[R&F] memory leak making game unplayable

[madeirabhoy]

haven't played civ vi for a few months but definitely did play it on this 2017 iMac. with only 8gb and I always leave it open rather than quitting so its open for days, weeks, without problems. I have rise and fall but not gathering storm.

so the other day I opened it, started a new game, big map but not tons of nations, fairly normal. only played a few turns then left it open. the next day my computer was crashed and there was a window saying all memory was used quit some apps to free up space. but I couldn't do anything as it was crashed and locked.

I restarted. opened civ vi. started a new game, earth map. and had activity monitor open. it starts out at 680mb use.

but the time the game is on though it's 2.84gb. I played a few moves and then thought maybe I should make the screen smaller and turn off some of the graphics options. surely that will decrease the memory.

by the time I've turned the graphics down from 1920x1200 to 1600x900 and turned off FSAA and shadows and things and started a new game in Europe true positions, memory is up to 4.8gb. two turns in its 5.2gb. I haven't even touched it since as im watching football but without even pressing anything its slowly creeping upwards. now at 6.19gb. sorry make that 6.23gb. and increasing by around 100mb a minute.

5 mins later, 6.55gb and I haven't pressed continue. I then quit as I think its going to crash soon.

 

[dojoboy]

I submitted a support ticket within days of GS’s release. Was told they're testers are not seeing the issue. I did a complete reinstall and went with no mods, memory leak still present. Haven't played the game since. Very disappointed. Right now I'm looking forward to Imperator: Rome's release this coming Thursday, April 25.

 

[madeirabhoy]

I submitted a support ticket within days of R&F's release. Was told they're testers are not seeing the issue. I did a complete reinstall and went with no mods, memory leak still present. Haven't played the game since. Very disappointed. Right now I'm looking forward to Imperator: Rome's release this coming Thursday, April 25.

ive just had an answer to my support ticket, asking me to reinstall, verify files, run disk utility etc...

today I opened a fresh install and left it at the first screen. within an hour it had gone from 2gb to 7gb without me even clicking on new game or open game.

lets see what they say. what machine are you on? I'm on 2017 iMac 27" 3.5 i5, radeon pro 575

 

[dojoboy]

I'm playing on a late-2013 iMac 27", 3.4GHz i5, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M.

Civ6 vanilla and R&F played flawlessly on my machine. I started a game in R&F after the issue with GS. manifested and the same memory leak occurred. Really want this resolved ASAP.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback from Aspyr.

 

[madeirabhoy]

I'm playing on a late-2013 iMac 27", 3.4GHz i5, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M.

Civ6 vanilla and GS played flawlessly on my machine. I started a game in GS after the issue with R&F manifested and the same memory leak occurred. Really want this resolved ASAP.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback from Aspyr.

after reading that, I went and reinstalled without R&F but still the same.

seems first two steps of aspyr's support are just computer generated, the first gives a list of generic suggestions, and you have to reply to say you've done them, then next is an email telling you there was an update nearly a week ago, and you have to reply to say you have it and still issues. hopefully the next step is a human.

 

[madeirabhoy]

nothing more from aspyr but solved it myself.

when you open the first app, and press settings, it asks you if you want to play under metal or opengpl. it defaults to metal (as it should in theory be better). im guessing this is fairly recent thing but maybe its not and its a clash with something.

anyway, memory leak happens 100% of the time for me using metal.
turn off metal, and certainly this evening so far, no memory leak.

 

[dojoboy]

nothing more from aspyr but solved it myself.

when you open the first app, and press settings, it asks you if you want to play under metal or opengpl. it defaults to metal (as it should in theory be better). im guessing this is fairly recent thing but maybe its not and its a clash with something.

anyway, memory leak happens 100% of the time for me using metal.
turn off metal, and certainly this evening so far, no memory leak.

Hm, do you mean the first time after installation? I honestly don't recall ever seeing that option. Will look asap.

 

[dojoboy]

Hm, do you mean the first time after installation? I honestly don't recall ever seeing that option. Will look asap.

Nvrmnd, found it. Looked in the Aspyr pop-up settings. Giving it a go.

