@bigdogchris@anduin are you guys running on Windows XP? I'm not seeing this behaviour in Windows 7. Is there a specific area where you're at, are you just on the menu, is the game paused or not paused in the background..? It's literally just put it in windowed mode and minimize for you? Does this happen all the time or only some of the time? I need some more information.
@Zayne@ermo the netbook we have here has an Intel GMA 3150 in it, and is now running the game quite well. The Gorion cutscene was slightly slower, but in general what I'd call acceptable. Do you have the latest drivers from Intel.com?
@Nathan This is happening on Windows 7. The game is running on compat mode 95. A windowed BG is no problem. Minimising to toolbar causes the mem to go up to 1,800,000 then I can't get BG to maximise back (it crashes).
ermo the netbook we have here has an Intel GMA 3150 in it, and is now running the game quite well. The Gorion cutscene was slightly slower, but in general what I'd call acceptable. Do you have the latest drivers from Intel.com?
@Nathan, I'm afraid my laptop is an old Core 2 Duo T7250 with an intel 965 mobile chipset, which uses an X3100 and not a X3150 IGP like the Atom chipset (though I'm not entirely sure if they are actually similar -- I'll check up on that). I am currently rocking Lenovo OEM drivers from somewhere in '09 -- I've tried to update using the newest drivers from intel.com, but the installer detected that I was running modified OEM drivers and bailed out.
Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'm not blaiming you (Overhaul) for this. I'll see if I can uninstall my OEM drivers and then perhaps install the intel drivers again. I'll get back to you ASAP.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm on Windows 7 x64 SP1
@Nathan More news... If I turn off the windows compatibility the BG:EE can be minimised no problem.
The more you know...
@BigDogChris Can we get a double confirm on this. BG:EE Will not crash, due to mem leak, when minimised to toolbar using normal windows 7 (No compatibility mode used for earlier windows such as 95)
@Anduin Okay, could you e-mail me the crash dump you got as well as a copy of your baldur.ini? I'd like to try it on my system with the same settings you're rocking. Also, could you tell me more about when it happens/what you're doing? Is it just idling in game, or on the menus, or...?
@ermo AGH Intel's stupid OEM driver detection. That one makes me rage a little - it seems so pointless! Okay, I have a workaround for that for people but it's not pretty. I'll make a post. It's resolved some major issues on a Core i3 test laptop we have here - using the latest Intel drivers vs. the OEM ones from Hewlett Packard...
The Intel system is Windows 7 x64. I am running the game in Windows 95 compatibility mode. I'm not at that location right now, but tomorrow I will remove the 95 mode and try again.
I'm on my main system right now that has Windows 7 x64 and an Nvidia GPU, with Win95 mode the memory leak does not happen. Seems to be specific to Intel.
Just double checked the IGP specs of my laptop. It is definitely using an intel GM965 (X3100) chipset.
Looking at intel's driver page, their latest driver for my chipset is from 10/2/2009, with the version number 15.12.75.4.64.1930 -- this was the version I had installed (so apparently the OEM driver was based on this). Tough luck for me I guess.
I've also looked into using GLDirect 5, which is a MESA* based OpenGL→DX9c mapping implementation, which maps OpenGL calls to their DX9c equivalent IIUC. When using GLDirect (Win 95 compatibility mode, setting GL version to 1 in baldur.ini) with the GLDirect provided opengl32.dll in the BG:EE folder, I get an instant crash with a .dmp file.
Without it, I don't get a crash, just a black screen and sound. I can see and move the pointer around in case that tidbit of information is of import. If I Alt+Enter out of fullscreen, the window with BG:EE stays black and I still have sound and can see the cursor.
Again, I wasn't expecting this laptop to work with BG:EE and I'm not complaining -- just giving you some more sample points for your investigation. If there's something you'd like me to try or if you want more information, just give me a holler. If you want, I can send you an e-mail and we can take it from there.
I really don't envy the position you are in, but mad props for taking it on the chin and just getting on with it!
*: Open Source OpenGL implementation used with the Xorg X11 implementation in the unlikely case you didn't already know.
EDIT: I guess I'll try one of the hacked, unofficial drivers you linked to in the first post. I mean, it's not like it can get any worse!
