Updating BC

[newhalo123]

I was banned from BCC at one point. 24 hour ban. for i think the reasons i said.
Been a few years now, so I'm not 100% on that, lol.

[JimmyB76]

youre not in the ban list...  must have been someplace else, or during that period of 2 recent years the forum lost...   
ah well no biggie...

[Tethys]

Back on topic though, Snowman program was taking way too long on my PC. Now, my PC is not slow, but it is not fast either. AMD FX-6300 3.5ghz 8gb 2133 ddr3 ram. I let it run for about 6 hours before I ended up force killing the process as it was lagging my PC super hard. It was acting like a early 2000's PC with blank windows and slowness everywhere. I could not deal with it, the machine was unusable whilst running Snowman. I will have to set up a dedicated PC to make a second attempt at this. I do have a similar machine with a similar ram size but the ram speed is lower at 1333 or 1600 ddr3 as I cant remember at the moment.

If anyone has a faster PC by all means don't let me stop you from trying to decompile stbc.exe

[vonfrank]

If anyone has a faster PC by all means don't let me stop you from trying to decompile stbc.exe

I have 20GB of RAM on my system and using Snowman to decompile the STBC.exe used 18.5 of them. 

It seems the program outputs the C++ as a massive list of text. Here's a link to the raw file in .txt format. It's a 57MB text file so it is, quite literally, a wall of text.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XAbEVLbTjDxa1fVlXCAXejDsTTUZfwGN

I have no idea if this is useful at all, but I did notice some script calls within the jumble. So perhaps some magic can be done by someone who knows that they are doing.

[King Class Scout]

you may be getting a break, vonfrank.  I dropped the hint to someone else I know, who also has done so.  since you two's decompiled sizes jibe, I can tell him he DOES have the whole thing.  may have spotted a DLL or two that's contributing to the memory leak, as well.

[Morgan]

you may be getting a break, vonfrank.  I dropped the hint to someone else I know, who also has done so.  since you two's decompiled sizes jibe, I can tell him he DOES have the whole thing.  may have spotted a DLL or two that's contributing to the memory leak, as well.

Does this mean that, having narrowed down the DLL that is contributing to the memory leak, a fix is possible?

[DarkSoul]

Does this mean that, having narrowed down the DLL that is contributing to the memory leak, a fix is possible?

you may be getting a break, vonfrank.  I dropped the hint to someone else I know, who also has done so.  since you two's decompiled sizes jibe, I can tell him he DOES have the whole thing.  may have spotted a DLL or two that's contributing to the memory leak, as well.

In theory maybe. Do note the Theory

[King Class Scout]

possibly.  at least two potential leak makers have been spotted.  the one that got my attention is something that would throw a monkey wrench/Spanner in the works.  it's a DLL that belongs to Windows itself!  the game was run with the oldest possible compatibility level and drew absolute minimum memory.  the version necessary may be 25 years old.

[eclipse74569]

possibly.  at least two potential leak makers have been spotted.  the one that got my attention is something that would throw a monkey wrench/Spanner in the works.  it's a DLL that belongs to Windows itself!  the game was run with the oldest possible compatibility level and drew absolute minimum memory.  the version necessary may be 25 years old.

Wouldn’t that make it redundant and therefore if installed wouldn’t be used by current Windows installs?

[DarkSoul]

Wouldn’t that make it redundant and therefore if installed wouldn’t be used by current Windows installs?

in the theory. there still enough code for it to work but it just not the original. maybe I can explain this better but I had no idea how. do note the theory  I'm still looking through the code.

[King Class Scout]

it's gonna take quite a while to scan the code through and find all the possibilities.  we've waited this long for a possible fix, we can hold out.

[eclipse74569]

Crossing fingers!

[Morgan]

Hell, if we can at least finally, after 17 years, crack this memory leak problem, that in and of itself would breathe a lot of life back into BC.

[vonfrank]

Hell, if we can at least finally, after 17 years, crack this memory leak problem, that in and of itself would breathe a lot of life back into BC.

Only being slightly familiar with the details of the whole memory leak issue, what problems would this actually solve? Random crashes after playing the game for extended times? Crashing when too much RAM is used? Other glitches?

[King Class Scout]

Vonfrank: from what I've gathered so far, it appears that the particular DLL that the engine is calling for is the kind that changes and expands with every version of windows and needs to be compensated for.  however, the person doing so has yet to run the game under a typical mod load.  and this is still at the theory level as well, as another one that potentially causes trouble has been spotted as well.  I've had no updates for a couple days on progress.

please note two things: 1. the game was run in compatibility mode for Windows 95 with minimum memory draw, 2. the debugger cannot find the hardcopy version as of yet to compare coding.

[Morgan]

the game was run in compatibility mode for Windows 95 with minimum memory draw...

Checking for understanding:  Does this mean that, at least for the time being, running the game in compatibility mode for Windows 95 will provide some relief?

[King Class Scout]

like I said, he was running the game in stock form with no mods.  plain vanilla version, in other words.  the memory draw was only 200 some odd K at max.  logic says that the bone-stock version would or should only have a typical memory draw.  I gave him a list of the typical mod loadout for players.  my suggestion is, someone else does this as well; switch to W95 compatibility mode and check your memory usage.  I intend to do this myself upon getting my setup reactivated.

[Tethys]

Wow, have I been out of the loop... Cheers vonfrank for getting Snowman to work through to the end! How long (hours/days) did that take? 18.5gb WOW!!

Good job DarkSoul finding some of the memory leaks; cookies incoming all around!

Random thought; has anyone heard of codecaves? Little dll's that can be called via null bytes within the exe? Would this be a feasible way to expand the exe without actually having to fully deconstruct it? It may be easier to call your windows dll with a codecave, $0.02 keep the change

[vonfrank]

Wow, have I been out of the loop... Cheers vonfrank for getting Snowman to work through to the end! How long (hours/days) did that take? 18.5gb WOW!!

It actually only took about 10 minutes or so. The RAM limit was the issue. Snowman using 18.5GB left very little for my Operating System to keep for itself, so I was worried about a crash. Fortunately not, but I dont suggest anyone with less than 20GB attempt this.

In response to everything else though, glad to see some progress is being made, even if its only preliminary so far.

[King Class Scout]

*grin* the person that I mentioned above was using the same program with LESS available gig also got it done.  I'll have to ask how long it took.