Hey guys!
So I'm having some major performance issues in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall. The game stutters heavily in the general area and makes it a pain to visit the city.
On investigating and looking at the openmw.log, I am SPAMMED with the following message:
"No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !"
Where xxxxxxxx is a "random" number.
This is definitely a mod issue, as I tested with vanilla morrowind and everything was smooth, then tested with the official plugins, and everything was working fine.
I'm trying to figure out what mod is causing this - maybe someone could tell me what this error message means so I can better figure out my issue?
Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
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Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
we cant know what mod is causing it with a list.
Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
The message means the sound buffer cache is using more memory than it's allowed to, and there's not enough unused cache entries to bring it back down. It can happen if you're using mods that add long, high-quality sound effects, and mods that play a lot of those sounds continuously (music doesn't count; that's streamed, not cached).Balmoraishome wrote: ↑23 Jul 2017, 01:25 I'm trying to figure out what mod is causing this - maybe someone could tell me what this error message means so I can better figure out my issue?
The default cache sizes are fine for the vanilla game, though they may be a bit low for mods that add a lot of (high quality) ambient sounds. In your screen shot I see at one point it's using almost 52MB, where the default max cache size is 16MB (it will still load and play the extra sounds, it just complains about it and will be quick to free what it can next time). The cache sizes can be changed by editing settings.cfg:
https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/master ... -cache-min
https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/master ... -cache-max
It might not be a bad idea to increase the default cache sizes, although I wouldn't know what an appropriate size would be. Setting the max to 64MB would eliminate the warnings I see in that log, though it probably should be higher to leave enough head room (the idea is that the cache can comfortably hold a more than it will need to use at a given time, so by the time buffers get purged, it will remove sounds that haven't played in a good while and aren't likely to play again soon).
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Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
Thanks for the replies guys!
Here's my current mod list:
- Spoiler: Show
EDIT: After more testing, I found this line in my log. Is this a clue to solving what's causing my issue?
Last edited by Balmoraishome on 23 Jul 2017, 12:34, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
OK that could narrow down the list.. I can think of a few mods of mine that adds sounds to Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall:Chris wrote: ↑23 Jul 2017, 05:30 The message means the sound buffer cache is using more memory than it's allowed to, and there's not enough unused cache entries to bring it back down. It can happen if you're using mods that add long, high-quality sound effects, and mods that play a lot of those sounds continuously (music doesn't count; that's streamed, not cached).
Animated Morrowind, Animated Morrowind II, Animated Morrowind extended, Abot's Boats, Banners with sound.
What effect would this have on my game and computer? I'm very much a technical "idiot", so I have no clue what the effect on my computer would be if I changed the max cache size to 64MB+Chris wrote: ↑23 Jul 2017, 05:30 It might not be a bad idea to increase the default cache sizes, although I wouldn't know what an appropriate size would be. Setting the max to 64MB would eliminate the warnings I see in that log, though it probably should be higher to leave enough head room (the idea is that the cache can comfortably hold a more than it will need to use at a given time, so by the time buffers get purged, it will remove sounds that haven't played in a good while and aren't likely to play again soon).
EDIT: After more testing I found this in my openmw.log. Is this helpful to finding out the cause of my issue?
Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
Shouldn't have much (if any) negative effect, since it's not that much more memory. I'd probably increase the min cache size too, to avoid clearing too many buffers (i.e. sounds that have a good chance of playing again soon) when the max is reached.Balmoraishome wrote: ↑23 Jul 2017, 12:29 What effect would this have on my game and computer? I'm very much a technical "idiot", so I have no clue what the effect on my computer would be if I changed the max cache size to 64MB+
No. Those are just extra silent music files being played, to randomize the amount of time between actual music tracks.EDIT: After more testing I found this in my openmw.log. Is this helpful to finding out the cause of my issue?
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Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
Thanks for the advice, will definitely try out that and test the issue again.Chris wrote: ↑23 Jul 2017, 13:11I'd probably increase the min cache size too, to avoid clearing too many buffers (i.e. sounds that have a good chance of playing again soon) when the max is reached.Balmoraishome wrote: ↑23 Jul 2017, 12:29 What effect would this have on my game and computer? I'm very much a technical "idiot", so I have no clue what the effect on my computer would be if I changed the max cache size to 64MB+
What would you suggest I change the min cache size to?
So max should be 64MB+ (I'm thinking 66MB?) and min cache size should be set to...?
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Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
UPDATE:
OK. Played with the min/max buffer cache settings and sadly this does NOT help the stuttering in performance.
It DOES, however, get rid of the "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes" message in the openmw.log, so I guess that's a positive.
OK. Played with the min/max buffer cache settings and sadly this does NOT help the stuttering in performance.
It DOES, however, get rid of the "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes" message in the openmw.log, so I guess that's a positive.
Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
It's probably the physics bug again. In certain places with complex objects, the physics engine hits the roof. This is partly fixed in the upcoming 0.42. Are you by any chance running 0.41 now? If yes, try download the latest RC or the latest nightly.
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Re: Massive stutter + "No unused sound buffers to free, using xxxxxxxx bytes !" in Sadrith Mora/Wolverine Hall
Ah ok. I am, in fact, running the latest nightly build (22nd July), though!
But the weird thing is when disabling all my mods and just using vanilla + DLCs + official plugins, the issue isn't there and I'm able to walk without the game stuttering.