ATI Memory Leak

[Legacy_The Nolander]

               There is a rather infamous bug when running Neverwinter Nights on certain ATI cards. It causes the game's memory usage to increase gradually until the game crashes, unless ran on relatively low graphical settings.

I was wondering if there is a fix for this memory leak? Sadly the old forums are down so I cannot search there. I also found a driver fix for Linux online, but nothing for a windows version.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               Some specs would be useful.

NWN Version
OS
RAM
Graphics Card Model + MEM Amount
Sound Card/Device

I have a RAD HD4870 and do not suffer this issue you mentioned and I only have 512MB Graphic RAM
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lord Sullivan, 22 juillet 2011 - 02:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_The Nolander]

               Sure. '> Just didn't go into the details since it's a sorta well known problem.

NWN is 1.69
OS: Windows 7 64bit
Cpu: Intel Quad Core 3,00 Ghz
RAM: 8 gb
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 (I have the latest drivers)
Using the integrated soundcard on the motherboard.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               

The Nolander wrote...

Sure. '> Just didn't go into the details since it's a sorta well known problem.

NWN is 1.69
OS: Windows 7 64bit
Cpu: Intel Quad Core 3,00 Ghz
RAM: 8 gb
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 (I have the latest drivers)
Using the integrated soundcard on the motherboard.

I'm not so sure it had remain a well know problem all the way to v1.69, I'm aware that at one time it was.

I'd suggest reverting back the graphic drivers a few versions as my Son has experienced crashes with
other games since a few versions of the ATI drivers as he keeps them constantly updated and just recently
asked me for help on the issue, infact I'd say that with the 4800 series you shouldn't need to go over v9.8 of the
ATI Drivers since I believe that is when the drivers support started to be more dedicated to the 5000 series and sometimes
were broken for certain games for the 4800 series.

I'm currently running CAT drivers v11.1 but I haven't played NWN for long periods of time to see if there is
an issue with this version of the drivers. But I can say that for the period of times I use NWN, I had no issues.

Give that a shot and see what happens. For my Son, reverting back fixed his issues.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lord Sullivan, 22 juillet 2011 - 05:15 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               If the above doesn't work, you can also try changing the sound device in the NWN sound options
to "Software sound" and play for a long period to see how it goes.

One more thing to consider, I one time I started to experience crashes with not only NWN but a few other
games and it ended up being my Power Supply that started to be defective and I had to replace it.
The problem was mostly because of the fact that my RAD HD 4870 needs extra PCIE connectors
and the games would crash at some point when my Graphic card was drawing more power from
the power supply. Also make sure to monitor the your Graphics Card temperature.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lord Sullivan, 22 juillet 2011 - 05:26 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               It's dynamic lights that do it.  With some ati cards, with some of the drivers, you have to shut them off entirely to prevent a fairly severe memory bloating.  1 gig ram an hour sort of leak.  I used to get it, but for me the newer drivers cleared it up.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Skildron]

               AFAIR this issue became well known about 2004 or 2005 and was solved with some 2006 ATi driver release. I don't think it still persists, at least for the Linux drivers I haven't noticed anything out of the order for a long time.

Greetings
Skildron
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Skildron, 22 juillet 2011 - 06:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_The Nolander]

               Well the issue for me is exactly what Failed.Bard described. If I have dynamic lights turned up the game will leak memory badly and crash before too long. The issue must definetly have persisted for some cards. The video card model I am using might be... around 3 years old if I were to guess.

I can play the game without dynamic lights, but it makes certain spells difficult to detect in multiplayer, which is why I am looking for a better solution.

Thanks for the detailed suggestions on video card drivers Sullivan. Will try to revert back to a driver version before 9.8 to see if that makes a difference. Does ATI still provide old drivers, or will I have to dig them up elsewhere?  It's also exclusively an issue for NWN, I can run new games perfectly fine at high settings without any crashing whatsoever. So I don't think it's heating or my PSU.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               You can find a list of previous drivers on AMD's website here

Since you have Windows 7 64 bit I suggest you chose v9.11 or v9.12... however, nothing stopping you from
trying CAT v11.1 like I have installed as I previously mentioned.

Hope that fixes it for you.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lord Sullivan, 22 juillet 2011 - 11:19 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

The Nolander wrote...
Does ATI still provide old drivers, or will I have to dig them up elsewhere?

The last time I checked the ATI list it was redirected to AMD.  The easiest way to find a download site for legacy drivers is by just googling the exact version number you are seeking.  I was able to find at least a dozen download sites for the driver I am currently using with my ATI Radeon, a card that is as old as Solomon.  There are also many sites that contain literally hundreds of versions of the Catalyst just by googling "old ati drivers".
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 23 juillet 2011 - 12:49 .