PJ64 v1.5 final "FAILED TO ALLOCATE MEMORY" solution

[Athabaska]

Dear friends:

About a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a thread asking for the "FAILED TO ALLOCATE MEMORY" error.

Well, now, after a bit work with the OS and the emu I have to recognise that it wasn't an emu fault but my fault. I think that I have to say this because all of we like when we are right but we have to recognise too when we go wrong.

Once say this, this is what I did to have the emu working:

1.- I reinstalled the OS and format the hard drive to FAT 32 file system (I had it on NTFS).
2.- I checked the TASK MANAGER and look how many MB were initialized when starting windows. When I got the emu not working, the among of MB that were transferred at starting were ¡¡¡ 180 MB !!! (I know what are U thinking, but let me end the story before laugh on me...). After reinstall the OS, I left the MB transfer in about 90-100 MB when starting windows, and now the emu works really fine!!! :thumbsup:

Since it is explained at the online help of this PJ64's version, the emu needs about 70-110 MB to work fine. Despite I have 384 MB, before the reinstall of the OS there was only 200 MB to run the emu. Now I have almost 300 MB.

Well I don't know yet if the solution is to convert the hard drive to a FAT 32 file system or to leave all the unnecessary tasks that windows starts with to free a lot of memory. So I tried both and now the emu works great!!! This means that it wasn't a compatibility tab problem (I think...).

That's all! Congratulations once again to the PJ64 team and thanks to all of U who cared about my problem and tried to help me.



See you!

[OH! Excuse me... My system:

- P4 1.6 GHz
- 384 RAM
- GeForce 2 MX 400 32 MB with Detonators 40.41 beta
- Windows XP Home Edition
- Direct X 8.1
- ADI SoundMAX onboard audio chipset

:sleepy: ]

[RJA]

The failed to allocate memory error is caused by (probably) by
virtual memory disabled, or the page file is not at least
192+ MB.

With Windows 2000/XP, I recommend NTFS.

You now should reconvert to NTFS, now that the pagefile is at least at the minimum.

[Athabaska]

Hi RJA:

I am not sure at all that the problem was the page file. See, when the emu was not working my page file was of 576 MB (minimum) and I haven't change this value after reinstall the OS and make the things I describe above (and now the emu works great!).

In the other way, as I told before, I am not sure that the solution was to convert the file system to FAT 32 (if it was it would be just like a bad joke, you know...), so I think it is more a RAM usage problem, but I am not an expert. If after reinstall the OS and free RAM at the windows startup the emu would have fail, I wouldn't know in no manner which would be the real cause of it.

About your recommendation to convert again the file system to NTFS, I am on the way but thanks to remember. When reinstalling the OS (it is a pre-installed version on an IBM computer) the default file system is FAT 32 (this is due to a disattended installation), and now I am testing with this file system, though I like the security options and speed increasing of the NTFS system, but I am still waiting for the WXP Spanish SERVICE PACK-1 to convert it. This is because I am from Spain...

Well, for me the solution about this error is just like a magical and computer mistery...

[PS: to disable the programs at the startup, I didn't use the MSCONFIG application, but the REGCLEANER one. I also disable non necessary services to free more RAM. Maybe this is not the reason of the error solution, but it seems to be...

If you or anyone of you readers have got the emu working after this error, it would be helpful for some other people with the same problem to post what did you do to get the emu working...

Well, thanks a lot to all of you. Ciao! ]

[Trotterwatch]

Just a warning - if you use the CMD line FAT32-NTFS converter then the NTFS cluster size will be ridiculous, and will impact performance. So either use a specialised program to do the conversion (I think Partition Magic does it well) or alternatively live with the performance loss!

[Smiff]

I think all we can say for sure at the moment is that it's an OS problem of some kind; PJ64 does have high resource usage. I will add any possible solutions to the FAQ, thanks.