Weird. I'm now seeing a new bug after update #3. Whenever I've rolled a new character, the opening narration before you start in Candlekeep freezes for a bit before it starts up (even with or without the tips and tricks found in this thread).
ah, @ermo - the link to that was http://9xxssf.info/files/ if you wanted to give it a shot. If it IS the latest from Intel's drivers already, the thing I'll be posting won't necessarily help you - but yeah, their drivers on there that are the sort of go-to for people are titled "sherry" AFAIK.
I'll be posting that driver install thing for people who can't install the latest intel drivers soon.
I'm exactly the same, I don't wanna try any dodgy patches because of the risks and I've tried all the config. stuff - the one I've had the best performance from is win95 with visual themes disabled and display scaling on high DPI settings disabled - it stil lags, especially with magic or water but it's much better
My specs are Acer Aspire 7741Z Intel Pentium P6200 (2.13GHz 3MB L3 cache) Intel HD graphics 3GB DDR3 Memory 500GB HDD
In addition to previous post: if I'll run any game after BG:EE it will be on extremely low FPS too, even Direct3D games. I've tried Warcraft 3 and Clive Barker's Undying. But second game after BG:EE will run like always. System resourses are 75% busy in both cases(BG:EE and any other game), so it's not about weak CPU and short memory.
The fact that Beamdog released 3 updates in just a week is encouraging, and proves that they are taking this problem seriously. Now, a permanent fix is probably just a matter of "when", rather than "if".
I'm personally hoping for an OpenGL 1.x/2.0 -> DX9c wrapper in the form of an opengl.dll that can be dumped into the game folder where baldur.exe resides. Intel has suggested that using DirectX is really the only viable option given the current driver situation.
Overhaul has also alluded to @Nathan working on a set of clever render tricks, which will hopefull minimize the GPU/VRAM bandwidth requirements. This will in turn benefit all platforms IIUC.
The above two things taken together might do the trick for those of us with dodgy intel graphics hardware/drivers.
@Anduin I just removed the Win95 compatibility from baldur.exe and the memory consumption issue still happens. My game never crashes though so I have no .dmp file. The game becomes unplayable though without the compatibility mode, though.
The scenario is creating a new character and standing outside Winthrop's inn, then minimizing from Windowed Mode. The memory usage goes up to around 1.8GB, then hangs. It is Windows 7x64 Intel G35 GPU with the latest drivers (from 2009). baldur.exe is not in compatibility mode. I experienced this behavior before and after installing OpenAL. The winmm.dll is accessing in SysWOW64 version.
I've found a solution for my problem and the game is finally playable (still a bit slow when there are a lot of chars in a big area and movies not working right, but it's fine).
@NoUse: could you please post the link of the actual download of the driver? and the driver reference # ? I have the same Intel Graphics Cards, and the same problem as you did.
@RedGuard@BigDogChris I restarted my computer. Read your posts and tried minimising my game to try again... The mem. leak is there again It was not there after updating the patch yesterday. The only diff. is that I have turned on and off my computer... Very odd.
@Nathan My blip with the mem. leak is back Putting it into windows 7 normal mode does not fix the mem leak. Going to try it over and over to see if I can minimise without issue and inform you of what is going on on my computer when I can...
@Anduin I did much and such the same. I played for a couple of minutes and outside of the usual slowdowns (cutscenes and area effect spells etc) it was alright. It seems to come and go. Also I had to switch my computer off and on anyway because after I switched off BG:EE the first time my computer was running slow in general.
@BigDogChris OK. After a little playing around my findings are... Minimise to the toolbar on the title or character creation menus and you are fine. Minimise whilst at candlekeep, results in mem. leak. Minimise outside of candlekeep results in a mem. leak. (Although I swear it didn't yesterday...) Hopefully this matches your findings.... I will go nuts if it is JUST MY COMPUTER...
Comments
@Zayne @ermo the netbook we have here has an Intel GMA 3150 in it, and is now running the game quite well. The Gorion cutscene was slightly slower, but in general what I'd call acceptable. Do you have the latest drivers from Intel.com?
Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'm not blaiming you (Overhaul) for this. I'll see if I can uninstall my OEM drivers and then perhaps install the intel drivers again. I'll get back to you ASAP.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm on Windows 7 x64 SP1
The more you know...
