EQ-II does not malloc >4GiB RAM properly

[WinDojo]

<p>I can generate a crash in ntdll.dll with a c000005 error consistently when I increase System RAM past 4GiB.</p><p>I have posted my system and testing methods below, so if anyone can spot where I might have made errors or caused "self-inflicted wounds" in my configuration such that I could possibly use more than 4GiB RAM, please reply and let me know.</p><p>Thank you.</p><p>System:</p><p>DFI LanParty 790FX-M2RAMD Phenom9850 Quad-Core 2.5GHzWD 10K RPM 300Gb HDD (Enterprise Class)Creative X-Fi Gamer UltimateeVGA nVIDIA GeForce 260 GTXMushkin Performance Blackline PC2-8500 RAM</p><p>OS: Vista Ultimate x64; 7 Ultimate x64Video Driver: nVIDIA 190.62 WHQL</p><p>No BIOS overclocking set, all settings "Default Optimized"</p><p>Anti-Virus set to _exclude_ all EQ-II folders</p><p>With 8GiB (system maximum) installed:</p><p>Memtest86+ v4.0 ran for 4.5 hours (over 500 test cycles) and never failedPrime95 runs in 90% RAM mode for over 8 hours without failingSuperPI ran for over 3 hours without failing</p><p>EverQuest II, freshly downloaded onto a clean partition, ran for 3 minutes _maximum_ before crashing in ntdll.dll (usually crashing at either Character Select or Enter Game) with a c000005 error (access violation, usually in memory allocation).</p><p>On removing 4GiB RAM:</p><p>All tests as above continued to pass _and_</p><p>EverQuest II, same install, was playable for 6 hours at maximum quality settings without failure.</p><p>Installing various RAM chips (i.e.: 2 pairs of 2GiB RAM, 1 pair 4GiB RAM, de-coupling RAM to allow "odd" installation such as 4.5GiB, 5GiB and 6GiB) did not change the results.</p><p>_All_ attempts to install more than 4GiB system RAM cause EQ-II to crash.</p><p>Since _nothing_ else crashes on this system, including some rather serious "burn-in" tests that cross the 4GiB threshold, I can only conclude that EQ-II is incapable of handling large amounts of system RAM.</p><p>Since most of my non-game applications _require_ more than 4GiB RAM, this means to play EQ-II I have to _remove_ RAM every session.</p><p>This does not make sense for any application created or updated on or after 2007 (when most consumer available system boards began accepting more than 4 GiB RAM).</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p>the error you describe is a primarily a driver issues, unstable or corrupt.</p><p>Would suggest the following for experimentation</p><p>1. get rid of the 190.62 driver, woudl suggest backing down to 186.xx or trying the new 191.xx drive</p><p>2. try uninstalling and pulling the Creative Labs hardware, there are numerous reports of issues with their drivers</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p>I would definitely advise using the driver 186 driver as suggested by Wingrider above.  That said, you are correct that the game does not utilize RAM beyond the standard 4GB limit on x86 systems.  The game was not designed using the 64-bit architecture and the memory limitations are a natural result of that. </p>

[WinDojo]

<p>Interesting - I had upgraded to 190.62 based on:</p><p><a href="http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=16089">http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bi...p?p_faqid=16089</a></p><p>So maybe that FAQ is incorrect?  I will roll back to the 186 version if my system destabilizes with 4GiB RAM.</p><p>Also, I did a search in the forums, and while I am far from a search master, I didn't see as many issues with the Creative drivers as Wingrider01's post seems to suggest - in fact you seem to recommend the card I'm using:</p><p><a href="http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/soe_ing.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=15827">http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin...p?p_faqid=15827</a><a href="http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/soe_ing.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12159&p_created=1099866508&p_sid=lmJotiNj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=1&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX 3Jvd19jbnQ9OCw4JnBfcHJvZHM9MjAmcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0 xLjIwJnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY 2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1jcmVhdGl2ZQ* *&p_li=&p_topview=1">http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin...p?p_faqid=12159</a></p><p>As a follow up question - is SOE /EQ2 going to patch to 64-bit capability (maybe as an option flag)?  With just about every CPU I've seen in the past year being 64-bit, the cost of RAM being very low (~$120 for a 4Gb pair) and most of the Vista /7 installs from Dell, etc. coming as x64, if EQ2 doesn't it will become very painful to keep running.</p><p>Thanks!</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>WinDojo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Interesting - I had upgraded to 190.62 based on:</p><p><a href="http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=16089">http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bi...p?p_faqid=16089</a></p><p>So maybe that FAQ is incorrect?  I will roll back to the 186 version if my system destabilizes with 4GiB RAM.</p><p>Also, I did a search in the forums, and while I am far from a search master, I didn't see as many issues with the Creative drivers as Wingrider01's post seems to suggest - in fact you seem to recommend the card I'm using:</p><p><a href="http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/soe_ing.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=15827">http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin...p?p_faqid=15827</a><a href="http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/soe_ing.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12159&p_created=1099866508&p_sid=lmJotiNj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=1&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX 3Jvd19jbnQ9OCw4JnBfcHJvZHM9MjAmcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0 xLjIwJnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY 2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1jcmVhdGl2ZQ* *&p_li=&p_topview=1">http://soe-ing.custhelp.com/cgi-bin...p?p_faqid=12159</a></p><p>As a follow up question - is SOE /EQ2 going to patch to 64-bit capability (maybe as an option flag)?  With just about every CPU I've seen in the past year being 64-bit, the cost of RAM being very low (~$120 for a 4Gb pair) and most of the Vista /7 installs from Dell, etc. coming as x64, if EQ2 doesn't it will become very painful to keep running.</p><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p>even suggestions are wrong sometimes, the 190 drivers from Nvidia are the worst they have ever published, they are causing issues with numerous games besides everquest.</p><p>If you search the net you sill see that the cl alchemy drivers are questionable again</p><p>Unfortuantely you cannot "patch" a 32 bit application to a 64 bit application. There are very few games out there that are true 64 bit coded applications.</p><p>can run the game fine on a dual boot Windows 7 32/64 that contains 16GB of memory, but I am using the earlier drivers for the Nvidia card and do not use a CL card.</p>

