Strange WC3 Behavior

[MortAr]

Recently I have came up with a very serious problem regarding Warcraft 3.

I used to play the game with around 100-200k memory usage, but now when the game (map) loads, it begins to consume around 350k memory, which by itself makes the game unplayable and causes MASSIVE lag to me.

I have tried to re-install the game, deleted most files, even deleted like 75% of my maps, but nothing changes.

I checked out few links from Google and PlayDotA but nothing helped at all.

So my question is - What may cause this problem?

Thanks in advance.

PS: PC-Configuration:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ ~2.2Ghz
2GB DDR2 RAM
GeForce 6150SE 512MB

(Having an game update running during the test)

 

[Dr Super Good]

I used to play the game with around 100-200k memory usage, but now when the game (map) loads, it begins to consume around 350k memory, which by itself makes the game unplayable and causes MASSIVE lag to me.

Something defiantly is wrong. Especially seeing how my WarCraft III uses 85M just to open the main menu... You are a whole 3 orders of magnitude less than what WarCraft III should be using.

A good size for an in game session would be 100-300M depending on map complexity. For example TKoK will probably use well over 300M to play while something simple like a crap Vampirism will take under 200M.

In case you do not understand. 85M is 85,756k.

 

[Map Designer]

when I first start Warcraft, it uses 59,756k I guess. When I start my map, it uses 226,684k. yet, I did not notice any lag, especially if there is no AI running, since AI some times keep pressing a button or so...

 

[MortAr]

Apparently it was some sort of internet disorder which is fixed now.
Yet, playing DotA now consumes around 300M and there is a slight FPS drop...

 

[Metalbear]

Ehem ... I am with:
Sempron 2400+ < not old, but ancient P3 tech!
Used to be with 512 DDR400. Now I added 2 x 256 which means in total 1gb DDR400.
Geforce 5200FX which is just fine for WC3.
I kind of cant understand whats the problem with WC3 using only 300mb from your 2048mb ram memory. If its only the FPS problem, then it cant be from the ram memory ... unless you used the rest memory for multitasking like a bunch of skypes, firefox, yahoo and probably more running. You should clear out some of them when running if unneeded. Try reducing texture quality to medium, model detail to medium or low and some of the rest. Your processor seem only to not be a core dual so he could be the problem.

Since I am with a very old pc, I have the following video settings:
800x600x16
low
low
medium
low
low
on
off
medium

Experiment if lowering some video settings increases your FPS.
Hope I helped out!

 

[Joe-black-5]

wc3 works on Pentium 3 and windows millennium

 

[Dr Super Good]

The differences in memory size are probably due to either differences in dependant libraries (as I tested on Windows 7 using WoW64 so the libraries might be larger than normal 32 bit OS libraries) or because people are reporting the wrong memory value (you need to report virtual memory size and not working set size).

Working set size is the amount of memory needed by the process to work efficiently (regually accessed memory). The algorthem used by the Kernal is different for each version of windows (so XP will calculate this value differently from Vista which caluclates it differently from Windows 7). Pages of the working set are the highest priority so will be among the last pages to remove from memory. Virtual memory size is the total memory space allocated to a process (valid pages in its address space).

Memeory allocation alone does nothing to performance.

 

[Map Designer]

o.k. the one I said was the private working set. How can I get the virtual memory size?

 

[MortAr]

My Computer -> Right-Click -> Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Tab -> Settings -> Advanced

Third row that says "Virtual Memory".

 

[Magtheridon96]

Warcraft III caches data everytime you play a map so that it can load them faster.

DotA loads in between 12.9 and 13.7 seconds for me (My Online Gaming Client tells me that) the first time I play it after opening Warcraft III.

Every other time, it takes between 9.5 and 10.8 seconds.

To get the actual memory usage sizes, restart Warcraft III each time you play a map.

 

[BlargHonk]

wc3 works on Pentium 3 and windows millennium

Lowest Spec system I have personally run it on was a Pentium Pro 200mhz with 128mb of RAM and an Imagine 128, could do a 1v1 on small maps without much lag.


A Pentium 3 633mhz, 256mb, integrated GPU computer I had was able to run Wintermaul until about 25 levels in, at which point slideshow.


Another Pentium 3 I had, 933mhz, 512mb, Radeon 9200 Pro, could run a full game of Farmers vs Hunters, and if you haven't played it, Gold is gotten through physical livestock units and by the end 3k isn't an uncommon number of livestock to be ingame, all with "Wander" pathing

 

[Magtheridon96]

Warcraft III was made to run fine for proccessors clocked at 400Mhz and a memory size of 128MB of RAM after all.
The lower your graphic settings, the better. (It uses 130MB of RAM on average in 1200x1024x32 (which I use because Widescreen is shit.) and I can safely say about 60-80 on lower settings)

But it would only run fine on very very small maps.
Larger maps would require 256MB and probably 384MB since most maps you'd find would use 100-250MB of RAM alone.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Not all the memory WC3 uses is vital to the working set. It is kept in the working set on modern systems because there is ample memory so very little trimming occurs but when free memory is low WC3 can use up less memory without effecting game performance much.