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EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory

 
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EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 9/2/2008 7:28:56 PM   
Tribune

 

Posts: 4
Joined: 4/8/2008
Status: offline 		I am running Vista (64-bit) with UAC enabled. EiA can work on this machine, but it frequently fails to start.

I run from a standard user account, so I always get an unwanted UAC prompt when I try to start EiA. What happens next is variable, but it does NOT seem to have anything to do with my memory usage. (This machine has 4GB of physical RAM plus oodles of page file). Sometimes, the game works as expected.

Frequently -- maybe half the time -- I get this error:

Wargame System Engine requires 256MB pf FREE
memory! Please exit more programs then restart.
If problem persist [sic] then reboot PC and restart.
Total Mem -270254080 FREE Mem -1987661824 FREE Virtual Mem
2016489472
Wargame System Engine Version 1.02k [FULL]
Copyright 2005 Outflank Strategy Wargames

I think the display of negative numbers means what it says, although I cannot guess what sort of silly overflow is responsible for the metric. When I try again, after answering the new UAC prompt I get the same message except that it now reports "FREE Mem -1977376768" -- all other numbers being the same as before.

Rebooting does not seem to do any good. Reboot doesn't seem to be required, either: *without* quitting any other applications (because there aren't any outside of the system's own zillion threads), I can sometimes just try again and find myself, after yet another UAC prompt,
happily playing EiA.

Process Explorer always reports a couple gigabytes of free memory on my system. Whatever preliminary check the "Wargame System Engine" is making, it's either looking at the wrong thing or (to judge by reporting large negative numbers) trying to measure quarts in a pint pot.

< Message edited by Tribune -- 9/2/2008 7:31:00 PM >
Post #: 1
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 9/2/2008 8:28:33 PM   
Jimmer

 

Posts: 1968
Joined: 12/5/2007
Status: offline 		Try running it in its own memory space. You may be running into a variant of the 3.2 GB memory size limit (even though your x64 system shouldn't have that problem).

Regarding the UAC message, you can correct this by granting yourself full control permissions of the whole Matrix subfolder on your hard disk. Reply if you don't know how to do this.

_____________________________

At LAST! The greatest campaign board game of all time is finally available for the PC. Can my old heart stand the strain?

(in reply to Tribune)
Post #: 2
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 9/2/2008 9:18:00 PM   
Tribune

 

Posts: 4
Joined: 4/8/2008
Status: offline 		Thanks, Jimmer. I gave my User account all permissions for the MatrixGames directory in c:\Program Files (x86). Note that Vista "virtualizes" any attempted write to the Program Files directories, so my User account already had his own little MatrixGames area [under c:\Users\Username\Appdata].

I ran Sysinternals' Procmon to see why I still get a UAC prompt, but it will take me forever to wade through its log and find out what is going on. (I am not an adept, and lots of things happen nowadays on a system with "nothing" running).

(in reply to Jimmer)
Post #: 3
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 9/3/2008 12:09:52 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Tribune

Thanks, Jimmer. I gave my User account all permissions for the MatrixGames directory in c:\Program Files (x86). Note that Vista "virtualizes" any attempted write to the Program Files directories, so my User account already had his own little MatrixGames area [under c:\Users\Username\Appdata].

I ran Sysinternals' Procmon to see why I still get a UAC prompt, but it will take me forever to wade through its log and find out what is going on. (I am not an adept, and lots of things happen nowadays on a system with "nothing" running).


Did you get this to work?



_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to Tribune)
Post #: 4
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 9/3/2008 5:13:31 PM   
Jimmer

 

Posts: 1968
Joined: 12/5/2007
Status: offline 		Try it in its own memory space. If that works, then you may be barking up the wrong tree with Procmon.

_____________________________

At LAST! The greatest campaign board game of all time is finally available for the PC. Can my old heart stand the strain?

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 5
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 10/20/2008 2:48:46 AM   
Tribune

 

Posts: 4
Joined: 4/8/2008
Status: offline 		I haven't managed to figure this one out.  I don't believe it's possible to insist on the game running in its own memory space.  The option is greyed out (which makes sense to me) on a 64-bit system, since I can't run 16-bit stuff (outside of DosBox emulation or something like that).  Every 32-bit process should gets its own address space anyway.  So eventually, I will look at the voluminous stuff from ProcMon. 

As far as achieving my recreational agenda -- at my age -- it is easier simply not to play this game.

(in reply to Jimmer)
Post #: 6
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 10/20/2008 1:34:04 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		The neg memory numbers are returns from me looking at the free mem by directly interrogating the windows API??? Don't understand how neg results could happen. I could try to throw an ignore if neg statement in 1.05 that may allow it to run???

How frequently does it fail?


_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to Tribune)
Post #: 7
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 10/20/2008 4:37:46 PM   
Jimmer

 

Posts: 1968
Joined: 12/5/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

The neg memory numbers are returns from me looking at the free mem by directly interrogating the windows API??? Don't understand how neg results could happen. I could try to throw an ignore if neg statement in 1.05 that may allow it to run???