 

[dojoboy]

nothing more from aspyr but solved it myself.

when you open the first app, and press settings, it asks you if you want to play under metal or opengpl. it defaults to metal (as it should in theory be better). im guessing this is fairly recent thing but maybe its not and its a clash with something.

anyway, memory leak happens 100% of the time for me using metal.
turn off metal, and certainly this evening so far, no memory leak.

Did you start a new game, to see the effect? I loaded a save created under Metal and experienced the same lag. Should I begin anew using OpenGL and trash old saves?

 

[madeirabhoy]

Did you start a new game, to see the effect? I loaded a save created under Metal and experienced the same lag. Should I begin anew using OpenGL and trash old saves?

thing is I didn't need a game open to get the problems, but I started a new game just in case. been open on my computer Ever since with no problem.

 

[dojoboy]

K. I'll start a new game. Right now I'm giving Imperator: Rome a once over. Looks like it's going to be another amazing Paradox title.

 

[doolar]

Same problem here with my Imac 2013. Was working fine before. I tried reinstalling the game, running it in OpenGL, restarting with new game, windowed, different resolutions and graphics settings. Nothing works. Any of you guys got it running properly again?

 

[dojoboy]

Unfortunately, I’ve not stumbled upon a better approach than restarting the app in OpenGL, thanks to madeirabhoy.

I did get to around 1700 AD before the issue cropped up again.

I’ve stopped playing the game altogether. Pop in now and then to see if there’s been a patch. :sigh:

Must not be affecting enough many Mac players. That, plus Aspyr having other pressing concerns atm.

 

[doolar]

The OpenGL switch does nothing on my Imac. Fired up my MacBook Air, 2015 model with 8 Gb of ram (the Imac has 12 Gb), not a single issue in Metal. It runs as it used to. The major difference apart from ram usage not skyrocketing, is the number of threads, 25 used on the Air, vs over 100 on the Imac. Really strange. Both machines are on same MacOS version, Steam version and of course Civ version.

 

[dojoboy]

The OpenGL switch does nothing on my Imac. Fired up my MacBook Air, 2015 model with 8 Gb of ram (the Imac has 12 Gb), not a single issue in Metal. It runs as it used to. The major difference apart from ram usage not skyrocketing, is the number of threads, 25 used on the Air, vs over 100 on the Imac. Really strange. Both machines are on same MacOS version, Steam version and of course Civ version.

Video cards?

 

[doolar]

Video cards?

The Imac's got the GTX 775M 2 Gb - a discrete card (I have the same card in my PC laptop, no problems there of course. And it used to run good on the Imac before.
The Air's got the Intel Graphics HD 6000 - a non-discrete card.

 

[Zaimejs]

It is good to see others have had this problem. I thought it was just me. I am Beta testing new OS releases on my iMac... and some releases seem to make Civ unstable. I think it is a video card issue... I never saw this Metal option... I will look for that. After the most recent release, I played a standard game all the way throughout without crashing (knock wood).... but for awhile, it would crash as soon as I opened a map. I noticed that if I had some other video open in the background, this would lead to more crashes. There was definitely a memory leak issue that was leading to the crashes.

 

[dojoboy]

I think it is a video card issue...

I was wondering such.

There was definitely a memory leak issue that was leading to the crashes.

This is reassuring, in that Aspyr is actually aware and a possible fix is in the works.

 

[doolar]

Ok, I have found a solution that seems to work ok-ish. Reset all to default - note, it's not enough to press the "reset" button, you also have to make another change to light up the save settings button. Then I quit the game, change to OpenGL and run it. I can change all settings to my liking - but not touch the Graphics settings. If I do, I'm all back in the ram eating fest. So it's low settings... But I can play atleast.

EDIT: No... I can play for an hour or two, then the problem is back. Sweet baby jesus wept Aspyr, fix this ASAP!

 

[dojoboy]

I've seemed to stumble upon a playable set-up. The arrangement has proved fruitful on two several-hour playing sessions. This was derived from fiddling with graphics settings, which implies this is a video card issue (re: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2 GB) rather than a memory leak.

Playing in window mode - 2048x1152 - using Metal w/ Reflection Quality disabled and Quality on low has allowed me to play the game as designed.