bunch of other windows programs. This is luxury however, not a must have. 3GB is must have minimum for smooth AOC gaming and 2GB means running the game at decreased performance. This is inevitable

note: the speed of the memory is completely trivial when compared to the actual amount of memory.Having e.g 1066 Mhz mem instead of 667Mhz will only yield a 1-3% memory read speed increase which you don't even feel or notice at all ingame

note: although increasing your RAM from 2GB to 3GB is in essence not a direct increase in fps but instead makes the game play and loading/zoning feel alot smoother, it should be noted however that if you lack alot of RAM your FPS will be affected through stuttering etc. Running the game with 1GB e.g will give such problematic play (enough to feel 'unplayable') Having 2GB is therefore a bare minimum for running at all while 3GB is the minimum for running smooth. 4GB is a good standard. More memory with Vista 64 gives you better HD access caching

note: Any 32-bit executable is by design limited to a max of 4GB physical memory usage and a non-modified 32-bit OS further limits it down to 2GB. If the 32-bit executable is marked for "largeaddressaware" (= allowed to grow to 4GB instead of 2GB) and the 32-bit operating system is set to allow largeaddressaware-processes to grow to 3GB instead of 2GB in mem size, then the executable can grow a bit bigger up to 3GB at a cost. (this is the reason in the first place while all 32-bit OS's further limit down all 32-bit processes to use a maximum of 2GB: because the OS itself can only address 4GB in total and wants to reserve 2GB for it's own (=kernel) operations and play it thus safe) For this reason the ideal situation is to have 6GB or more mem in your computer and have Vista 64-bit as OS. It safely has 2GB for itself and still 4GB free to let the 32-bit executable grow to it's maximum so the game feels like one big smooth train

3. Graphics processing unit (GPU)

Critical impact!! This game uses pretty advanced graphics that are at or a bit ahead of it's time. This allows for a visually stunning game under ideal circumstances with future hardware. I have been able to run at 1900*1200 at high graphic settings in a quite smooth way using the 8800GT. A retest with 2 of those in SLI showed that sli does not make any difference in the current game client. Recommended however is a latest gen of graph card for smooth play (nvidia 8800series or ati 3XXX series and up) The graphics card therefore is well worth your money for this game, more than buying the latest processor in any case. The raw clock speed is what makes or breaks fps currently. SLI does NOT work currently! Hope they will fix it soon so I can update this section. The game uses huge textures. Upon measuring videocardmemory usage I noticed that outdoors 512MB is saturated all the time on resolutions 1600*1200 and up. Get 768 or more memory on the card if you can.

note: as of today the game still has some technical issues that cause extreme drops in fps. All players are subject to this regardless their vid card (I talked to many ingame) Even with 2*8800 in sli running at low settings in the lowest resolution you still have this so it's not solvable by hardware. How bad is it ? Well it's like this: you stand still in a high graphs environment and notice 25-65 fps. As soon as you start sprinting or doing a 360° mouselook you may experience insane drops to below 1fps (= extreme stuttering) for a few sec due to the fact of missing precompiled shaders in the shaders cache database. EDIT: as of the april 19 build we now have a solution for this problem!! On page 6 (post 116) I explain why it happens and how to fix the stuttering yourself.

note: not all graphic cards appear to be "well compatible" with AOC. For example the latest badass 9800x2 series are known to give you trouble and low performance in many cases most probably due to bad driver support. all 8800series are rocksolid choices for this game as long as they have 512MB ram on them as an absolute minimum. Don't use a card with less memory !! All latest gen ATI cards such as 29XX and 3XXX series appear to be doing well

note: since 22 april and beyond, more GPU hungry stuff has been enabled in the beta-client. Therefore, as of now the sky is the limit since there is no longer any setup that can run the game at max settings. It is however possible with the latest gen hardware to achieve a framerate of 25-50 all the time without having to disable the game's beauty. I plan to implement a software tweak guide at releasetime once the video options are final (they keep changing currently in the betaclient)

