PF Usage help

**cavedude** · #1 04-24-2008, 03:43 PM

There is at least one known memory leak regarding dynamic zones. The best you can do is keep an eye on your server resources, and kill zone processes or reboot the server as necessary.

**trevius** · #2 04-24-2008, 04:42 PM

For whatever reason, windows always uses PF to share some of the ram usage no matter how much ram you have unless you completely disable the PF. With as much ram as you have, disabling the PF might be an option, but if you run out of ram your PC will crash, so it isn't really recommended.

I don't think the PF is anything to worry about. When your server is running a heavy load, the usage will go up no matter what. As long as your performance isn't affected, you should be just fine. I am sure your new PC should be able to handle things much better. Apparently mine has gotten up to 120ish players during peak times lately and it probably only half as powerful as your new one. Of course, since mine isn't too beefy, I have major zone crashing issues until I can figure out how to off load some zones onto a secondary zone server PC.

thepoetwarrior · #3 04-25-2008, 11:39 AM

Thanks Trevius. I noticed the PF continues to grow and grow until I need to reboot. I know windows will always use the PF, just wondering why its always growing and not just taking up the same space the whole time. Soon as I shut off the server, the PF immediately goes back down to 200'ish

**cavedude** · #4 04-25-2008, 12:32 PM

I already posted why above. There is a memory leak in dynamic zones, and it's pretty bad. Meaning, even when they close dynamic zones will continue to slowly use up memory until you either kill the process, or reboot the server. Until it's fixed you have to watch it.

thepoetwarrior · #5 04-25-2008, 09:25 PM

Oh, my bad cavedude, I saw Trevius reply, not yours, but now I see it. Thanks for the information, that helps out a lot. I figured it was a memory leak slowly growing.

Since you specifically stated dynamic zones, does that mean static zones are differnt and would not have a memory leak? Or is it all really the same process?

Thanks for your help and advise cavedude.

**cavedude** · #6 04-26-2008, 07:20 AM

On TGC static zones don't seem to be effected. Wildcardx took a look on his test server a while back and confirmed the same thing... Dynamics will continue to suck down memory, but static zones will use and free it as needed. There have been times I have seen dynamics using upwards of 300MB memory, and often they aren't even booted! So it's something you certainly want to watch, unless you have the resources to run all static, which would be the preferred method anyway.

erik_llewellyn · #7 04-26-2008, 10:06 AM

I did some research last night on Zone memory/CPU usage and came up with this link

http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/sho...ht=zone+memory

Based on his system specs (2x3.4 GHz CPU, 512MB ram, and running win2k pro), I would guestimate total memory usage to load up all 397 zones staticly(based on current PEQ-4-1106 update DB) to be around 3.5~4 GB with 25~30% constant CPU usage and assuming no one is logged into your server. Most people won't have that much physical ram, but pagefile cache can be used to augment it. While using PF "memory" lets you run more than you otherwise would be able to, it is far slower than having as much physical memory as you can get. From what I have noticed on my server (Athlon64 3000+, 1.5 GB ram, 3 GB PF, winXP Pro-32bit) is that a PF cached static zone loads about as fast as a dynamic zone while a ram cached static zone loads about 4x faster.