Matrix Games Forums

A friend is designing (redesigning) a scenario in ver 4.5. He has run into the dreaded VCR memory problem. He thinks that he may have too many units, and was wondering how many units can the game handle? Does it matter how many artillery units there are?
Thanks for any suggestions>
Rebelbug

Might depend on available RAM, I've yet to run into this with maxed out units!! I haven't seen the invisible crew problem either, I run 384mb RAM.

I think it was some 400 units a maximum. It depends on how big formations you buy. The bigger you buy the more you have.

Thanks for the replies. I'm checking to see how much memory my friend has on his computer.

He receives this message when he tries to run the scenario in AI mode:

"Unable to allocate memory for VCR recording."

He did, of course, already try deleting the steel.prf? Is he running version 7.1, or H2H?

Mike,
Yes he deleted the steel.prf file. He is using ver 4.5. We did a fresh install to another hard drive. Same problem. 128MB memory. This may be the problem. He thinks it's related to the Artillery replay.

I think I've found the problem. I ran a short test last night. I loaded the original scenerio in the editor and bought a lot of Artillery units for both sides. After firing about 15 units of heavy artillery and not moving any units for one side, at the start of the next turn, the playback button was red and the Unable to allocate memory for VCR recording shows up in the lower comment box. I don't know if this is a problem with the later vesions or not. Anyhow, I would like to think Warhorse and Hauptmann Jake for the help.
Cheers

I know it's a real bear to download, but before he wastes any more time with version 4.5, he really should get 7.1, most of those old problems are long gone with it!!:)

Does it happen with fast artillery both on and off. In earlier versions the replay bug was a real pain. It was eventually fixed in version 5.3. Also have him run the game directly from the mech.exe file this will help free-up Windows memory.

ALL Windows users should nab a (completely free) copy of MaxMem from AnalogX. Click the software tab and then the 'System' utilities, MaxMem is in there. It's roughly 214kb, and cleans up your RAM (since Windows doesn't). This should probably fix up your buddy's problem--at least to an extent.

I usually put 'Minimum' at 5%, 'Periodic' at 50%, and 'Aggressive' at 85%, with the 'Left-Click' option set to perform Aggressive cleanup.

It makes more sense when you use the program, but basically... That means that if there's ever 5% or less of your RAM available, MaxMem tries to clean up old memory (for example, .dll's that were loaded up into memory and no longer needed); Periodically (I think every 30 minutes), MaxMem tries to clear up 50% of my RAM. And, if I really think I can do it/need it, I click on the tray icon and it tries to clean up 85%.

Normally, there are no problems. If there's a lot of processing going on, something MAY rarely crash. Normally, however, it just slows things down for a bit... and then they speed up, especially when it comes to loading a program.

Download the minimal file (I've looked at images bigger than that on a 28.8 modem!), give it a shot, and enjoy.

(Sorry 'bout the length, I should probably have made this it's own topic. If there's enough replies, I'll do that.)