[WinDojo]

<p>I probably misspoke - I think what I meant was "Other 32-bit applications have added code options that compensate for >4GiB of RAM, thus making them at least compatible with running in a 32-bit on 64-bit environment."</p><p>Some that I have seen do this automatically - restricting the addressable space and becoming more aggressive with freeing memory allocations, others have it as an option which limits the upper memory register boundaries for the application so that it never comes into conflict.</p><p>I'll try the 191 drivers and see what happens, but oddly, the CL Alchemy drivers never gave me any issues or crashes (at least not that the Dr. Watson equivalent in Win Vista /7 logged).</p><p>Thanks for your help!</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p><cite>WinDojo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Interesting - I had upgraded to 190.62 based on:</p><p><a href="http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=16089">http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bi...p?p_faqid=16089</a></p><p>So maybe that FAQ is incorrect?  I will roll back to the 186 version if my system destabilizes with 4GiB RAM.</p></blockquote><p>I wouldn't say it is incorrect, but I don't agree with their recommendation.  Judging from my experiences, the 186 version of the driver is far more stable on most systems.  I'm sure the 190 series drivers work better for some people, but if you're crashing then you're probably not one of those people.</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>WinDojo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I probably misspoke - I think what I meant was "Other 32-bit applications have added code options that compensate for >4GiB of RAM, thus making them at least compatible with running in a 32-bit on 64-bit environment."</p><p>Some that I have seen do this automatically - restricting the addressable space and becoming more aggressive with freeing memory allocations, others have it as an option which limits the upper memory register boundaries for the application so that it never comes into conflict.</p><p>I'll try the 191 drivers and see what happens, but oddly, the CL Alchemy drivers never gave me any issues or crashes (at least not that the Dr. Watson equivalent in Win Vista /7 logged).</p><p>Thanks for your help!</p></blockquote><p>Wonder how they got a 32 bit application to compenste for > 4GB...</p><p>If you follow another thread on crashing issue with memory allocation you will see that they have been working on it</p><p>Would suggest going back to the 186 drivers, as far as alchemy and cl, can only go by what I have read in issues threads on various uunet groups and other games, personally got rid of the the brand 6 or 7 years ago when their drivers went into the refuse heap</p>

[WinDojo]

<p>Oddly, so far the 191 drivers have been rock solid with 4GiB system RAM installed.</p><p>Regarding Creative, I tried getting rid of them for a few years, but was running into issues with built-in sound chips (Realtek /AC97), TurtleBeach stopped making a decent card and the Razer card doesn't have vendor drivers past Windows XP.  I haven't found any other manufacturer that makes a decent audio card - who do you use /recommend?</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>WinDojo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Oddly, so far the 191 drivers have been rock solid with 4GiB system RAM installed.</p><p>Regarding Creative, I tried getting rid of them for a few years, but was running into issues with built-in sound chips (Realtek /AC97), TurtleBeach stopped making a decent card and the Razer card doesn't have vendor drivers past Windows XP.  I haven't found any other manufacturer that makes a decent audio card - who do you use /recommend?</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote><p>I actually use the ones that are on the motherboard, currently running a Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 that has a 8 channel Realtek soundchip in it with no issues. The new motherboard built in sound chips have come a long way in the past few year. What make, model and revision is your motherboard?</p>