A little performance tweak?

[Von Paulus 8]

As some of you may know, most of 32bit application only use 2GB of virtual memory.

There's a little tool that can patches the 32bit (x86) executables in order to use 4Gb instead of 2GB in a 64 bit windows system.

This can be very useful if the application needs a lot of virtual memory. If that's the case of OFF and CFS3, I really don't know, maybe any of the devs can enlighten us.

Tool's site: http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php (sometimes I've difficulty to access to this site, I've to retry then).

I'd use the tool in both offmanager.exe and the cfs3.exe files. In any case, you should backup the exe before patching, just in case...

 

For 32bit Windows XP users, this can also apply, but for that you'd have to edit your boot.ini and add a switch. In case of Vista and Win7 32bits you'd have to use the BCDedit command.

Instructions of how to do it:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=9729516&linkID=9240697

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff556232.aspx

 

This come to my attention after one of my clients complain that he could not run a certain addon with FSX in his PC. After exchanging emails with the addon maker, and by their suggestion, we applied the above "tweaks". Not only it worked but the whole FSX was much more smoother and had a FPS increase.

 

This should only be tried in systems with more than 2GB.

 

Another thing you might do is to create a fixed pagefile for avoid fragmentation. This is an old trick that seems to always help something.

Small interesting article about pagefile: http://smallvoid.com/article/windows-page-file.html

Another: http://bicester-computers.com/support/showthread.php?t=285

 

P.S. I've to confess my sins, and since I assembled my new system, more than 1 moth ago, I haven't almost touched OFF or any other simulator. So I wasn't able to test this. The results, if any, may also vary from rig to rig.

[Von Paulus 8]

Ok! I've tried it tonight with my Windows 7 64bits installation.

I t doesn't make much difference in my case. Maybe less micro stuttering and little more smooth.

Maybe it's placebo effect.

Anyway I've a good rig, so I would never feel much difference.

So if anybody want to try it, it can. The 4GB patch didn't damaged my OFF's installation.

[Flyby PC 23]

Just to be clear VP, I've got 4GB Ram on my Win XP rig, (which I know doesn't recognise all of it), but this is a method whereby it might?

 

I'll give it a try. My performance is (was) at the better end of average, but it's annoying I've RAM capacity not being used....

[Flyby PC 23]

Hmmmmm. Read the link.

 

Vely intellesting.....

 

I'm at work now, but I'll give it a go tonight.

 

(Maybe I'll start a new thread 'Help! I changed my Boot.ini file and now my PC won't start'. Just to get the helpful answers in and printed first, before I destroy my PC.)

 

I'm kidding a little bit. It doesn't sound a complicated tweak at all. Nice find VP.

 

If it works, an extra GB of RAM will be a BIG tweak.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Flyby PC

[sandbagger 1]

My main rig was Vista 64 bit with 8 Gig ram, but it was to unstable, so I had it reverted to XP.

 

I'd be interested to know how these tweaks make use of the extra ram.

[Von Paulus 8]

As far as I understand this tweak only changes the way as a system manages the virtual memory and alter the limitation of 2GB usage to 4GB.

It won't alter the limitations of the 32bit system and 32 bit applications on the usage of physical RAM. They will still use only 2GB of physical RAM

However in certain applications it might give a performance boost and solves some CTD related with low memory issues, as I saw it happening in Flight Simulator X with certain addons and as Autodesk's site states it.

If the limitation of 2GB is not also hardcoded in the application code, there might be a good chance that some may benefit with this tweak.

Only by trying you can come to a conclusion. It might even differ from machine to machine.

Maybe Winder or any other dev which deals more with programing can give us a word.

 

(Maybe I'll start a new thread 'Help! I changed my Boot.ini file and now my PC won't start'. Just to get the helpful answers in and printed first, before I destroy my PC.)

As long as you add a line with the alteration, instead of replacing the line in boot.ini with the new parameter, there won't be any problem. If you add a line, the windows at startup will give you a menu in which you can choose which way you want to boot, with 3GB or "normal". So if something goes wrong you can boot next time in the "normal" way.

You've just to follow the syntax (with / before the switch) like it is in the autodesk example.

 

My main rig was Vista 64 bit with 8 Gig ram, but it was to unstable, so I had it reverted to XP.

 

I'd be interested to know how these tweaks make use of the extra ram.

 

I'm afraid, there are no enough tweaks for you sandbagger. If you wan to use that amount of RAM only 64 bit systems. Maybe Win7 works better in your rig thatn Vista. Why not give a try?

However OFF will never use it. You could always try to create, with your extra RAM, a RAMDISK system, in which you can copy some of the OFF's files to it. If it worked it would give a really real performance boost.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Von Paulus