Can FSUIPC and/or WideFS cause excessive PF usage?

[SKireyev]

Hello gents--

Just recently I decided to try out the new version of FSUIPC and WideFS, so I can run Radar Contact 4.01 on a networked laptop. Now I am seeing slowdowns with frame rates and general responsiveness of the sim (time it takes for a menu item to open, etc.) Just seems more sluggish now overall. I checked PF usage under Performance tab of WinXP, and my usage was around 6Gb or higher. Now, it wasn't increasing, and stayed stable, but ever after I shutdown the sim, I still had around 4Gb of usage. Ran everything without RC4 and WideFS, and usage stayed around 1.9 Gb. Still higher than average, but far lower than 6 Gb I saw after a 5-6 hour flight. Just wondering if anyone has seen something similar. I have never run a networked machine, so I don't really know if the transmitted data is stored in the PF causing it to balloon like this. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all!

[Pete Dowson]

I checked PF usage under Performance tab of WinXP, and my usage was around 6Gb or higher.

I'm unfamiliar with "PF", is that the swap file you mean? "Paging File"?

Now, it wasn't increasing, and stayed stable, but ever after I shutdown the sim, I still had around 4Gb of usage.

Hmmmsounds like the Network drivers are using rather a lot. I've not seen such symptoms anywhere else though.

Ran everything without RC4 and WideFS, and usage stayed around 1.9 Gb.

Er .. at what stage did it decrease from 4 Gb? I'm confused.

I have never run a networked machine, so I don't really know if the transmitted data is stored in the PF causing it to balloon like this.

It certainly shouldn't be there for long unless something is going wrong.

Do the WideServer and WideClient logs show anything? What happens when you run RC on the FS PC, as I assume you did before?

Regards,

Pete

[SKireyev]

Pete--

Thank you for your prompt attention.

PF is my abbreviation for Page File (swap file--same thing). It never decreased from 4 Gb. A day after, I ran the FS alone, without RC running on the laptop, my PF was around 1.89 Gb. Still higher than the usual 1.2-1.4 Gb, but not as bad. I have never run RC4 on the FS machine. I shall try installing it there, and run it that way. I forgot to mention that other program that I run over network is FSC, which I use strictly as a moving map.

I really don't think this issue is caused by WideFS. I just thought that (since I am new to this setup) this may be a usual thing for a networked machine to do. Judging by your answers, it is not, and I should look at log files.

Thank you for your time, sir!

[Pete Dowson]

PF is my abbreviation for Page File (swap file--same thing). It never decreased from 4 Gb. A day after, I ran the FS alone, without RC running on the laptop, my PF was around 1.89 Gb. Still higher than the usual 1.2-1.4 Gb, but not as bad.

I really don't know how it gets as high as 1.89 Gb. Most folks advise setting a fixed sized paging file at 1.5x your real memory. In my case I don't think I ever see such a high usage.

I really don't think this issue is caused by WideFS. I just thought that (since I am new to this setup) this may be a usual thing for a networked machine to do. Judging by your answers, it is not, and I should look at log files.

Yesbut it is very odd nonetheless whichever way you look at it.

Next time I have FS running with RC on a separate PC (as well as the FS PC, I use at least 8 WideFS client PCs altogether - 6 in the cockpit, for all the displays and instruments, 1 extra for RC, ActiveSky and other additional programs, and one with FliteMap as a moving map. I'll look at the PF after a session.

There are other possibilities -- maybe your PF is severely fragmented on your hard disk, which may make recovery difficult and there either take a long time or not actually even occur, thus the stuck value at 4Gb. Also, the hard drive may be filling up. Msake sure there's a good amount of free space.

The best thing to do with paging files is to keep them at a fixed size, unfragmented, in the first place. Something like 2Gb should be enough. If you only have one drive that's going to be difficult to accomplish, but if you have two or more (drives or partitions), you could try reconfiguring all the PF to one drive, then defragment the other, and create a fixed sized PF on that instead.

