Topic: directX question.

[marstone]

Have a problem with a program not releasing assets on my video card.  When my son plays (actually tests) a mod he is working on for Dawn of War, Soul Storm, after a few times the video card has used up all video memory (logs of the game show the available memory slowly going down with each time it is run). 

Question is, is there anyway to reset the cards memory without a full reboot of the computer?

The card is an old Radeon 9500.

thanks.

[marstone]

My sons down and dirty answer to this problem is buy a new video card with more video memory so it will take longer for the crash to happen.

[toasty0]

My sons down and dirty answer to this problem is buy a new video card with more video memory so it will take longer for the crash to happen.

You're son doesn't happen to be a software engineer by any chance?

[Pestalence_XC]

Sounds like the games / mods have massive memory leaks or open loops.. as such causing the system to fail.

the question is how do the games perform without the mods.. do they do the same thing? is he following the exact same format as the games when creating his mod? He he using the latest version of DirectX? Is he compiling the Mod under the games's version of DirectX SDK? (game may be directX 9 and the guy may bge using DirectX 10 or 11 SDK) Is he trying to incorporate features into his mod that is not supported by the gme engine like additional glows, lighting, shadows... how about Polygons, is he exceeding the polygon count of what the game engine / computer can handle?

I mean there are a hundred questions that could be asked.. the best place to start is.. will the game run normally for 5 or more hours when fresh installed from disk with the latest patches installed?

If so, the problem lies in the MoD and he is adding something that the game engine does not support or he has created a memory leak or open loop that will drain the system memory and cause a crash.

so now what he needs to do is start his MoD over again and test each item 1 piece at a time for 4+ hours constant game play to see if crash occurs.. when he gets to point that game crashes .. he found the broken component and can redo it, replace it, or just eliminate it.

Yes it takes hours and hours of working on a MoD to get it right.

Now if the game crashes after patching and running for 5+ hours and no mod installed, then I would start looking at their forums for similar issues.. if none are present, then I would suggest checkint your hardware for burnt out components or just upgrade the system all together.

[marstone]

Thanks for the advice on testing out the mod.  A few things can be eliminated off the bat.  No compiling as the game is moded by scripting (Lua based game) So wrong DirectX SDK is not a problem.
Although new models have been brought into the game by the team working on it.  I believe some layers in the models were not supported by the engine also (at least it seems that way in the Error log)

So droppped out to a vanilla game (we had just had a full reinstall after a faulty DLL addition to the game gave some funky errors).  Ran the base game after each time it ran video memory was reduced.  (each game is run and shutdown, then re-ran.  Not just replaying while it is still running). 

So off to the website to see what it says, and looking into a new vid card.  I find it odd the DirectX wouldn't clean up the textures and such when the game closes down.  Windows is suppose to compartmentalize the programs so they don't effect each other but I guess the video card is one of those choke points that is hard to control fully.

[marstone]

Now to restate my first question.

Is there anyway to reset the video card without restarting the computer?  Looking to reset the video memory to get back the leaks or can that only be done with a hard reboot of the card?

[Pestalence_XC]

Just reload the video driver fom the device manager.. video memory will be reset

[marstone]

gone into device manager, worked my way down to video card information but only options given are to update, roll back, or uninstall.  None of which I really want to do.

I must be in the wrong area.  But all I have found so far.  Have fired up the ATI controls also, no option to reload there either.  Bummer.

[toasty0]

gone into device manager, worked my way down to video card information but only options given are to update, roll back, or uninstall.  None of which I really want to do.

I must be in the wrong area.  But all I have found so far.  Have fired up the ATI controls also, no option to reload there either.  Bummer.

By reload I believe Pesty means to roll back and reinstall.

[marstone]

gone into device manager, worked my way down to video card information but only options given are to update, roll back, or uninstall.  None of which I really want to do.

I must be in the wrong area.  But all I have found so far.  Have fired up the ATI controls also, no option to reload there either.  Bummer.

By reload I believe Pesty means to roll back and reinstall.

okay, then probably just quicker to reboot (and it is always good to reset windows once in awhile anyway)

[Pestalence_XC]

Use Update and select manual install and choose the exact same driver you already have onboard from the driver list.. what it will do is blank the screen for a couple of seconds and reset the vid card.. no reboot is required doing this.. only when you change driver version.

[marstone]

alright will give that a shot.  Thanks alot.

