Posted February 13, 2014
I have a windows 8.1 with 4g ram and 1 gb of vram with Geforce 630M. So what can I set my virtual memory for and the ini file for Gothic 3 so it doesn't stutter?
Post edited February 13, 2014 by Bundle
Bundle
New User
Registered: Apr 2012
From United States
NoNewTaleToTell
Deathrocker
Registered: May 2009
From United States
Posted February 13, 2014
All I can suggest is if you haven't done so already, go ahead and install the latest Community Patch, and understand that this game is going to stutter and lag to some degree no matter what you do. Some areas will stutter more than others, if you're still in the beginning area of the game, well, that's where it seems to stutter and lag the most unfortunately.
Bundle
New User
Registered: Apr 2012
From United States
Posted February 13, 2014
Post edited February 25, 2014 by Bundle
ThomasD313
New User
Registered: Jan 2012
From Germany
Posted April 21, 2014
Virtual memory has nothing to do with performance and usually it even can decreases performance!
Virtual memory addresses another problem you might run in. Just imagine that your memory is limited to lets say 4GB, what do you think will happen if you use all of it up? Without virtual memory the next memory allocation of any of your software would fail and the mentioned software would usually crash. To avoid this, the memory is managed virtually, this allows for example to map a part of the virtual memory to the hard disk and increase the usable memory this way, so that the software can use memory that even doesnt exist.
The problem with this is, that the hard disk is approximately over 100 times slower than your physical memory. The latency of the hard disk is even much more worse compared to the physical memory. This means, when you really have to use the extended memory that virtual memory allows you to use, your performance will be greatly lowered. Even if you dont have to use it yet, it can decrease your performance because the mapping stuff (if not fully accelerated by hardware) also takes a little bit performance.
All in all, virtual memory wont increase your performance ever!
But I dont know why you even mentioned virtual memory, did you mix virtual memory with VRAM? Nowadays VRAM is usually used for video graphics card memory and is something completely different than virtual memory. In this case you wont be able to set it, because this is usually automatically managed by the graphics card driver.
The reasons why gothic runs so slow are first that it has to deal with a huge amount of data (especially compared to the times when it was published) and the second reason is that the management of this data (especially loading) wasnt implemented efficiently.
To deal with the first you could decrease the size of the data by lowering the quality settings or by increasing the amount of data that will be used by ini tweaks or with tools that do this tweaks. But keep in mind that Gothic 3 is a 32 bit game and like all 32 bit software it is usually limited to 2 GB, because the addressing in such software works only with 31 bit (1 bit is the sign, that is usually not used for addressing) even on a 64 Bit system! To increase the amount a 32 bit software can use there exist something like the LAA hack. But this hack can lead to unstable software, otherwise it can also make the software even more stable if it operates close to the 2 GB limit, you have to find out yourself, which works better for you. But as far as I know, the community patches already does this for you.
Dealing with the first helps also to deal with the second, but to deal with the second, which is the main reason for stuttering, there do also exist some approaches. Usually you will decrease the time which is necessary to load the data from the files into the memory. One way would be to install the game on a SSD hard disk instead an usual hard disk, another way would be to load the whole game already into the memory which is many times even faster than SSDs. This can be done by creating a RAM disk. But keep in mind that your RAM have to be big enough to put all the data of the game into it + have enough free RAM left to run the game. I wouldnt recommend the RAM disk with less than 8 GB and even than maybe only with a fast CPU and fast RAM (DDR3 1333 onwards).
But all in all, everything than the last mentioned, maybe wont have the effect you would desire. Sorry. I think you will have to play this game with stuttering even if you do ini tricks and other stuff (except the RAM disk) they will be always more or less present.
Virtual memory addresses another problem you might run in. Just imagine that your memory is limited to lets say 4GB, what do you think will happen if you use all of it up? Without virtual memory the next memory allocation of any of your software would fail and the mentioned software would usually crash. To avoid this, the memory is managed virtually, this allows for example to map a part of the virtual memory to the hard disk and increase the usable memory this way, so that the software can use memory that even doesnt exist.
The problem with this is, that the hard disk is approximately over 100 times slower than your physical memory. The latency of the hard disk is even much more worse compared to the physical memory. This means, when you really have to use the extended memory that virtual memory allows you to use, your performance will be greatly lowered. Even if you dont have to use it yet, it can decrease your performance because the mapping stuff (if not fully accelerated by hardware) also takes a little bit performance.
All in all, virtual memory wont increase your performance ever!
But I dont know why you even mentioned virtual memory, did you mix virtual memory with VRAM? Nowadays VRAM is usually used for video graphics card memory and is something completely different than virtual memory. In this case you wont be able to set it, because this is usually automatically managed by the graphics card driver.
The reasons why gothic runs so slow are first that it has to deal with a huge amount of data (especially compared to the times when it was published) and the second reason is that the management of this data (especially loading) wasnt implemented efficiently.
To deal with the first you could decrease the size of the data by lowering the quality settings or by increasing the amount of data that will be used by ini tweaks or with tools that do this tweaks. But keep in mind that Gothic 3 is a 32 bit game and like all 32 bit software it is usually limited to 2 GB, because the addressing in such software works only with 31 bit (1 bit is the sign, that is usually not used for addressing) even on a 64 Bit system! To increase the amount a 32 bit software can use there exist something like the LAA hack. But this hack can lead to unstable software, otherwise it can also make the software even more stable if it operates close to the 2 GB limit, you have to find out yourself, which works better for you. But as far as I know, the community patches already does this for you.
Dealing with the first helps also to deal with the second, but to deal with the second, which is the main reason for stuttering, there do also exist some approaches. Usually you will decrease the time which is necessary to load the data from the files into the memory. One way would be to install the game on a SSD hard disk instead an usual hard disk, another way would be to load the whole game already into the memory which is many times even faster than SSDs. This can be done by creating a RAM disk. But keep in mind that your RAM have to be big enough to put all the data of the game into it + have enough free RAM left to run the game. I wouldnt recommend the RAM disk with less than 8 GB and even than maybe only with a fast CPU and fast RAM (DDR3 1333 onwards).
But all in all, everything than the last mentioned, maybe wont have the effect you would desire. Sorry. I think you will have to play this game with stuttering even if you do ini tricks and other stuff (except the RAM disk) they will be always more or less present.