Regards

Pete

[SKireyev]

I really don't know how it gets as high as 1.89 Gb. Most folks advise setting a fixed sized paging file at 1.5x your real memory. In my case I don't think I ever see such a high usage.

You are exactly correct Pete. 1.5x is the rule of thumb. I have 4Gb of Corsair XMS RAM, and my swap file is set at 6144Mb, fixed. I have my machine set up to run most critical system files from the RAM memory. Also, although I use FSautostart, I let my avast virus protection stay on for the sake of firewall protection. I also run Active Sky.

There are other possibilities -- maybe your PF is severely fragmented on your hard disk, which may make recovery difficult and there either take a long time or not actually even occur, thus the stuck value at 4Gb. Also, the hard drive may be filling up. Msake sure there's a good amount of free space.

I just defragmented all my drives, and did a swap file defrag (remove, restart, set up, restart). It is set up on a separate 10Gb partition on one of my drives. The partition has about 3.8 Gb of free space for swap file. That's the same drive I run my system and my flightsim from. Let me see how the system runs without network, with RC and Active Sky and nothing else, non-networked, and I will report back.

[SKireyev]

Pete--

I must bow out and apologize for littering your forum. There's something rotten in the State of Denmark, and it has nothing to do with FS. Right now, I checked my swap file, and it's at 3.35Gb, which is about 10 times the normal use. I have shut down practically all of my services, and the usage remained the same until I shut down some service that I can't identify right away. There's definitely something wrong. I am running virus check right now.

[Pete Dowson]

Pete--

I must bow out and apologize for littering your forum. There's something rotten in the State of Denmark, and it has nothing to do with FS. Right now, I checked my swap file, and it's at 3.35Gb, which is about 10 times the normal use. I have shut down practically all of my services, and the usage remained the same until I shut down some service that I can't identify right away. There's definitely something wrong. I am running virus check right now.

Ah ok, good luck! Do please come back and tell us what it turns out to be.

Regards,

Pete

[SKireyev]

Pete--

Here are the results of my research. It was a severe memory leak caused by one of the nVidia firewall services. Anyone with an Asus A8N board (or maybe others too) will have it supplied with their board. The thing is buggy, and causes a memory leak that will put your swap file through the roof in a matter of an hour or so. I ran Prime95 yesterday with blend test, and after 45 minutes or so, my swap was at 4.5Gb. After quitting Prime95, the swap went back down, but only to 2.5Gb. That's with no applications running. The name of the service (I'm at work, so I can't recall it exactly) that causes that is something like nVsvcsappflt or something of that sort. If anyone sees excessive swap use on an idle machine, do not disable the firewall. The only thing that can fix it is completely uninstalling it. Following this, get a router with a built-in firewall, or something, but stay away from that headache.

Here's a link of someone complaining about it too: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Forum/tm.asp?m=1y=?

Cheers guys!

[Pete Dowson]

Pete--

Here are the results of my research. It was a severe memory leak caused by one of the nVidia firewall services. Anyone with an Asus A8N board (or maybe others too) will have it supplied with their board. The thing is buggy, and causes a memory leak that will put your swap file through the roof in a matter of an hour or so. I ran Prime95 yesterday with blend test, and after 45 minutes or so, my swap was at 4.5Gb. After quitting Prime95, the swap went back down, but only to 2.5Gb. That's with no applications running. The name of the service (I'm at work, so I can't recall it exactly) that causes that is something like nVsvcsappflt or something of that sort. If anyone sees excessive swap use on an idle machine, do not disable the firewall. The only thing that can fix it is completely uninstalling it. Following this, get a router with a built-in firewall, or something, but stay away from that headache.

Here's a link of someone complaining about it too: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Forum/tm.asp?m=1y=?

Cheers guys!

Thanks for posting this! I am sure such information will be useful to others.

Regards,

Peter