Runes of Magic US / AU

If you remember the old forums, there were numerous threads about this game's horrible coding problems and all the crashes. RW most likely has zero plans to ever actually fix it, mostly due to a lack of knowledge of how to actually code properly. Being that any coder worth a damn has known how to not have his program have memory leaks since about 1981.

1) Cleanmem program. You can set it up and then use Task scheduler to tell it to run every 5 minutes. This dumps excess information from the client which helps bandaid the problem.

2) NTCore made a "64 bit patch" which tricks windows into assigning more memory to a program. Allowing Rom to use more than the normal 32 bit limit, which can help.

These two things help a lot, however the main problem with crashes comes from the memory leaks associated with the graphics textures. Lower settings, the longer it takes to crash. I have been for the last 3 weeks playing with the settings to find a group of settings that will reduce crashes to a minimum while affecting the "prettiness" in game the least. Here is the list that I did:

1) Lightmap Resolution- lowest
2) Shadow details - 0
3) Sky Detail- 0
4) Water reflection off
5) Water Refractions off

These are some things that (while your computer can completely handle them) are a lot of things loaded every time you are in a new area, etc etc, causing the memory leak to hit critical mass faster and crash. This then should allow you to keep your resolution high, character detail/terrain detail/etc all at the levels you like and should help reduce the memory leak and allow Cleanmem and NTCore to try to pick up the slack.

I do still crash but a lot less often. I could run at 800x600 with medium to low graphics all day and it not crash.. but what is the point of that

as far as i know, memory cleaners help...that and the fact that RoM seems to run better on older machines than brand new, top of the line stuff..

yeah it is cause older machines have to drop their graphics back to run it. I have a dual GTX660 superclocked in SLI on this computer, 3.4 quad core, 16 gigs of ram, SSD for Windows, SSD for games, and it runes stable at 31-40 degrees C no matter how many clients I am running. If I drop all settings to half and low res itll run them without crashing for a long time. Had to do it for the massive reset of the Juice festival I did, and couldn't waste time crashing, and didn't care how pretty the game was.

So newer machines will run just as well, just not at settings that you would expect to run on a better machine. It is just the lower settings that make it not crash as much. I guarantee you if you take a computer that is crashing a lot, put Everything to lowest slider, and on 800x600 full screen you wont crash near as much, even on a newer computer. It is that the memory leak ties directly with the settings of the client, which is just pain and simply sad. It however makes sense. Higher settings= more texture files, larger texture files all stored in the client... if it is leaking and not dropping that information then the information snowballs faster with larger texture files... while it snowballs slower when there are 1/4 the texture sizes.

I mean really it is sad that they lack that level of programming capability. It is more sad they were aware of it and it continued to their newer game. I can get you don't wanna go back in and try to fix a game... but when designing a new one you can go "Ok guys lets not let this game memory leak like a mofo" and do it from the beginning... Instead they just charge ahead all systems GO!

Both me and my guildie have had a similar issue. Game crashes several times in a row during loading screen right after login, or when entering game. This seems to be a new issue as I've never had this happen before - it usually only crashes once, not several times in a row.

Quoted from "Dkjester"

yeah it is cause older machines have to drop their graphics back to run it.

not what i was talking about...

i may have misspoke, but newer machines tend to crash more often than older machines...

I've had crashes many times in this game. But since this last patch it's escalated. If i swap toons i've been crashing within 2 minutes after the server loads with the toon i swapped to. I've been crashing just after swapping channels. Never had it to the extent it's become.

the more patches yer done hast, the more likely a file got corrupted. Yer might haver ta do a fresh install, mate. That droppered me own crashin considerable. Now me done can port ter FOUR zones afore me ship doth run outta sails.

It's definitely something recent, I am crashing constantly now. Sometimes it is for no reason at all, not even porting. Just killing mobs and BOOM, crash. Log back in, fight for about 30 seconds and BOOM, crash again. Sometimes it happens like that 7-8 times in a row, not exaggerating, literally that much. Lemon, if people have to do a fresh install of this game every couple of months that is going to drive them away, including myself. as much as I don't want to play KungFu panda, I would rather go back to that game and spend the $15 a month than be forced to do installs every couple of months to fix errors on their side.

If you save the install files and manual patches. A re-install goes quite quickly and it does wonders. I agree noone wants to do that every couple months.

I agree with push pop and Lemon. I don't have the problems you all describe. When it is isolated to a specific group there has to be something in common which is the reason you are crashing and others are not. That leads me to think it is like they said and corrupt files, in which you will have to uninstall, then delete your rom directory and fresh install. Don't try to be slick and copy some data files out just to put them back in after an install and don't leave the files in the directory if they aren't deleted upon uninstall.

The only other possibility is that you all have a certain brand which they screwed up their coding with. Might be possible if you have AMD/ATI equipment (Since almost all my computers are intel/Nvidia and I have no problem on any of our machines that is new with this patch),that is just a guess though.

And again as pushpop said fresh reinstall is the first step and most don't like doing it. Heck I fresh install my OS, well technically I do, every 6-10 months. I have a ghost image for all my machines right after I first installed/setup with minimal programs, then just install what I need. Works wonders for some of those termpermental OS problems and the tricky Virus's lol.

Getting huge lag spikes as well. Screen freezes during siege once every few seconds. Usually happens near the end of siege, almost never right at the start.

Do any of you still use Slim Client? I'm wondering if its a slim client issue, which would explain why not everyone is getting it.

Regular client here.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

Do any of you still use Slim Client? I'm wondering if its a slim client issue, which would explain why not everyone is getting it.

The last slim client released was 5.0.0 so that's a heck of lot of patches!
GhostWolf is using the regular client however, so perhaps we need to think about the 'age' of your client and how many patches it has 'lived through' ?

Had to go through a full reinstall some months ago, which is why I mentioned having to reinstall every couple of months as my time-frame to complain about, which would ultimately drive people away, including myself if it has to be done that often.

The issue is that some events have a lot more added entities to common zones creating a quicker crash. Last patch I could log in to varanas with no issue. This patch just logging into varanas and I get the memory warning because of all the little details added due to the event.

I downloaded the manual patch instead of a complete wipe and re-download/re-install of the whole game.
http://board.eu.runesofmagic.gameforge.c…r-5-and-beyond/?

so far it seems to have done the trick. I've for the first time since snowflake festival patch hit, been able to change channels without crashing. I've also successfully swapped characters without crashing.

Looks like just redoing this last patch was the fix i needed.

On topic: I reinstalled only once and have no appreciable increase in crashes. Might have something to do with memory optimization utility (there are many of those, take your pick), which seems to help a bit. If nothing else, I'd try try one of them.

Off topic: atriedies title is "Apprentice Troll"?! Ooooh! Me jealous! Want! Want!