@BigDogChris Can we get a double confirm on this. BG:EE Will not crash, due to mem leak, when minimised to toolbar using normal windows 7 (No compatibility mode used for earlier windows such as 95)
@Nathan
The Intel system is Windows 7 x64. I am running the game in Windows 95 compatibility mode. I'm not at that location right now, but tomorrow I will remove the 95 mode and try again.
I'm on my main system right now that has Windows 7 x64 and an Nvidia GPU, with Win95 mode the memory leak does not happen. Seems to be specific to Intel.
EDIT: Nathan looks like he is all over this mem leak thing...
Just double checked the IGP specs of my laptop. It is definitely using an intel GM965 (X3100) chipset.
Looking at intel's driver page, their latest driver for my chipset is from 10/2/2009, with the version number 15.12.75.4.64.1930 -- this was the version I had installed (so apparently the OEM driver was based on this). Tough luck for me I guess.
The link I used to find the driver is here:
Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family
I've also looked into using GLDirect 5, which is a MESA* based OpenGL→DX9c mapping implementation, which maps OpenGL calls to their DX9c equivalent IIUC. When using GLDirect (Win 95 compatibility mode, setting GL version to 1 in baldur.ini) with the GLDirect provided opengl32.dll in the BG:EE folder, I get an instant crash with a .dmp file.
Without it, I don't get a crash, just a black screen and sound. I can see and move the pointer around in case that tidbit of information is of import. If I Alt+Enter out of fullscreen, the window with BG:EE stays black and I still have sound and can see the cursor.
Again, I wasn't expecting this laptop to work with BG:EE and I'm not complaining -- just giving you some more sample points for your investigation. If there's something you'd like me to try or if you want more information, just give me a holler. If you want, I can send you an e-mail and we can take it from there.
I really don't envy the position you are in, but mad props for taking it on the chin and just getting on with it!
*: Open Source OpenGL implementation used with the Xorg X11 implementation in the unlikely case you didn't already know.
EDIT: I guess I'll try one of the hacked, unofficial drivers you linked to in the first post. I mean, it's not like it can get any worse!
I'll be posting that driver install thing for people who can't install the latest intel drivers soon.
Thanks for re-posting the link though. It might still help a lucky few.
Yes, I have latest drivers. For WinXP, of course.
Can you made something like reverse patch to version, that fixes only cursor bug?
I'm exactly the same, I don't wanna try any dodgy patches because of the risks and I've tried all the config. stuff - the one I've had the best performance from is win95 with visual themes disabled and display scaling on high DPI settings disabled - it stil lags, especially with magic or water but it's much better
My specs are
Acer Aspire 7741Z
Intel Pentium P6200 (2.13GHz 3MB L3 cache)
Intel HD graphics
3GB DDR3 Memory
500GB HDD
I'm personally hoping for an OpenGL 1.x/2.0 -> DX9c wrapper in the form of an opengl.dll that can be dumped into the game folder where baldur.exe resides. Intel has suggested that using DirectX is really the only viable option given the current driver situation.
Overhaul has also alluded to @Nathan working on a set of clever render tricks, which will hopefull minimize the GPU/VRAM bandwidth requirements. This will in turn benefit all platforms IIUC.
The above two things taken together might do the trick for those of us with dodgy intel graphics hardware/drivers.
I just removed the Win95 compatibility from baldur.exe and the memory consumption issue still happens. My game never crashes though so I have no .dmp file. The game becomes unplayable though without the compatibility mode, though.
@Nathan
Does this help?
The scenario is creating a new character and standing outside Winthrop's inn, then minimizing from Windowed Mode. The memory usage goes up to around 1.8GB, then hangs. It is Windows 7x64 Intel G35 GPU with the latest drivers (from 2009). baldur.exe is not in compatibility mode. I experienced this behavior before and after installing OpenAL. The winmm.dll is accessing in SysWOW64 version.
What I did is updating my Intel driver to latest version avaible (2012) by using the trick in first post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/530384-how-install-latest-intel-chipset-drivers.html
Couldn't do it before because packard bell wouldn't allow me to update drivers.
That, with baldurs.exe opened in windows95 compatibility mode, made the game run fine.
I've got a intel 4 series express chipset family on a packard laptop with vista 32 bit.
Hope that could help someone else.
@Nathan My blip with the mem. leak is back