SPwaw 4.5 Error message

BryanMelvin · Post by **BryanMelvin** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 9:50 am

I installed 4.5 and am receiving this error message: Unable to allocate memory for VCR recording.

Is this a bug - has anyone else seen this message?

It occurs at scenario start, and turn end phases. Anyway to fix this VCR thing??

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MarauderMel

Fabio Prado · Post by **Fabio Prado** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 10:10 am

It is happening here, too. But not in all scenarios...Anyone out there knows what may be causing this error message? Or is it a random thing?

FAP

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Fabio Prado fprado@fprado.com
Webmaster - The ARMOR Site!

Fuerte2 · Post by **Fuerte2** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 12:07 pm

Perhaps the 20 MB allocation is a bit too much on some machines? Now that the recording never gets bigger than 2 MB, it would be better to have a smaller VCR buffer. I'm assuming that it allocates one fixed buffer.

Kharan · Post by **Kharan** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 12:27 pm

It could happen because you have less than 20-30 megs free disk space. Do you?

BryanMelvin · Post by **BryanMelvin** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 5:42 pm

Originally posted by Kharan:
It could happen because you have less than 20-30 megs free disk space. Do you?

I have 3.89 Gig free hard drive space! Plenty with room to spare!

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MarauderMel

skukko · Post by **skukko** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 5:55 pm

It is not about free space that you see. Windows uses swap file which it makes to it's own purposes and shares it to other applications. Size of the file is usually 20megs, so if it's full you'll get error like above Melvin has. Windows creates the swapfile if your win is configured as a server. Many of the publisher programs configures without warning your machine to it. I've made swapfile triple sized to my physical memory (64megs) (196megs)and don't get any vcr-errors. I had them while I made animations with 3Dmax2.5, not anymore. It is easy to do, but I'm not certain if this is the problem.

Just trying to help

mosh

skukko · Post by **skukko** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 5:57 pm

Forgot to say: If you don't create swapfile, windows uses whole disk to it. Wonder how that messes things...

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 6:51 pm

Windows uses swap file which it makes to it's own purposes and shares it to other applications.

Correct. File is "Win386.swp"

Size of the file is usually 20megs,

Wrong. With default settings, Windows sets the file size dynamically. It starts with around 20Mb, but may grow as big as RAM available.
There are unconfirmed reports that Win9x does not use any SwapFile-space that exceeds the available RAM, but I'm not shure about this.

so if it's full you'll get error like above Melvin has.

Most likely wrong - Win would enlarge the file size, that's all, and with 64 MB RAM and therefore 64MB Swapfile you should be able to store a 30MB vcr file, shouldn't you ?

Windows creates the swapfile if your win is configured as a server.

If you don't create swapfile, windows uses whole disk to it.

Wrong. Win creates swapfile by default, even on a 512MB machine. When set to "server" Win handles file transfers, caching etc. different, what is said to push performance.

I'm getting this error myself, but I have 101MB swapfile (free), 128MB RAM (73MB free w/o SPWAW), 273MB free "TEMP" disc space, 45MB disk on the drive with SPWAW
and only 3MB on C:

So question is, where does SPWAW put this file?

And may this error be cause by a software-diskcache (vcache with Win9x) that is smaller than the vcr-file may be ?
(Mine is set to 16MB fix, but on most Win-machines run with standard settings which do not restrict the cache size, so it may use all available RAM

)

I'll look further into this and keep you informed 'bout what I can find out

Arralen

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 8:46 pm

Please let us know what you find out!

What game mode are you in when this happens?

skukko · Post by **skukko** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 8:49 pm

Hi Aris

Good to have someone who knows. I tested few things and pushed my resources little over: I copied a cd from another, had internet open and tried to start spwaw4.5. Result was that I finished to the desktop. I ended programs and tried to start but it didn't do it. After I booted whole system spwaw4.5 started again and played well, and I am able to lesson music from cd.

just trying to help
mosh

BryanMelvin · Post by **BryanMelvin** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 4:29 am

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Arralen:

I'm getting this error myself, but I have 101MB swapfile (free), 128MB RAM (73MB free w/o SPWAW), 273MB free "TEMP" disc space, 45MB disk on the drive with SPWAW
and only 3MB on C:

So question is, where does SPWAW put this file?

I am using 64 Ram on an 266 pent II machine and have latest version of Win 95. I have two Hard drives - 10 gig and a 4.3 gig. C drive uses the 10 gig HD. I had to put in a new IDE so that I could install an internal cd writer. Could this mess things up?