4. The disc subsystem (HD or a RAID of HD's)

important and severly underestimated. This component does not increase your fps in any way (at least not to a noticeable degree) but DOES effect exclusively ALL ZONING experiences which is pretty much from launching the game to going in and out of zones nonstop (in tortage e.g) The sky is the limit here since the game dir is over 24GB as it is today and parts of that are being loaded into memory as you zone. I have tested the game while running it off a latest generation 7200RPM harddrive (samsung 400GB) and later on a RAID 0 of two WD Raptor 10000RPM disks. My god the difference is day and night. With the single 7200RPM disk the loading screens take double the time and I can listen to up to an entire song while zoning into the game. On the raid system I could only hear the part of the women with the high voice and I never hear the rest of that song because I'm already ingame. This feels so good. If I had the money I would buy a 32GB HyperOS hyperdrive to run the game on because it would be blazing fast then no doubt. I can only imagine how good that must feel but I'm already very happy with the raid0 system. Adding more than 2 drives to the raid0 made a further improvement in loading times but only marginal like 10% (not worth it imho) For smooth experience ofc you have no data or anything else running off your game disk or raid system except the game and maybe the OS (peferably even only the game itself and nothingelse)


tips and tricks to run the game smooth(er):

1. Turn off "bloom" in advanced graphics options and set shadows to "from characters only". This may almost double your fps if it was enabled before
2. (optionally) turn off AA (4-25 fps gain on average). AntiAliasing= a GPU hungry technique to improve the visual quality of a game even further
3. Run the game off a seperate fast disk or raid system (where you only install the game and put no other data or programs) This noticeably helps the loading times during zoning and launching the game
4. close all other running programs and antivirus before playing AOC and defragment at least twice a week. Use simpleconfig.exe in your gamedir to perform a compression while you sleep (takes ages!)
5. Run the game fullscreen!
7. Backup your gamedir before and after every patch
8. Remove the stuttering (page 6 post 116)


disclaimer: All findings in this thread are based solely on the personal testing experience of a game betatester. I will take no responsability for any damage that certain software or hardware changes may cause to your computer or data by executing actions suggested in this thread. Please execute any actions only after careful consideration, research and above all always at your OWN risk.

[Tige]

blah blah blah
Critical impact!! This game uses pretty advanced graphics that are at or a bit ahead of it's time. This allows for a visually stunning game under ideal circumstances with future hardware.
blah blah blah
note: as of today the game still has some technical issues that cause extreme drops in fps.
blah blah blah

Wall of text to say the game runs like a slide show.

[Draegan]

I'm running a geforce 7950 512mb on a duo core AMD chip with 2gigs of RAM.

On "medium" settings with bloom on I run about 20 fps normally, but this fucking thing stutters sometimes as it tries to load textures from all over.

Not a very smooth operation.

[Stormwaltz]

Yeaaaah.

I'm going to cancel my Collector's Ed preorder. My computer doesn't have a prayer of handling that, and I won't be able to afford an upgrade for many moons. No point in shelling out for something I won't be able to use.

Very very helpful, though, Drae. Thanks for reposting it.

[Hoax]

My summary of Draegan's excelent post is, wow I'm hard and I want to build a new computer...  I love shiney, its so damn, shiney.  Can we get a version of that that includes the referenced posts?

I love me some blazing fast hardware, this game is going to fail so hard though, do I blame Funcom for getting into bed w/ MS & Vista or Vista for sucking cock?

tl;dr system reqs:

CPU:  Dual Core E6600 or better.  Quad Core doesn't help (much) but higher speed on the dual core will help (some).

RAM:  More is better.  8GB is overkill on Vista.  64bit OS sounds like it'll help if only because it can handle additional RAM, 4GB+ is wanted.

GPU: Geforce8800 w/ 512ram is minimum spec.  Cards with more mem are desired.  SLI does nothing.  Does anyone even use ATI now adays?

HD:  7200rpm drive will not cut it, bad load times.  10k rpm or better yet two of them in Raid0 = 4tw.




@Bloodworth \/\/\/\/\/\/
I thought 32bit XP doesn't even let a person boot up with 4GB slotted?

[Mrbloodworth]

That article brings up an interesting question. I just built a new computer, its a quad core  that i believe is 64 bit.. I also have 4 gigs on the new machine. But i am running XP pro 32bit. I intend to upgrade in the future...but. Does this mean my CPU and Ram are not being fully utilized? If so, how can i correct this short of a 64 bit OS?

Thanks.

[lac]

how can i correct this short of a 64 bit OS?