[Athabaska]

TO TROTTERWATCH:

This is about the conversion to the NTFS file system. The first time I did the conversion (long ago before reinstalling windows and test the emu) I used the command CONVERT from the windows system console (I mean the MS-DOS emu that comes with the XP). Since you advise me as well as other friends of mine, I will try to use the command FORMAT for the next time because I have the original applications (most of them freeware ) and a useful back-up of the files. So I hope I could do a clean reinstall of the OS (it takes about 50 minutes for windows and an hour to install the applications and configure the system as well as the user accounts), but as I told before, I am still waiting for the Spanish SP-1 which is not have been realised yet.


TO SMIFF:

I don't know if this would be helpful or not, but these are the startup windows applications I removed as well as the services:

1.- Applications removed:

- (without name): USB Logitech Wingman RumblePad
- RunDLL32, NvCpl, nwiz: NVIDIA Detonator's apps.
- Microsoft Office: Office XP startup.
- qttask: QuicTime 6 tray.
- NeroCheck: Nero 5.5 startup.
- ElbyCheck, CLoneCDTray: Clone CD 4.0 tray and startup.
- SOIntgr: StarOffice 5.2 startup.

2.- Services removed (disabled from the My Computer system manager):

- Machine Debug Manager
- NVIDIA Driver Helper Service

3.- Applications I have on windows startup:

- ctfmon: Don't know yet...
- msmsgs: This is the MS Messenger, I think (and I think this could be removed too, but I am not sure).
- tidslmon: This is from a USB DSL modem.
- LXSUPMON: This is from a Lexmark USB printer.
- navapw32: This is the Norton Antivirus 2002.

4.- Additional services I have on windows startup:

- Norton Antivirus Auto Protect Service: For the LiveUpdate feature.
- LexBce Server: For the printer.

So, as I told before, these applications and services are about 90 to 100 MB of RAM usage (which means about a 25% of the total memory I have). This maybe would mean that the emu needs not the other 75 % but the 50 %, but this is still a bit strange since other people have got running the emu with 256 MB or so...

Well, excuse me the length of the reply. I only try to be helpful to anyone with the same problem and I hope there could be something right in my experience to be advantageous for other users.

Thanks again!!!

[Laahel]

hellow

nice to see this thread, i'm not the only one ;p

the weird thing is that, all previous version of the emu works fine for me ... an the latest version ... well .. it worked when i had installed it ( the day it came out ), and 3 or 4 days age, i had the memory error. wht i don't understant, is that i didn't do nothing to my system, installed no new softwares or components.... i' m lost on this one ... ( this happens only on win98, win2k works fine, but the emu is a little slower ... )

it reminds me that autoframeskip would be a great feature ;p hihi

byeee

[Athabaska]

Yep there, Laahel!

You are right when you say that this problem was not present in previous versions of the emu, because, despite my 180 MB of RAM usage I had before, the 1.4 version and the 1.5 beta 1 worked really good.

But I think that this new version of the emu, which improves noticeably the overall performance (despite little bugs) when running demands a lot of more resources that the previous versions.

So if you have this problem, maybe reinstall the OS and free RAM as much as you can could resolve it. Just try it and if it works, this will be helpful to the PJ64 developer team as I won't be the only one... !

See you!

[Athabaska]

Dear friends (again):

Well, I'm coming from testing the emu with my hard drive successfully converted to NTFS file system with Partition Magic 7.0 (as Trotterwatch recommends me -thanks for the advice ) and after upgrading windows to Service Pack 1 (YES! Finally the Spanish version is out! ), and I haven't had any "FAILED TO ALLOCATE MEMORY ERROR" , so I have to believe that it wasn't a compatibility file system problem (as much of you can expect) but a memory usage problem with the windows startup applications (for the moment)...

The system for the test is the same of the message above (with the WXp SP1 installed) but I haven't notice any remarkable change both in performance or working.

Well, if it works for me, maybe it can work for you! Just try it and post the results here.

See you soon!

[Laahel]

hey ;p

for me no problem with the ntfs since the start, win2k works ok ( i've some bugs, but it my system ;p) ...

what i really don't understand is why, on my win98se, without doing nothing, one day it works, and suddenly, it stopped and show the error ( it is far beyond my logic ;p but i'm sure its in the logic of my #@!* win98 ;p arf )... seem a reinstallation is in the works... ( just need to find where i put my win cd and bye another hard drive becose mine collapsed grrrr no luck :p)

byeee !!