[marstone]

Thanks again guys. 

My son got a response from the guy who is in charge of the MOD he is working on.  He has had no memory leak while running the MOD on his machine (or in vanilla mode) so guess our vid card is starting to bite the big one.  It still runs two monitors nicely but guess it will choke on memory for directx stuff. 

[candle_86]

Use Update and select manual install and choose the exact same driver you already have onboard from the driver list.. what it will do is blank the screen for a couple of seconds and reset the vid card.. no reboot is required doing this.. only when you change driver version.

bad idea, very bad idea, yes it resets the card, but requires a reboot to reenable full directX support. DirectDraw will work fine that way, but Direct3d will not function correctly without a restart. What is the name of this game excatly? Its not a memory leak either as any progam that runs when shut down closes all resources if it does not its a virus or is very poorly programmed. I would check your task manager to see if the game in some form is still running, because once its shut down its assets are returned by the Kernal directly. Only way this doesnt occur is if some part of the game is still running. My advice if its not the game is reinstall windows itself and update to the latest display drivers.

[Pestalence_XC]

bad idea, very bad idea, yes it resets the card, but requires a reboot to reenable full directX support. DirectDraw will work fine that way, but Direct3d will not function correctly without a restart.

Wrong.. the problem is a recursive memory leak in the Video card, not system memory.. DirectX and DirectDraw are resident in system memory and not video card memory.. as such when the program shuts down, the system memory will be re-allocated by Windows OS, however if the Mod has a recursive loop in a poor graphics that was rendered by the game engine, the Video memory could remain tapped until the card is reset, IE: reload the current driver.. as such the video card being reset by the driver reinstall will correct the memory drain. Windows OS will handle Direct X.. Especially if it is Vista or Windows 7. Now on Windows XP, DirectX does tend to stay memory resident, however to reset, just launch a video in Media Player and close Media player.. this resets the DirectX APIs in XP.

I agree with Candle only if you are using Windows XP where Video memory is forced shared with the OS and Vid card, however technological advancements keep them completely separated unless you are using a laptop configuration tool that taps system memory, and even then system memory is controlled by the OS. Video Cards are controlled by the driver.. that is the difference.. I don't know where Candle learned about computers.. but My career is building machines and I am MS certified on all OS including Windows 7.

However I agree that with the ATI card being used.. and with ATI's driver probles here lately with drivers.. that it could be a combination of the 2 causing a recursive memory leak..

3 options come to mind

1) Try older catalyst drivers and see if memory leaks are sill present. Try up to 10 older versions.

2) check your configuration.. make sure you are not running 2 graphic cards of competators on the same machine.. IE: don't run NVidia with ATI as the NVidia drivers block some NVidia functions when it detects ATI cards.. always use 2 of the same card if you are attempting to enable Physx (NVidia owns Aegia).. or Havoc by AMD (ATI's version of Physx software.. just not as good as NVidia's).. an improper system configuration can cause a recursive memory leak.

3) Upgrade the video card.. personal preference going to show here but with reason.. go with NVidia.. best GPU's on the market, best Physx on the market, best working drivers on the market, and 72% of games on the market are targeted for NVidia... ATI Radeon by AMD is targeted for Linux first, then Microsoft.. as such a lot of problems come from their drivers and lack of proper testing on Windows OS (why do you think it takes many 3rd party teams to fix the ATI drivers to be compatible with MS OS and various games.. why do you think you have to keep 5 or 6 different drivers on your system to play a handfull of games without glitching or memory leaks?)


Also comes to mind .. making sure the computer is completely up to date..

meaning

1) latest DirectX version which currently is August 2009

2) All windows updates including additional content.. reason being is different API are included with different apps in the OS which may be used by the Kernel at any time.

3) Make sure you have VC++ .net 2005 and VC++ .net 2008 runtimes installed with latest service packs.

4) Make sure your system is updated with Framework .NET 3.5 Runtime SP1 full version (Framework .NET 4.0 Beta is also available)

5) Test the build with the AV turned completely off and turn off any other spyware securities.. the memory leak may be coming from the AV active scan.