You can't. There are some linux version who can do it but only for programs that are especially compiled to take advantage of this feature.

A 32bit OS will use 4 gig ram minus your videocard ram minus a couple of hundred meg to address the rest of the stuff in your pc. If you have a 512 meg video card you usually end up with 3.2 gig usable ram.

You can use a 64bit vista (not the cheaper 64bit versions) to address more than 4gig of ram but 64bit vista is a bit of a driver hell.

[Nija]

Guys I'd wait until you read some reviews on sites that don't run Funcom/Conan advertisements before building entire systems around this game.

Just sayin'

[WayAbvPar]

Good ol' Failcom sure doesn't disappoint. This is going to be fun 

[Morfiend]

tl;dr system reqs:

CPU:  Dual Core E6600 or better.  Quad Core doesn't help (much) but higher speed on the dual core will help (some).

RAM:  More is better.  8GB is overkill on Vista.  64bit OS sounds like it'll help if only because it can handle additional RAM, 4GB+ is wanted.

GPU: Geforce8800 w/ 512ram is minimum spec.  Cards with more mem are desired.  SLI does nothing.  Does anyone even use ATI now adays?

HD:  7200rpm drive will not cut it, bad load times.  10k rpm or better yet two of them in Raid0 = 4tw.

Thats basically my machine, except I am running XP Pro with 2gb of ram. I get around 65 fps... But every time it has to load in new textures, I get 1 fps for about 3 to 5 seconds. Its very frustrating, and the loading happens at odd times. Basically the game runs very jerky, with lots of hanging. Also, it really doesnt look that good. I mean, I guess for a MMOG it looks decent, but it doesnt look as good as the system specs should make it. Also, there is a lot of Uncanny Valley with the character models. They all look semi retarded.

[Signe]

You think it's bad now, wait until they patch in nipples.

[Lantyssa]

Do you have Comcast?  Evidently you get a free subscription to Fileplanet and Founder's Club if you do.

Could you have mentioned that a little earlier?

Oh well, since it worked it'll still be useful for other games.

[Numtini]

They are delaying the delay for another two hours. In a trully hellish day at work, it's hard for me to stop giggling.

[Morfiend]

You think it's bad now, wait until they patch in nipples.

They already did, and forgot to patch in extra shirt textures. So most of the female NPCs had nipples sticking through their shirts.

[Draegan]

References (I found the original post).

On page 4 (post 73)
-------------------------------------------------
Intro: What is this all about ?

a 32-bit OS such as Vista or XP has a few limits when it comes to memory use. To sum them up they are:

1.The Operating itself can only "see" 4GB minus the amount of reserved memory space by the Bios (because the bios is a layer that stands between the hardware and the operating system itself) The larger the memory on your video card for example, the less memory is left for your OS. This why one person sees only 2.8GB in windows and another sees 3.5GB while they both have 4GB of physical memory installed. Regardless of which edition of an OS you have, ALL 32-bit XP and Vista are subject to this rule.
2. 32-bit XP and Vista are designed in such a way that they need a part of the total addressable (= amount of memory that the OS can "see") for themselves. For this reason, Microsoft designed both XP and Vista in such a way that a certain process could only get up to 2GB of memory, and then the remaining memory would remain available for kernel processes (= itself), even though it does not in fact always need a full 2GB. In fact a clean XP might only need 300MB at some point if only 1 game is running and nothing else installed. Vista will require more kernel memory because it's bigger by design. As more stuff runs, the OS itself might need up to 1.5-2GB of memory for it's kernel. By default the balance in 32-bit XP and Vista is such that it's 2GB for a given user-mode process (= a program = Age of Conan) and 2GB for the kernel (= OS itself) If the virtual size of a process such as Age of conan reaches a total size of 2GB, the program is terminated by the OS BY DESIGN to prevent it from infiltrating the kernel reserved memory space. The user experiences this as a program crash straight into windows. For age of conan, my tests have shown that it's virtual size reaches 2GB at about when the physical memory usage size reaches around 1.5GB (this is what you see in windows task manager). This is why people keep crashing all the time without understanding why. Well, at least until now...
3. 32-bit Processes (=programs) themselves have a built-in little extra mini switch that's called a 'flag' that prevents them from groing bigger than 2GB. Even if you configure the OS using the above to allow up to 3GB for a process, it would not be able to do so if it's built-in switch is set to "not Large Address Aware" because that settings limits the process to a max of 2GB memory. If it's set to "Large Address Aware" however the 32-bit process is allowed to grow up to 3GB on a 32-bit OS or up to 4GB on a 64-bit OS, which is again the maximum for ANY 32-bit process.


