This is kinda empires related, kinda not, so I figured I'd put it here. Empires is using over 1.3GB of memory when it run it, and for some reason crashes once it gets into using the paging file. Other source mods have this same problem, as does stalker. I've been able to run all these games fine before with only nominal memory usage (I have 2GB), but recently they've been using massive amounts, and causing most of my games to be unplayable. Anyone have any suggestions?
Most likly it's a heating issue. Make sure you clean your computer hardware components atleast once a month. Empires crashes on me all the time when I play in full screen mode, turned out for me I needed to dust off my video card's fan.
Dust the system out like Damian suggests, run something like Regsupreme (free version, set a restore point first) and defrag. If it still continues, check out utilities like SISandra to run burn in tests, and maybe consider running Memtest86.
Whats the chance that you need to clean out your PC monthly? I have never done this, never thought it was necessary :S
Hmmm... none of the tools worked, and I really don't want to reformat. The weirdest thing is, the memory seems to be marked as "used", but not in use by the program. For instance, stalker starts loading up assets until it gets to around 1 GB, then randomly jumps down to only 100MB or so, and begins climbing back up to 1GB. The thing is, it doesn't release the memory used before; the commit charge climbs to over 2.4GB total before it finally says "Connecting to Client" and crashes.
that sounds like the program is requesting new memory pages from windows, then windows dumps them for some reason, and the program starts again. You install anything recently? Might I recommend something like IOLO System Mechanic 6 (do NOT touch 7 unless you have to)
thats creates EMP, which is bad, very bad. Think a aerosol canister, but with a concentrated spray, and only air. Its for dust removal.
You can buy tins of compressed air. They're cool because the tins are always cold to touch =D Also, don't blow it directly on the skin or it can create air bubbles in your blood and cause you to die.
I've never seen a vacuum cleaner create static electricity (yes, it creates EMI, but EMI - Electro Magnetic Interference, due to the electric motor causing sparks and possibly surges on your houses power system if not filtered properly with a capacitor - but EMI is just that, it won't destroy equipment so long as you have your computer behind a decent surge protector, and you plugged your vacuum into a different outlet/circuit) You could use a vacuum if it is powerful enough. Turn the computer full off, if there is a switch on the PSU that allows you to cut power there, do, but do NOT unplug the computer - leave it plugged in, and hence grounded. Ground yourself to some metal part of the case BEFORE you touch any components in the computer. A vacuum surely takes care of the dust once and for all, whereas a compressed air canister simply moves it around. To get compressed air, go to your local kmart/walmart/circuit city etc.
That sounds EXACTLY like what is happening to my machine, except I haven't installed any new programs in over week. The only installs I've done are the windows updates on the 11th, but uninstalling those didn't help... I'll check out System Mechanic and see if that helps, thanks!
Maybe get a program called hijack this, run it, post the log file it creates. Also, when loading a game, run a program called filemon - it monitors what programs are accessing the HD - see if you can spot what is causing the memory dump.
I did both... I didn't see anything suspicious in hijackthis, but process monitor returned some really weird results. Since there were thousands and thousands of lines in process monitor, I only took a portion from the crash period. Stalker (the XRAY program) had hundreds of those lines before the portion I cropped and stopped abruptly. This really sucks... if I didn't have a bunch of specially configured programs for my senior design project, I would have reformatted already >_<
Its not the vacume direclty. Its the dry air that is moving quickly across the system wich causes the static build up.
so is there anything i can do about it, like put a metal stip between the motherboard and the ground, so it's really really earthed? that should work, right?
