Quitting Game

countbasie

<div class="IPBDescription">Rly fast?</div>When I'm quitting the game it is the quickest quit of all games I know. It's almost faster than going from fullscreen to windowed on Youtube.
When I start the game again, it seems as if everything is still loaded; no matter how long I wait after restarting, everything starts faster than at the first start after Windows Boot. So what's wrong with the unloading? What stays there in my RAM and where is it? I don't see anything in the Processes. I mean, it's nice that it is that quick, but doesn't it use resources?

MOOtant

Yes, it does use resources. It uses spare RAM that isn't used by any application. That RAM will be given to applications by operating system when they need it.

What is kept in this RAM that isn't used by applications? Recently used files.

Windows XP doesn't do this properly if at all. It works from Windows Vista (and on every Linux since around 10-15 years ago).

Chris0132

Lucky you, my NS2 takes about a minute to stop locking up the computer after I quit it.

player

Free RAM is useless RAM, or so they say, which is indeed why Vista \ 7 have gone about 'keeping' data in their memory even after shutdown of the program, in case it is needed again, which is why the program in question will process things faster the 2nd time round. You needn't worry about it causing issues elsewhere, as the OS is clever enough to finally dump the data if other running programs require the memory-space.

Regarding the quick shutdown of NS2, it doesn't have to take long, but it may be just a bit too fast. By that I mean it may at this point not properly clean up some of it's mess (connections\memory\device-contexts et cetera).

countbasie

Thanks, I didn't know that they changed it since Vista (but I can remember that IDLE process in XP I think) but as player sais, there's something different with NS2 to other games. It seems not to have a proper unload function. I don't need to care, I just am curious. Strange, that Chris experiences the opposite ^^

(Win7 x64, Phenom xII 2,8, 4gbRAM, Radeon 5650 mobility)

Chris0132

Could just be low ram as I only have 2gb of it, but NS2 is one of the slower games to quit, generally I only get that sort of lockup if something crashes.

Kouji_San

2Gb here as well and it quits in under 2 seconds...

Thaldarin

Many games save various portions of data and utilise your system components more fully. Seems as though NS2 barely saves anything and only tends to use your CPU.

Silverwing

In conclustion (to this and legion other threads): UWE loves your processor at this stage of the Beta. Your RAM and VRAM? Not so much. It's their personalities, not their bodies, methinks.

Thaldarin

They don't love your CPU either. It only utilises one core.

Max

The game starts up faster the second time because Windows does some sort of caching with disk accesses. In Windows it's substantially faster to load a file after it's already been loaded once.

Aezay

Try running Resource Monitor "perfmon.exe /res", then go to the Memory tab. Here you can see a bar with different colors, the blue "standby" part is the precached memory. This often contains the memory of recently closed programs.

acid_rain

If you have a ton of RAM like myself it's a really good idea to increase the Windows Page-File size. You'll see some dramatic improvements on loading times.

jkflipflop

<!--quoteo(post=1856445:date=Jun 26 2011, 02:03 AM:name=aCId_rAIn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (aCId_rAIn @ Jun 26 2011, 02:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1856445"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you have a ton of RAM like myself it's a really good idea to increase the Windows Page-File size. You'll see some dramatic improvements on loading times.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


LOL NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

If you have a ton of Ram (like me, I have 12 gigs) - then it's best to DISABLE your page file. A page file is "fake" ram on a much much much slower hard disk. Why would you use fake ram when you have "a ton" of the real thing?

If you have 2 - 4 gigs, it's best to have a page file around 2000Mb - but be sure to go in and custom set the high and low sizes both to 2000MB. That way your drive isn't thrashing around resizing the stupid page file when it should just be writing data.

meb3

<!--quoteo(post=1856503:date=Jun 26 2011, 12:01 PM:name=jkflipflop)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jkflipflop @ Jun 26 2011, 12:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1856503"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->LOL NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

If you have a ton of Ram (like me, I have 12 gigs) - then it's best to DISABLE your page file. A page file is "fake" ram on a much much much slower hard disk. Why would you use fake ram when you have "a ton" of the real thing?

If you have 2 - 4 gigs, it's best to have a page file around 2000Mb - but be sure to go in and custom set the high and low sizes both to 2000MB. That way your drive isn't thrashing around resizing the stupid page file when it should just be writing data.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is not true unless the operating system you are using uses really primitive paging algorithms. You will see no change in performance on a Windows 7 system. Unless disk space is short, leave the page file settings alone.

An SSD drive might be helpful if load times are an issue.