6) on the safe side, you can do an off system Virus scan with Trend Micro with their Housecalls or the online scanner at Panda.. Just to be on the safe side as Candle indicated.. though it is highly unlikely that your system is infected.


to me it sounda like maybe a transistor on your Video card GPU fried and is causing the problem.. that is given the age of the card and design model... OR... The card is a DirectX 9 card and the Mod may be trying to force DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 components causing a memory leak (DirectX 10 Shader components), which would require an upgrade of the card to at least an NVidia 8600 GT with 512 MB memory or better (DX 10 capability).

Just throwing suggestions..

Candle, no offense.. but this is my lifes work.. I've been doing this professionally for at least 15 years.

[candle_86]

no offense either but I am also MS certified, im a laid of tech, and I was required to get Certified, I have certification for XP, Server 2003 32 and 64bit and Vista all versions. I never have gotten windows7 certified as I was laid off before that. I was a systems tech myself and what you recomended goes against any advice a tech should give honestly. Also the WDDM drive format still ties system and grahpics memory together, as in XP but with more leeway, but the Vista Kernal is also rewritten to prevent the same thing your describing from being possbile. My briefing on Vista and my Certification class stated that much, when a program is closed all resources are also closed with it if the program is written properly. The only way this does not happen is if a DLL or other file tied to that game remains active. Such as when running older software DLL's are called upon and do not unload from the system and continue to use memory the same affect causes what he is descibing unless his program can bypass the Kernal protection scheme, which means id have to ask if he bypassed the secruity and is running it in System mode, but most users would have no clue how to access system mode as its not excatly included in the help files. It is more likly his drivers themselves are unstable and are not talking to the Kernal correctly, and not reciving the kill signal from the program. This would be a sign of a bad driver install and registry issues.

Also the issue with DirectX and media player, media player uses directDraw not direct3d. Now Vista doesnt use directDraw as its not part of the DirectX10 specifications but part of the directX9 legacy mode, which ironiclly WMP also uses DX9 legacy in Vista and not DX10, likly to keep support for XP intact but I didnt take a course on WMP. But DirectX will not reinstalize fully without a system restart, I have personally tested this, and its not advice you should be giving honestly. The only other way to do this is to issue a forced restart of the video subsystem and directX which is a little more complicated than simply rebooting the driver.

I do understand you have done this for 15 years and may know more tricks than me, as ive only been doing this for 2 1/2 years trained, but I started working on systems when I was 11 back in 1997. Also I had an MSDN subscription paid for by my company at the time and was a Beta Tester for Vista self elected through the program and sent in daily bug reports. A little known fact MS does not share is WDM drivers work in Vista fine, as long as you disable the secruity features, it only allows DX9 but WDM drivers do function in Vista 100%, aluding to the face the basics are the same just the interaction with DX and the KErnal variy but not by alot

[Rod ONeal]

Oh no!!!! It doesn't have an ATI video card in it? Throw holy water on it real fast! It's a wonder it hasn't eaten your children by now. Satan himself writes ATI's drivers.

[marstone]

Oh no!!!! It doesn't have an ATI video card in it? Throw holy water on it real fast! It's a wonder it hasn't eaten your children by now. Satan himself writes ATI's drivers.

LOL, well the card has been in the system for about three or four years.  Drivers have all gone legacy so it is time for an update.

The system is XP pro is updated to current.  As other people who are running the mod (and as I said mod is scripting so compiler incompatablity is not an issue).  It also in an older game so directX 9 compatable.  It also just started recently as this game has been played on this system for a long time and never had trouble.

So should I get another AGP card or an IDE video card (don't have IDE express on the MB)?

[Pestalence_XC]

Rod.. there is no need for an over reaction about my statements to ATI / AMD.. don't get me wrong.. the cards are good.. not matching standards to NVidia GPU's but still good cards with similar functionality..

For a time the ATI GPU were better than the NVidia GeForce.. but once NVidia started their own revisions of Open GL, AMD/ATI has been hard pressed to put out an equivalent functioning card.

Now price wise.. AMD/ATI si the way to go.. Support on the other hand for AMD/ATi has sucked for the last 6 years.. drivers have been hit and miss on various programs and they hire out to 3rd party coders to make compliant drivers based off their Linux drivers to work with MS OS.. which precludes a lack of internal testing for many / many programs on the market.. which is why anyone running ATI/AmD graphics cards needs to have 5 to7 drivers for just about as many games. Biggest problem is lack of backwards compatibility for functionality for their older cards. (see the x1300 series All in Wonder, XP / Vista / Windows 7 compatibility issue for a DirectX 10 card with TV tuner built in.. 3 years, still no backwards compatibility support)

Now if you happen across a driver that works for 90% + of your software, which is rare, AMD / ATI is a great graphics card. Performance is eqwuivalent to NVidia with some differences on performance output in different areas.. NVidia shines in Physx, pixelation, rendering.. ATI excells in clarity HD etc.. each has their strong points.. but card for card, NVidia is the better product.. Driver for Driver, NVidia is better, is customer support, NVidia is better.. for program compatibility, NVidia is better.. for cost, ATI/AMD is better.