Now there is a switch that makes it possible to shift the balance a bit from 2GB/2GB (program/kernel) to 3GB/1GB. This switch allows us to change the max mem limit for user-mode process so that Age of Conan can continue to grow in virtual size up to 3GB instead of only 2GB and that equals a physical memory usage of at least 2.2GB. The game will crash again when it reaches that new limit. My testing has shown that if you zone enough and roam about, the game wil go beyond 3GB physical usage and 3.5GB virtual size as of now. For this reason you can still crash. However, further testing has shown that the game reaches 1.5 physical usage in the first hour easily when zoning around Tortage (quite easy to simulate) while reaching the 2.2physical usage takes at the very least lots of zoning and usually a few hours to reach. For this reason the following switch (ONLY IF YOU HAVE 4GB MEM) may solve alot of problems for you


Great news! So how do I set the switch ??

Under Vista 32-bit:
1. Under Vista 32-bit (with at least 4GB memory installed regardless how much you see of it in windows) go START
2. Navigate to programs...etc until you see a black icon named "command prompt"
3. rightclick it and select: run as administrator. A big black box appears
4. In the big black box, type the following command: BCDEDIT /Set IncreaseUserVa 3072
5. Press enter to execute the command
6. reboot your computer

7(optional). If you don't like it for some reason you can revert the switch the same procedure but replace step 4 with this: entering bcdedit /deletevalue increaseuserva (this undoes the switch)

Under XP 32-bit:

the equivalent of that switch on Vista for xp is simply by modifying the boot.ini file (it's a hidden system file under c:\) and add the /3GB switch to the line that looks like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Pro"

so it becomes:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Pro" /3GB

then reboot to activate the change

to remove the switch under XP: remove the /3GB and reboot



Is there a catch ? Any danger to this switch ?

Yes, there is. You limit the available memory to the OS itself. If the OS tries to use more, windows will crash and you will have to reboot and start your programs up again. Is this most likely to happen ? Nope, generally it's not. But it can whenever the OS requires alot of memory, more than is available. Let's say someone has 4GB installed, but he uses 2*8800GTX (the type with 768MB per card) so his OS only "sees" 2.8GB. On top of that his computer is not cleanly/newly formatted. It's filled with tons of previously installed programs, antivirus and whatever else that uses memory. Then on top of that he's playing AOC with the switch so it's using over 2GB of memory...you can see where this is going and you know how to avoid it...

note: in this regard and considering the fact that SLI currently is not working in AOC anyway : on computers with ony 3-4GB of memory, AOC can in fact run better with only 1 video card for now since then you have more memory available to windows not kidding...



Final advice:

enable this switch ONLY if the following conditions are BOTH true (if you still wonder why you haven't read the above):

1. you have Windows XP32-bit or Vista 32-bit (any edition)
2. you have at least 4GB of physical memory (even if your OS only sees 3.2)

if the answer to any of the above conditions is NO, then do NOT enable this switch or it may work contrary to your goals.


Note: On a 64 bit OS such as e.g Vista x64, this switch is not needed at all. The OS allows by default for any process to take up to it's maximum of memory available by design. Vista is able to "see" technically up to 128GB. Microsoft however decided to set a limit for each edition. so let's have another look at what restrictions we have for Vista x64 since that seems to be a popular question now:

1. Restriction by edition: Vista Home basic supports max 8GB, Vista Home Premium max 16GB, Business-Enterprise-Ultimate all support 128GB
2. Restriction by process: Since 64bit OS's can run both native 64bit designed process as well as 32-bit processes, there is still the max limit for a 32-bit process which is 4GB inevitably while a 64-bit process process could take up pretty much all memory. So if Ageofconan.exe is a 32-bit process and you are running Vista 64-bit with 8GB of physical ram (installed in the computer), then the OS will see all 8GB of ram while AgeofConan will crash if it reaches 4GB in virtual size but it will be able to use all 4GB since the OS still has enough memory left for itself so we dont' have the crappy situation from XP or Vista 32-bit. If Funcom would make a 64-bit version of the executable then it could grow even beyond 4GB up to..around 7-7.5 (assuming you have 8 onboard) ?? Something like that

