Lets talk about the DDO Client and its Memory Leak

[Aashrym]

It's a good topic.

I have the same issue. Logging in and out with a lot of characters is very obviously causing issues, corrected by restarting the client.

[Ganak]

First, thanks to Junts for starting this thread.

I experience the same behavior as described in the OP. I do not experience crashes though. I have 11 production toons plus additional mule toons. This issue has gotten worse over the last year or so it seems. It affects how I play. I try to limit switching toons and plan time during non playing sessions to log onto mules and do inventory maintenance.

I have learned from this thread that a client restart helps. I have been having to do full reboots. So win for me in learning about that in this thread.

[Coldin]

Solutions? Well some Programming Languages have a Garbage Collector that will automatically detect and release unused memory. Many languages without a built-in Garbage Collector sometimes have add-ons to provide one. Some might argue that Garbage Collection is a crutch for sloppy coding and undisciplined developers as well as not being computationally "free" of performance cost. Tradeoffs tradeoffs.

Garbage collectors are also notoriously inefficient ways to deal with memory, and can cause significant slowdown in an otherwise decent program. That being said, I wonder if DDO's engine uses a garbage collector. I don't think it would.

[barabel]

Just throwing this out there, but has anyone with enough system memory tried running without a Pagefile?

The pagefile may not be the actual problem and may simply be another symptom.

[EyeRekon]

Garbage collectors are also notoriously inefficient ways to deal with memory, and can cause significant slowdown in an otherwise decent program. That being said, I wonder if DDO's engine uses a garbage collector. I don't think it would.

Yes there are some past terrible garbage collectors as notoriety is historic. Modern ones are actually quite good. Some (non-free) implementations are even used in Realtime Systems where there is a maximum constraint on processing time GC and all. I do not believe DDO uses a GC either.

[EyeRekon]

Just throwing this out there, but has anyone with enough system memory tried running without a Pagefile?

The pagefile may not be the actual problem and may simply be another symptom.

Interesting idea, but page file size is specified within the Operating System so its effects are system wide. My gaming rig has 12GB of RAM so it might be possible to load windows, other necessary start up programs, and play DDO without using any Virtual Memory. That way we might force DDO into revealing more clues.

I'm not volunteering to do this, my game time is rare and precious enough that given free time I'd rather not do this.

[barabel]

This is how I run my machines both at work and at home. All systems have adequate system memory (6 GB or more).

While I haven't performed any significant memory testing with the DDO Client at home I know that the largest I have ever seen it was just over 1.5 GB of System RAM.

This is on a system with Ultra High graphics configured and maximum caching enabled.

I don't switch all too often but I do see an occasional glitch similar to what folks here have described. I'll start paying closer attention and see what I may find.

[Modinator0]

Well, after you logout a character, some data would have to remain resident for a bit, right?
Isn't that how you have a small window of time to reconnect if you d/c?
With U7, it will even remember your buffs in the d/c window as well, so more data cached?

So if it were implemented to flush everything when you log, would you then not be able to rejoin an instance after a d/c, or is there some programming voodoo to know the difference?

I am wondering if that placeholding of info so a character can reconnect is what is causing the backlog of info.

I guess there is a functioning work around...use /quit instead of /logout

Unless the coding is even worse than I thought, all that is required is a server side flag. Keeping any of that reliant on client side data would result in some really really bad exploits...

[EyeRekon]

Well, after you logout a character, some data would have to remain resident for a bit, right?
Isn't that how you have a small window of time to reconnect if you d/c?
With U7, it will even remember your buffs in the d/c window as well, so more data cached?

So if it were implemented to flush everything when you log, would you then not be able to rejoin an instance after a d/c, or is there some programming voodoo to know the difference?

I am wondering if that placeholding of info so a character can reconnect is what is causing the backlog of info.

While I'm confident your client caches some data, the server certainly doesn't rely on your client to maintain data. I imagine that DCs work a lot like dungeon instances. The server is willing to remember certain active things about your toon for an amount of time (buffs, quest instance, clickies remaining, current HP/SP). So if you reconnect, all is well. Otherwise it'll choose to discard/forget about it. You login and find yourself at the last known public spot that you were before DC, all temporary buffs vanish, and your clickies, HP, SP are restored.