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MarauderMel

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 8:40 am

I tried to reproduce it and got it only after starting and quitting a whole bunch of applications many times but when I restart SP:WaW it cleared. PLease keep experiementing with this and see if there is a pattern to its occurance.

Does it happen immediately after rebooting?
Does it happen after starting and closing an app several times (i'm always on the look out for memory leaks)
DOes it happen after quitting another game?

Things like this can help us track down the cause.

kao16 · Post by **kao16** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 3:26 pm

I've had this message appear playing watchword Freedom.

Using Thunderbird 700, 256MB Ram, 2oGB HD (~15GB spare).

The swap file is set to default.

Tried to create message again but so far up to move 7 in the same battle that was showing the message before. The only difference is that I'm logged on to the internet while playing this time.

skukko · Post by **skukko** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 4:20 pm

Arralen: Sorry to mix your name to Aris.

Now I found first time this message at 4.5. So now I understand better what's bothering in here. I started WB:s WF-campaign and it gave me this allocation problem. I've played generated battles but have not get it. Also I've played few miniscenarios and haven't had problem.

Sorry 'bout confucisng, I believed it was windows error that you were getting. I'll have my spanking hour tonight...

mosh

Fabio Prado · Post by **Fabio Prado** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 4:38 pm

The problem seems to be related to how memory is used by the video card. I tweaked with the memory management and haven't got the VCR problem anymore.

Pentium III 800MHz, 256MB RAM, Windows 2000 SP1, total paging file size 748 MB, total free disk space 3.4 Gb.

FAP

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Fabio Prado fprado@fprado.com
Webmaster - The ARMOR Site!

Peregrine Falcon · Post by **Peregrine Falcon** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 9:35 pm

Happens to me too. I seems to be (?) IMO a simple Windows memory management problem.

Using programs like MemTurbo (defragments RAM, increases free memory) before starting SPWAW seems to be working.

Celeron 300@375mhz, 64mb, nVidia Riva TNT (16mb)
Windows 98, fixed swapfile (max/min=200mb)
Tweaked disk cache (tweaked everything

)

[This message has been edited by Peregrine Falcon (edited December 23, 2000).]

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 3:51 am

Problem seems to relate to memory management under Windows. I have a P2450, 128 Meg RAM, 8 Meg AGP Starfighter video card (3D accelerator, too, but believe this has zero effect on W@W), 5.6 Gig free HD space. Swap file set to Windows handling it, will run as high as 65 Meg, for W@W seems to stay right around 32 Mb.

I ran the start of the U2R campaign under v4.5, after using Explorer to look at a file or two and IE5 to get mail and read these messages. Did not reboot, got the VCR memory allocation error message. Stopped, got out of game, rebooted, replayed and did NOT get the error message. We'll see - granted this is a minimal test of the new version, but it sure looks like whatever might be resident in memory needs to be flushed before game play.

Bing

skukko · Post by **skukko** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 4:29 am

I play games in vers 4.4 and burn cd same time: ok. I'm not able to even start vers 4.5 while burning. I start 4.5 first and then start burning: I'm able to get thru menus, but not to play. Same version of WB:s WFreedom gives mem.alloc. -error only in vers 4.5. Btw: ScenManagervers.3.0 of Chandla stays at memory when closed. I'm running 4.5 with 505k of conventional mem. Should it be tested if there is something?

mosh

Warrior · Post by **Warrior** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 4:42 am

I have not had this problem, but I delete the steel.prf file every time I close the game (and occasionally during a game). Whether this has anything to do with it, I don't know, but it's not doing the VCR thing to me.

BryanMelvin · Post by **BryanMelvin** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 4:55 am

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:

Does it happen immediately after rebooting?
Does it happen after starting and closing an app several times (i'm always on the look out for memory leaks)
DOes it happen after quitting another game?

Things like this can help us track down the cause.

Okay, let me see. I did run other programs before trying 4.5 after rebooting. I deleted the prf file and reset the perferences to my taste and still had the error appear.

Now, I deleted the prf file again and errors have vanished. Is it possible that the sequence one uses in the preferance menu could do this? This time I set perferences to Music off, Normal Squads, OP Fire set to 2 sec, C and C off. Previously I set these in this order Music off, OP Fire set to 2 sec, C and c off, Normal Squads, and had the error message appear.

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MarauderMel