Note: since the introduction of 32-bit Vista, many people have complained to Microsoft about the fact that windows shows that they can actually only see 2.8-3.5GB of memory while having 4GB memory installed that starting with SP1, enough people in fact for Microsoft to decide to change the decription under "System" in windows control panel. Yes you are reading this right: after installing SP1 for Vista on your 32-bit Vista you will see 4GB instead of the lesser number, although lesser is still being used even though the system information will indicate otherwise. The phylosophy behind this is that the system information should reflect how much memory is installed in your computer, not how much is effectively available to windows or used by windows so be careful there. Important to remember is the fact that you STILL only have 2.8-3.5 available for windows when doing your math for memory hungry programs such as this game... again, with 6GB or more and Vista 64-bit SP1 all those troubles are nonexistant and that's the near future of gaming imho !


IMPORTANT NOTE: since april 14 the AOC betaclient uses significantly less memory and therefore many people have had less crashes by removing this switch again. So it is possibly better again to play without this switch.

Why is this ?
Setting the switch shifts the memory limit from the AOC client to the OS itself on (32-bit OS only). So: before april 14 your AOC client was the main source of crashing and your OS less since the client wanted to grow up to 3.1GB physical memory usage. By setting the /3GB switch you let the AOC client grow bigger at the cost of limiting the OS itself to 1GB which may make it crash as well. After april 14 the client only grows up to 2.1 so if you remove the /3GB switch you revert back to the default 2GB/2GB balanced limit (2GB for AOC, 2GB for the OS) so the OS is safe from any crashing now. Hence since AOC is no longer the main source of crashing we can conclude that the remaining crashes (coming from not enough free memory for the OS) may be removed by reverting back to the default settings. Hope this explains alot for people

[Draegan]

Is there no spoiler tag?  Or did I fuck it up?

Another reference:
On page 6 (post 116)
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Time for another guide: how to fix the insane stuttering !!

Q:What is it ? Well if you enter the thirsty dog first time and you're screen is shaking as hell and you get 1 frame per X seconds instead of X fps (AKA the slideshow effect) that's the stuttering effect we're talking about =P

Q:Why does it happen and why does it still happen even though I have teh strongest bleeding edge new computer in the world ?

To generate the possibly insane goodlooking graphics the game uses objects called "shaders". Shaders are small programs that alter pixels or vertices. Consequently, there are two major types of shader - pixel shaders and vertex shaders. These tiny programs add effects to basic geometry - so a water-styled shader can be added to a flat blue texture to make it look reflective, or a glass-styled shader can be added to a polygon to make it appear transparent. These shaders are the key to what makes the graphics in games today look so much better than the graphics in games from let's say 5-8 years ago. These shaders are programmable, so games developers can make their own, allowing them to create a unique look and feel for their game and that is what Funcom has done. Now the problem is that some of these shaders in many area's in the game are not known yet known to your betaclient so when that happens the game uses the graphic card's onboard processing unit (the GPU) to compile (sort of calculate) the shader results and then displays them. The time of compilation is what gives the feeling of insane stuttering which is super annoying.

Q:Ok now we know the problem, how does Funcom handle it ?

Funcom thought of this when developing AOC. Their solution was and still is to simply have your computer hold the results of every compilation in memory -so that this stuttering would be a one-time thing as long- as you are standing in that 1 small space or area (let's say the area of thirsty dog inn). When you log off and exit AOC, the AOC client is supposed to write down those results from memory into a file on your harddisk so that all compilation results don't have to be done all over again next time. Upon a clean client exit (which never happens because AOC crashes all the time currently and therefore loses it's compiled shaders) it saves all these changes into a file in the general beta folder and that file is called "shader.cache.local"
As the result is calculated it's kept into memory as long as it's needed which means that if you leave the area to go and find new "previously unknown shaders" your current ones will be lost from memory and replaced by new ones which means you'll have the stuttering again. Also, after every crash you lost your compilations before your computer had the chance to write them down so you'll have the same stuttering upon next logon...