Candle.. what they teach you and what is used in practice is 2 different things.. yes I know, and have probably forgotten more tricks than you will ever learn about interaction of applictions and the windows OS versions.. Tricks from Windows 95 are still relavent in Windows 7.. but you have to know the older OSes in order to figure out the trick on the new OS..

See take Windows XP.. it is a compilation of Windows server 2K and Windows 98 SE/ME, merged with OS emulated dos mode. it was 88% backwards compatible with Windows 95, 92% backwards compatible with Windows 98 SE, and 96% backwards compatible with Windows 2K.

However memory management problems from Windows 98 iwas and is still resident in Windows XP.. as such the 3GB limit for the OS to operate in when the 32 bit limit is 4 GB.. as such you have to use the /3gb switch in the OS System.ini file so that the 1 GB will be dedicated to the OS and 3GB for programs.. the OS was good for its time, however the memory requirements of many programs coming out is makeing XP more and more obsolete.. XP's memory leaks create problems randomly and for no reason what so ever.. so in Technet Beta teams, we developed tricks to hard reset components while the OS was still operating.. such as Driver reinstall on the fly and DirectX reset.. now what you are saying about resetting DirectX with Media player is correct to an extent.. that is is you are sill using the old Media Pleayer v 9 or older.. in v 10, with the new codec rendering capabilities and the expanded plug ins that you can get that can include .mkv files as well as the interface with MP3 players plus the built in tie in with IE for framed streaming of videos as you surf the web and live streaming of onine videos from MS Videos web site and other various places.. Media Player loads all crucial DirectX files including 3d3, directplay, etc bu default in v10 and above.. as such, you can use Media Player for a quick reset of the DirectX runtimes.. Alternatively you can have the Full Runtime installer saved on your system and just run the setup and wait 4 min for the DirectX files to be unloaded and reloaded into your system doing a hard reset that way, however Media player can be used instead and cut the time by 3 min or more.

Here is another trick for you.. launch a game that plays in DirectX and check FPS.. stock game without any enhancements..

Now.. restart the system, launch a video file in Media Player.. stop the Video, launch the same game with the same settings.. s the game loads, close out Media player..

You just preloaded all directX files into the system memory and the game is now taking control of them fully.. your game FPS should now increase by 10 to 15%.

this is just a base trick for "ramping" the functionality of DirectX..

so what I am posting are tricks, however I am posting them from my MS certification..

Now if I was working a call center for Dell or Hewellet Packard, I would have to follow the MS Blue Book for technical responses.. however since I run my own business, I am not tied to MS policy nor a corporate guideline like from Dell.. I can actually give advice on how to system check and how to circumvent the "standard" method of doing things..

my MSCE is for Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2K, XP (basic, home, business, professional, enterprise, server), 2K5, XP x64, 2K5 x64, XP MCE all versions, Vista (basic, Home basic, Home premium, business, enterprise, Professional, Ultimate, Server) x86 / x64, 2K8 x86 / x64, and Windows 7 (home basic, home premium, enterprise edition, business edition, professional edition, Ultimate) x86 / x64.

Now working with all those OSes for as many years as I have.. I have learned many many tricks on what the OSes can do and what they can't...

Now for example.. if I followed what MS and intel has stated about what a CPU can and can't so, how to OC and how not to, following their guide lines etc.. my i7 975 could only be OC'd to a max of 3.8 GHZ stable under Air cool with an internal system temp of 31 degrees C.

