Tip: End high lag time!

[Dossk]

Hey there. I found this on a board while looking for that illusive "hood up" client side mod. Hope it helps some of ya.

I'm sure there are several of you who've noticed that SWG can at times be highly unplayable because of long 20 second pauses which occur every few seconds, particularly within cities. And most people blame this on a laggy server, but this problem actually has absolutely nothing to do with the network connection. It is caused by not having enough RAM in your computer, and if you'll indulge me I'll explain in detail what causes the problem as well as how to fix it.

Firstly, this problem of stutters is mainly noticed by people with less than
1 GB of RAM. Why? The sad fact of the matter is that SWG suffers from a
memory leak. What happens is that whenever you enter a city or an area which has a lot of 3D objects, the game caches the objects into memory so that it doesn't have to recalculate the positions of all the buildings etc. which could put unecessary strain on the server. There is a problem however, with the game's code; the 3D objects are never unloaded from memory when you leave the city or scenery area. So guess what happens when you go from Coronet to Theed? You have all the graphics data from both Coronet AND Theed stored in your RAM. That's bad.

So what happens if the amount of stored data exceeds the amount of RAM you have? Windows operating systems have a technique to deal with memory overflows, known as virtual RAM. Virtual RAM uses space on your hard drive to store the excess the data. THIS is where the pauses are introduced, because accessing the hard drive takes MUCH longer than accessing the RAM. If you ever look at your computer case while your game is stuck in one of these 20-second long pauses, you will notice the hard drive activity light blinking rapidly. This is because the game is now frequently saving and loading data from your hard drive instead of from your RAM.

There are actually 3 ways to fix this problem:

1.) Ask the devs to patch up the leak in their code
2.) Get at least 1 GB of RAM

OR

3.) Type in this command

/flushGraphicsResources fullReset

If you type this command in just once every half-hour or so, or whenever you see the stutters starting to pop up, you can keep your memory fresh and empty indefinitely. Give it a try!

[Lok'i Vidaar]

Holy Shit this is awesome!!!

That command is now gonna go on the toolbar!!

I knew that swg was a memory hog however I did know of the memory leak... thats UBER GHEY!!

I think all of us should suggest a fix to it in the next patch... it explains alot of my issues from when I had just 256MB of ram (eww did that suck ass!)

Thanks alot Dossk for Posting this.. you are the awesome dude of the day!

[Sepiv]

Thanks, Dossk! That's great information! We upgraded to 1GB of RAM maybe because of this game so I know that I have things pretty good and pretty detailed on the graphics. Still, sounds like if I travel a lot in a session, I could fill up my RAM myself too! So I'm writing this down and see if it has an effect if I experience lag.

[Dwilah]

I'm definitely trying this. Definitely.

[X'an Shin]

Jesus H. Christu on a stick.

This game's been out HOW long and there's still memory leak bugs in it?

[Keahe Triste]

Yeah i'm running with 1.25 gigs of ram and still run into this problem when I enter coronet and theed. It's not near as bad as when I had 512 mb, but still a problem. I've been looking around for that command so thanks for posting it as i've been unable to find it. I've also been unable to find the hood up mod as well, if you find it mind passing it along? If I find it i'll host it on my server and post the link so you can grab it too.

[Dwilah]

Hey, I totally notice a difference you guys! Try this out!

[Ekade]

/flushGraphicsResources fullReset

Dossk, you are a god.

[Lok'i Vidaar]

Dangit I still haven't tried this out... anyone else give it a go yet...

The next time one of you sees me online in game remind me to do this...

I have a baaaad Memory ;)

[Norel]

HOLY JUMPIN JEHOSAVET!!!!!
IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM!!!
DOSSK, YOU KICK MAJOR GLUTEOUS MAXIMUS ( think thats how its spelled!! )

[Norel]

one more question!
are we able to put this in the toolbar ingame and if so, how. not so electronically inclined as some!!!

[Jabe Adaks]

one more question!
are we able to put this in the toolbar ingame and if so, how. not so electronically inclined as some!!!

Yes with macros, I can show you how next time you come by.

Jabe