U7 changes may just mean that the servers will keep track of more temporary info about your toon, such as buffs when you DC.

[Lorichie]

While i dont play much anymore, almost every day for a couple years now, i did stone/boot runs in the desert.

I would cycle thru characters, every day, all day for hours doing these runs. At the time, this was how i did it with only one computer, and before hirelings appeared.

After about a couple of hours, things would start getting really rough. I would see the stuttering and hitching while making my runs....rubberbanding was common at least once a day. I wont deny that some of these issues may have been caused by graphic settings every so often, but i'd like to think my rigs were big enough to handle it.

But, they couldnt handle, even this new one, hours of swapping toons every few minutes back and forth, even if it was just between two or three. Eventually, it would get so bad, misfires and ect that i'd have to reboot the client...this would fix it.

Im pretty ignorant on most of what you folks are talking about, but i'd give my left leg and right toes if im wrong about what ive seen and what the cause is.

Most games that i've played have leaks in them, during the course of alpha/beta/immediate release but most are fixed fairly soon(ish), and while im not a basher, i am quite surprised this is still going on two+ years later since ive realised what it was....

Good job folks, bringing this up again, and doing some more investigative work on it, hopefully Turbine can nail this thing down, using this info.

R

[Rumbaar]

Yes I found this in the places most people have mentioned.

Usually when the client is 1GB+ in RAM usage.

Also this happened more for me after U3-5 when new high resolution textures were added to the game. I think there is issues with their graphics and graphics engine.

As once I altered the graphics to the bare minimum it reduced the issue, thus no loading those textures.

[EyeRekon]

And while I've not experienced rubberbanding or massive, serious amount of lag with any real regularity ... I'm:

• getting hit three seconds after the mob got tripped, (combat delays)
• getting hit when I've seen the ogre winding up for the triple crit attack and have gotten myself miles away from it, (depth perception)
• finding mobs inexplicably totally unharmed despite a lightning bolt passing right through the middle of them, (targeting)
• punching the mobs on my monk and seeing damage numbers scrolling up despite the mob not appearing to be in range (depth perception), and then all of a sudden it takes all the damage at once etc.

Does that sound like the sort of likely symptoms?

Yes. And also things like

• Delay of effects when you switch gear (3-4 seconds until Bear roars or something)
• Combat delays. You keep attacking a standing mob and they stop taking damage, then the mob drops dead a few moments later.
• Targeting issues. Healer selects a player and casts heal, and heal lands on someone else. Workaround is to pause a little after changing targets before casting. Can take 1-2 seconds. Maybe you are using a throwing weapon, select a different target, and still throw at previous target for a little while.
• Depth-perception problems. You and a mob approach each other, mob is aggro'd on someone behind you. You swing as the mob is in range and get no attack roll, mob walks right on past you. (Display lag - workaround is to swing much earlier than usual)
• You feel slow like you aren't hasted or wearing striders even when you are and aren't debuffed with slow, hamstring, or cripple
• Party members are snappy also. They move, seem to slow down, then surge ahead. In race, people behind you might suddenly appear in front of you in a snap

All the while your internet latency indicator is green and fine.

The theme is that it isn't a network latency problem, it is a display/rendering or general performance problem. The client is struggling to keep up for whatever reason. Next time this happens to you

1. See if you can adapt to the delays with the noted workarounds. If the workarounds are helping then you are probably in the middle of this problem.
2. If you can get to a safe place in-game, restart DDO and see if there is a difference. The pattern from other posters' testimony is that this helps a lot.

[EyeRekon]

I always wondered what it would look like to capture a video while experiencing the performance problems. Would the video show the same thing you experience? If so, I bet you could show the lag jitter/snap back/rubberbanding while your internet latency is fine.

[Joseph]

I have the same issues...

Playing on the latest and greatest Toshiba Qosimo (or whatever it is called). Multi core processor, 6GB of Ram, one SSD and one SATA (huge drives - huge page file - OS on the SSD, all programs on the SATA - defrag done daily). I crash as well when switching characters (especially on entering the Desert).