However since I don't follow their rule books and I think outside the box and I do my own thing with what I know from working with computers since I was 4 years old.. I have a stable Air cooled system running 4.6 GHZ with internal case temperature of 55 ot 62 degrees C which is still well below degredation threshold.. now with these temps I would be worried if I were still using say a P IV first generatio CPU with a breakdown rating of 60W.. however my mainboars is rated 90W degredation and my CPU is rated 130W which means a comfortable temp is approx 50 - 65 degrees C.. however many OCers still attempt to keep internal temps around 30 degrees C and as such that is their limiting factor.. They don't take in  consideration that speed = heat.. and manufactorers have taken this into account and have made their products able to work in a higher heat range than their older counterparts..

this is why if I go with Chryocool on my system, I could actually OC to 5.4 GhZ stable with this i7.. however I have seen too many Chryosystems fail.. and until they improve the tech a bit more I will stick with my Multi Fan Ram Air cooling system..

there are tricks to everything.. the question is what tricks are you learning and willing to attempt? for example.. you follow an OC guild online.. well guess what,, the guild was written for a P IV not an i7.. but 90% of the population will still OC their i7 like a P IV.. that is until they realize that the i7 is not a P IV, but 2 generations newer technology.. and as such, a new OC guide must be written to match the capabilities of the new CPU...

this is why I call places like Toms hardware idiots.. they still OC according to the rules for a P IV CPU when testing an i7.. which greatly hampers their testing results.. they use substandard main boards and crappy memory.. which again hampers their testing results...

What Tom's Hardware tests and what I build are 2 completely different machines.. I build with state of the art publically available components.. top of the line.. they use the best that they have on hand.. and more often than not, it skews their ability to test properly..

example.. look at their test results comparing Core 2 to i7.. how is that even comparable.. different main boards are needed, as such the benchmarks will not coincide.. thus making it a skewed result.. now if their main board was designed to support Core 2 and i7 which you can't, but if you could, the benchmark testing would validate by using the sme system and swapping just the CPU.. you can't have 2 different machines with 2 different main boards running the same test to get comparative results because the capabilities of the main board will skew the results completely.. however Toms Hardware will post those skewed results as fact when in fact they are bogus.. AMD vs Intel comparrisons.. now is that AMD on Intel board / NVidia board or ATI board? is that Intel CPU on AMD board? or are they testing with AMD CPU on AMD board and Intel on Intel ? so now we have multiple main boards, which again skews test results..

see that is just an example of the in the box thinking that these so called benchmark sites state..

My testing is for this one particular system with the components that I hand picked and I posted the results of what this box can do stabily.. yet many on here, even after seeing my results don't want to believe me.. i don't blame them.. they have been sucked in by those sites that can't think outside the box and re-use outdated components to do benchmarking instead of using state of the art, top of the line components..

Heck I even read where Toms hardware was OCing the i7 using DDR 2 memory.. no wonder it bottlenecked.. then other tests were with substandard high latency DDR3 memory, thus bottlenecking their results.. but I won't go on..

My point is that I have a career in this for over 15 years and I know what I am doing and talking aobut.. at 2 and 1/2 years, you are barely learning Vista / XP / Windows 7 with no prior knowledge of the preceeding OS systems that are an integral part of these OS today..

So if I state you can hard reset a video card using a driver reinstall.. I agree it is not someting that a computer company likes, however it is a valid method of doing a hard reset of the Video Card.. just like using Media Player 10 and above can be used to do a hard reset of DirectX.. unless you want to use the redistributable installer for DirectX August 2009.. which agian does the same thing, but takes 4 times longer.

Do these companies recommend doing this.. no,, but you can.. anther method of resetting DirectX is using DXDIAG, but that takes 4 times longer than using the redistributable installer...

I was attempting to get information on how to reset quickly instead of rebooting and reinstalling every single time.. refreshing the driver takes a min or so, but still a much shorter time than shutting down, letting the system rest for 15 seconds and then restarting and reloading.. jsut reinstall the driver.. 20 seconds later you can re-launch your application and get the exact same job as a system restart done.

Not trying to argu with you.. just more experienced.

[marstone]

I have to agree with Pesty on it.  My son is ready to get his certifications soon also, and this was past what is being taught to him.  I am way behind in tech but between the two of us we can usually figure things out.  He has the tech knowledge and I have experience of what can be. (30+ years of computer tinkering).  Sometimes that knowing what can be done is better then the training of what is suppose to be done.

Problem I had in nailing this down is I have only had one video card fail on me, and it died completely differently then this.  So I will always take Pesty's advice on this kind of topic.

I do reserve the fun of arguing over the evils of MS with him tho. 

Again thanks for the advice guys, and now to wait for next week for payday to get a new card.