How frequently does it fail?


Negative results can happen if a 32-bit application asks a 64-bit processor for an address range, using an API that has the same name. The application believes it is a 32-bit API, but the processor assumes it's a 64-bit one, and responds appropriately (for itself). But, the number is far larger than any number directly addressible in 32-bits (4 GB), so the leftmost binary digit (the 32rd digit, if you will) is set to 1. Thus, the whole number is taken as a negative number.

My wife used to roll the high score table on tetris due to this bug, but it was only 16 bit numbers at that time (when she hit a score of 32768+1 or higher, her score would turn negative and start back "down" to zero.

And, yes, she found out what happens when you get back to zero again, too: It starts counting up again, but now the high score table was totally messed up, even as far as having names were not spelled correctly. One of the original "buffer overflows".

_____________________________

At LAST! The greatest campaign board game of all time is finally available for the PC. Can my old heart stand the strain?

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 8
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 10/20/2008 4:40:40 PM   
Jimmer

 

Posts: 1968
Joined: 12/5/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis
I could try to throw an ignore if neg statement in 1.05 that may allow it to run???

How frequently does it fail?


"Ignore negative" will only work while the 33rd bit (remember, they count from zero though) is a 1 (in hex, the next hex digit to the left is an odd hex number, including B, D, and F). So, you would have to check every bit to the left of #32.

I would recommend instead finding out what Vista's name for the 32-bit API is on a 64-bit system. Then, call that API directly rather than just using the name and letting the system "find" it.

_____________________________

At LAST! The greatest campaign board game of all time is finally available for the PC. Can my old heart stand the strain?

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 9
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 10/20/2008 6:24:55 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		Yuck! I'll look at it...



_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to Jimmer)
Post #: 10
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 6:14:06 PM   
NeverMan

 

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline 		Did anyone find a fix to this?

I am also using Vistax64 and just got the same error message... have played the game many times without this error until now. I have tried anything yet, I'll post back when I do.

My real question is why is this game checking? Is it an error with the checking itself or something else? I have 4GB of memory and there is plenty free.

Apparently, the game is not playable.

< Message edited by NeverMan -- 1/29/2009 6:16:04 PM >

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 11
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 6:53:16 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		What version were you playing with?
I am simply checking to make sure nothing funky happens when try to get more memory later in the middle of the game but this should pass anyway in 1.05+


_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to NeverMan)
Post #: 12
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 6:54:18 PM   
NeverMan

 

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline 		A restart was able to fix this problem, but just as a side note:

I had run a VERY memory intensive program prior to this, but I checked the memory usage before starting the program and it was back to normal. There exist no memory leaks in the code I ran prior.

I was running 1.04 so I thought I should upgrade to 1.05... it didn't fix my problem until restart.

(in reply to NeverMan)
Post #: 13
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 7:04:30 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		Glad to hear, Neverman. I have only looked at this briefly since reboots seemed to have fixed most of these types of issues?

FYI...I have seen differences in mem available straight from the Win API and from MSFT, telling me that not all mem leaks are equal (:-)). I'm not saying that 4gb is not enough (LOL) but I myself am careful with the MSFT monitor readings.

BTW: So does this mean that it is "playable" now? LOL!






_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to NeverMan)
Post #: 14
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 7:06:13 PM   
NeverMan

 

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline 		For the moment.... yes, it is able to be played (ie. it will start and let me do some things.

I'm curious why you even bother checking it it only requires 256MB?

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 15
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 7:32:50 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		The engine's least common denom requirement was Win98SE (Go ahead and laugh) which frequently had ~256MB. It is a piece of code that needs to be removed / changed!



_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to NeverMan)
Post #: 16
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/29/2009 10:15:34 PM   
NeverMan

 

Posts: 1722
Joined: 2/24/2004
Status: offline 		My suggestion would be to just remove it, it's not like EiA is CPU or GPU or memory heavy. As long as you cover the min. requirements when people buy the game then that should be enough right?

It's obviously glitchy and there's gotta be little reason to take the time to fix it.

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 17
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 1/30/2009 12:20:42 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		I agree (OUCH!) LOL!



_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to NeverMan)
Post #: 18
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 8/27/2009 9:12:36 AM   
sppeterson


Posts: 4
Joined: 10/10/2006
Status: offline 		Same situation for me running the new patch (1.06.03) on Vista 64.  Getting the same memory message then having to reboot in order to get it to start.

Also, it seems to start slow even then on Vista.  On my XP desktop it's a lot smoother.

(in reply to Marshall Ellis)
Post #: 19
RE: EiA won't start: Engine claims insufficient memory - 8/27/2009 1:04:44 PM   
Marshall Ellis


Posts: 5630
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		The release notes have some tips for VISTA machines. Have you tried those yet?
My VISTA box seems to run it very well???
Let me know...



_____________________________

Thank you

Marshall Ellis
Outflank Strategy War Games



(in reply to sppeterson)
Post #: 20
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