It is of note that I ALSO play FunCom's Age of Conan, and I ALSO crash there if I switch characters multiple times (it seems to start around the 3rd or 4th character switch, just like DDO).

[Modinator0]

I always wondered what it would look like to capture a video while experiencing the performance problems. Would the video show the same thing you experience? If so, I bet you could show the lag jitter/snap back/rubberbanding while your internet latency is fine.

Yeah if your computer isn't rendering every frame, then video capture of what your computer is rendering would indeed exhibit the issue. Though, bad compression issues on a video of perfect rendering could provide the same experience

[EyeRekon]

Yeah if your computer isn't rendering every frame, then video capture of what your computer is rendering would indeed exhibit the issue. Though, bad compression issues on a video of perfect rendering could provide the same experience

On second thought it may not work without using an external camera. If indeed there is an issue with excessive page faulting and possible related disk-thrashing, then adding to the disk contention with video capture is a bad idea.

[efreet5]

/bump

Because if the client is bugged, does it really matter if there's in-game bugs in a game that is unplayable? Something to think about....

[barabel]

Simple testing.

Last night I ran through a simple test. Checking to see what the Committed memory footprint looked like.

On Character Selection screen for the first time: 228,272 KB
Loaded 1st Char and Logged out- 592,416 KB
Loaded 2nd Char and Logged out - 716,096 KB
Loaded 3rd Char and Logged out - 787, 308 KB
Loaded 4th Char and Logged out - 806,136 KB
Loaded 5th Char and Logged out - 849,496 KB
Loaded 6th Char and Logged out - 896,584 KB
Loaded 7th Char and Logged out - 916,004 KB

These numbers show two things.

1. There is an ever increasing memory footprint on the Operating System and characters are simply logged in and logged out.
2. There isn't a linear correlation between character loadings

I hope to try testing using the same character to see if the numbers become more consistent or not.

Just for reference, this test was done on Windows 7 Professional (x64) with 8 GB RAM and configured not to use a Windows Swap file.

[EyeRekon]

if the client is bugged, does it really matter if there's in-game bugs in a game that is unplayable?

It is playable. There appears to be a workaround that most have discovered on their own by just restarting DDO or even their computer. Armed with symptoms to identify and a workaround it should be completely playable otherwise.

Still, point taken so far is it goes to Quality of Product.

[EyeRekon]

... Checking to see what the Committed memory footprint looked like. ...

FYI for what Windows means by Committed Memory

Memory, Committed Bytes: This is a measure of the demand for virtual memory. It shows how many bytes have been allocated by processes and to which the operating system has committed a RAM page frame or a page slot in the pagefile (or both). As Committed Bytes grows above the available RAM, paging increases, and the amount of the pagefile in use also increases. At some point, paging activity starts to significantly affect perceived performance

If in your test all you did was login/logout, what might we hypothesize is happening?

• Loading item models for all your toon's gear
• ... struggling to think of other things... UI layouts, spells

If DDO Client doesn't purge those things from memory when you logout a toon and does not reuse them (cache) when you relog the toon, then maybe that is something. If you are volunteering to help investigate

Did you start to experience any of the skipping/jitters/rubberbanding people describe? Since you disabled your Swap File you shouldn't be paging and therefore not have I/O blocking on page faults, so I wouldn't think you'd experience the symptoms -- if they are caused by what I suspect they might.

• What happens to you if you just relog the same 1 or 2 toons over and over?
• What happens if you switch back and forth between zones like Sands / Zawabi's?
• What happens if you keep resetting a zone instance?
• What happens if you just switch instances in a place like Marketplace or Harbor?

To test for evidence of caching use a stopwatch and measure

• How long it takes to login a toon where you can move around after fresh DDO + computer start
• How long it takes to switch toons (probably shorter because of some caching and reuse from previous toons
• How long it takes to zone into a public place or explorer area for the first time since start
• How long it takes to re-enter that zone for the first time on a different toon (probably shorter)
• How long does it take to load a naked, new toon

These might reveal what kinds of things are being cached and reused. It may be that DDO tries to aggressively cache most everything but has a poor cache-eviction policy.