Q:So what's the magic trick then to get rid of the stuttering ?

Basically whenever your computer has compiled new shaders you want to immediately save those results to disk so your computer gets them from there next time instead of having to do it all over. That way you'll have no or almost no stuttering since it's much faster reading out the results than recompiling them. There's a button in the game that you can press to instantly save the current results of a shader compilation into the shader.cache.local file (you will actually see it grow in size when you do) and you want to do this RIGHT AFTER YOU FORCED/EXPERIENCED SOME STUTTERING because of new shaders being compiled.

Q:so where's that magic button ?

When you are in game, first open the debugging menu:

ctrl + ù for french keyboards
ctrl + \ for UK keyboards.
strg + ö for german keyboards.

Then press "dump shaders" because that is the magic button to save the results.

Q:What's the best way to test or use it ? You do it like this:

1. Upon feeling horrible graphics stuttering, stop running and start looking around 360°, move a bit back and forth and explore the very smalll area around your feet a bit until all stuttering stops and everything is fluent (this is when the computer has finished compiling the shaders of that area and has the results freshly in memory)
2. open the debug menu and press "dump shaders" to save the results to the file on your harddrive. You're safe now for next time you come across this small area
3. keep on repeating this everytime you experience stuttering in new area's
4. Check the size of your cache file before and after pressing the dump shaders button. If there's compilation data generated, it will grow. It can't hurt pressing it often.


Q:hey I tried it and it's indeed 5-10 times faster but when I restart AOC, it's not immediately ultrafluent. There still is some kind of mini-stuttering for like 1 sec or less everytime I first visit a previously saved area after starting the game. Is this normal ?

Yes this is normal, in fact this is as good as it gets. The client no longer needs to do all calculations but gets them from the precompiled results in your shader.cache.local file instead which is waaaay faster. Still it has to get them so it's normal to generate a small load, but nothing like what you experienced before so be happy and enjoy


Q:why doesn't Funcom provide us with a shader.cache.local file that contains ALL the shaders in-game so everything's smooth from the start ?

That is in fact their plan but it's not that easy: different cards and chipsets compile to different results so it's hard to make 1 file that has everything compiled for ALL videocards in the world. However, Funcom does plan to include shader.cache.local files with precompiled shaders for most known cards at around releasetime probably. In the meantime help yourself and make your own so you can play without stuttering !

Note: remember to backup that cache file regularly. If you reinstall the game or if a patch destroys it, you will want to copy your backed up version back to your gamedir to avoid going through all stuttering again

Note: this guide is the direct result of the information gotten from game dev "Vinterstum" in another thread on this forum. We were searching on the right track but it was he who took the pain of coming down to explain us the cause and eventually inform us of the "dump shaders" button. Special thanks to him because without his replies we we're still stuttering as hell every time we enter the thirsty dogg inn and many other indoor area's !

the original thread that lead to this solution can be found here:

http://forums-beta.ageofconan.com/sh...t=22254&page=7

Note: I noticed that before the april 19 build, there was only a file named "shader.cache" that never grew in size no matter what I did. Starting with the april 19 build another file named "shader.cache.local" has been added and that one seems to work correctly by growing in size upon being written to. So before april 19 I guess this fix simply wasn't possible...

Note: if you change your video settings you may change which shaders are needed. You will then not be able to use the compilation results from before and thus experience stuttering again. Therefore, decided and set your settings for once and for all, then start using "dump shaders" to make it smoother and don't touch your graphical settings anymore. If you want a good reference baseline for smooth play, try this: go stand straight in front of Royo in tortage (nose to nose), wait for your fps to stabilise and make sure it's at least 30 or more. If it's not, lower your graph settings until it is 30-50 fps according to what you find acceptable in terms of quality versus performance. Once you have decided, stop touching your graphical settings and start using "dump shaders" to remove future stuttering in any area where you have just experienced stuttering

UPDATE 30 april: I just noticed upon retesting that the current gameclient AUTOSAVES any newly compiled shaders to the cache file REGULARLY DURING GAMEPLAY. Yay, no more pressing the "dump shaders" button is needed from now on !! This is a good time to delete your cache.shaders.local file and let the game build up a clean one (to get rid of any junk in there that has been changed in the last patches)