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Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: scottws on Thursday, July 19, 2007, 05:41:10 PM

Title: Interesting article about memory usage under Vista and how it affects games
Post by: scottws on Thursday, July 19, 2007, 05:41:10 PM

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3044

The short of the article is that under both Windows XP and Windows Vista 32-bit, each application is limited to 2GB of address space.  For some reason in Vista, applications - especially games - are using a shit-ton more address space than under XP... up to 40% more in the worst case.  We're talking 2.16GB vs. 1.3GB.

This results in a much higher risk of an in-game crash in Vista rather than in XP in games that use a lot of address space.  The article mentions Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:  Shadows of Chernobyl as some of the worst offenders.

But it is expected - obviously - that more and more games and other applications are going to be using more and more address space and this problem will become more pronounced until either developers consider seriously the 2GB limit, more people make the switch to 64-bit, or Microsoft fixes the problem in Vista.

Title: Re: Interesting article about memory usage under Windows Vista
Post by: MysterD on Thursday, July 19, 2007, 05:57:55 PM

Quote from: scottws on Thursday, July 19, 2007, 05:41:10 PM

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3044

The short of the article is that under both Windows XP and Windows Vista 32-bit, each application is limited to 2GB of address space.  For some reason in Vista, applications - especially games - are using a shit-ton more address space than under XP... up to 40% more in the worst case.  We're talking 2.16GB vs. 1.3GB.

Damn!!!!

Quote

This results in a much higher risk of an in-game crash in Vista rather than in XP in games that use a lot of address space.  The article mentions Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:  Shadows of Chernobyl as some of the worst offenders.

All 3 which are THQ-published games.....I see a pattern there... :P

Quote

But it is expected - obviously - that more and more games and other applications are going to be using more and more address space and this problem will become more pronounced until either developers consider seriously the 2GB limit, more people make the switch to 64-bit, or Microsoft fixes the problem in Vista.

And Microsoft wants us all to switch to Vista now, given that this is another issue to add to the list that Vista actually has???  ???