I was diagnosing a problem at work today that revolved around whether or not adding more RAM would help this person perform some work duties. I contemplated the idea for a bit. The old saying, adding more RAM is always beneficial rolls through the head, but then it hit me that this person was using a 32 bit application. A 32 bit application is typically said to not be able to utilize more than 4 Gigs of RAM. This statement is independent on OS being 32 bit or 64. Yes, a 64 bit OS can utilize more than 4 Gigs but a 32 bit application still is limited to the 4 Gig mark. Perhaps applications that utilize multiple cores on CPU’s could independently utilize up to 4 Gigs per utilized core process but I am not sure if that statement is true.
Then I left work mode and went to fun and thought about GW2 and the ever problematic “OOM” crashes. So the question is:
Is the current GW2 client only going to utilize a total of 4 Gigs of RAM, even if I have more loaded on a 64 bit OS?
Vandallias – Champion Hunter Too Seksi – Guardian
www.twitch.tv/the_chach – Random sPVP/WvW
Yes because the application is 32 bit.
I haven’t seen GW2 use more than 4GB, although with my OS and other background apps my total system RAM has probably gone over 4GB.
Of course I have been too lazy to look during high RAM usage of GW2, although I could toss something on my OSD to check. I have seen GW2 use a little over 3GB tho
I would ALWAYS recommend using a 64 bit OS unless specific software demands a 32 bit OS.
The OOM errors may or may not be the client but I am certain that Anet knows about this and is placing a fix in the client. And I don’t mean we are getting a 64bit client anytime soon
I assume everything you said as well. The only thing that really had me wondering was the idea of multi cores individually utilizing its own RAM allocation and possibly allowing more RAM usage.
I too would like to see a 64 bit client. I bet that would resolve alot of these OOM crashes, but I also do not see something like that in any possible near future. Wishful thinking though.
Vandallias – Champion Hunter Too Seksi – Guardian
www.twitch.tv/the_chach – Random sPVP/WvW
Is the current GW2 client only going to utilize a total of 4 Gigs of RAM, even if I have more loaded on a 64 bit OS?
Yes, it is limited to that on a 64 bit OS. However, I have never seen GW2 use much more than about 3 gig.
In order to actually run out of memory, you would have to use up all of the RAM and the allocated page file. This is what the page file (virtual memory) is for. You would really have to try pretty hard to use all of the RAM and the virtual memory by running a few apps and GW2.
These OOM errors are either a system configuration issue, OS problem, or some type of hardware failure regarding the RAM.
These OOM errors are either a system configuration issue, OS problem, or some type of hardware failure regarding the RAM.
Or an actual bug that has plagued this game since launch. It used to actually say “Out of Memory” in the crash logs and then they changed it to “OOM” at some time. So many threads in this section that directly reference the dreaded “OOM” crashes. Anything from sub par machines to top of the line. To date, I believe Anet has detailed absolutely no real fix to the error, other than suggesting go to 64 bit OS, but even 64 Bit OS users get it…
Unless I am wrong and a fix is available, if so please do direct me to it.
Is there even a thread from Anet that details exactly what the error is?
Vandallias – Champion Hunter Too Seksi – Guardian
www.twitch.tv/the_chach – Random sPVP/WvW
Since GW2 is a 32-bit app running on a 64-bit OS if it tries to use more than 4GB of memory you will bet an OOM error. Since everyone isn’t getting it I’m assuming it’s something that is unique to players experiencing it. A combination of game settings, device drivers and activity I’m guessing.
@Sudden – That’s not the way multicore CPUs are designed. All the cores connect a single memory subsystem. There’s also a problem with your premise which is each set of threads running on an individual core needs as much memory as threads running on a different core. I’m going to guess that most of the memory being used is to cache zone and critter geometry/textures as well as sound/music data and not dynamically used by the program.
@Sudden – That’s not the way multicore CPUs are designed. All the cores connect a single memory subsystem. There’s also a problem with your premise which is each set of threads running on an individual core needs as much memory as threads running on a different core. I’m going to guess that most of the memory being used is to cache zone and critter geometry/textures as well as sound/music data and not dynamically used by the program.
I would tend to agree with that as well.
Vandallias – Champion Hunter Too Seksi – Guardian
www.twitch.tv/the_chach – Random sPVP/WvW
Since GW2 is a 32-bit app running on a 64-bit OS if it tries to use more than 4GB of memory you will bet an OOM error. Since everyone isn’t getting it I’m assuming it’s something that is unique to players experiencing it. A combination of game settings, device drivers and activity I’m guessing.
I’m curious as to what kind of settings and scenarios. I’ve had max settings going at 5040×900 resolution for I believe 10+ hours one time recently (throw in a SB event and plenty of other smaller events), and had no OOM crash (never had one ever even since beta), yet I hear of people managing to get it at lowest settings at like 1/3rd that resolution after a while…
I heard there was some known issue with NVIDIA drivers on 32-bit operating systems that might affect some people. I can’t imagine this problem specifically affecting the majority of OOM scenarios though…
