Reducing overall addon memory usage

Vis · 08-08-09, 06:22 PM

I'm going to take a suggestion from Silenia and post my addon list in it's entirety. What I'm looking to do is try and reduce my memory usage a bit by changing addons to less hungry ones wherever possible. Some addons are irreplaceable due to certain features not yet found in other more compact mods but I'm hoping others may have suggestions to lighten the load a bit.

Irreplaceable ones: nUI+, Auc full suite (I know it's a memory hog. It's the only one I have found to be able to search for DE fodder for profit), Skillet, ZOMG, and Fortress. Those are the most important to me at least.

Some current memory information:

103.4 megs on initial load.
120 megs after LOD Auctioneer Data
125 megs after Skillet & Lilsparky's workshop opened
141.3 megs after LOD Lightheaded

And System Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ (3.0 Ghz OC'd to 3.15 Ghz per core)
4 gigs ram (3.25 by Windoze)
2 X Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT

Here goes the "Wall O Addons" Now New and Improved!! with links

spiel2001 · 08-08-09, 06:42 PM

Well...

Before you go too far down the road on this... I want to point out something that is very important to keep in mind. There's more to this formula than how much memory your addons use... it's how they use the memory and most importantly how efficiently they use the CPU which is the *FAR* more important measure.

In fact, in the world of software engineering, we often trade *MORE* memory for better performance. That is, using tables to cache data into can be far more efficient than constantly having to calculate the data for fetch it from a server, etc.

So you have to be careful that you're not throwing away mods that are more efficient for mods that are less so. I would be far more inclined to look at CPU load and frame rate when comparing mods than memory usage.

Vis · 08-08-09, 07:45 PM

There's more to this formula than how much memory your addons use.

No worries there

. I do understand that for the most part, actual memory usage is kind of a non issue provided your system has enough ram to support what you are running (both in WoW and your choice of OS) without constantly reading/writing data back and forth between the disk cache and ram.

My end goal is to reduce the overhead in terms of cpu, memory and number of addons. I believe some of the ones I run end up duplicating each other to an extent also. For the moment, I'm looking for opinions on what others have found that do similar things potentially with better results.

rossman · 08-09-09, 09:00 PM

Here is my setup and the core addons I use. I Would also like a little input on them and what may be better choices.
Hope my comments help.

Windows 7
AMD Phenom II x3 710
4GB Ram
ATI HD4770

nUI
nUI_n52te – my custom button & dashboard layout (So I don’t have to update the files on every nUI update)

Carbonite & nUI_InfoPanel_Carbonite – integrated minimap

Anymeter & nUI_InfoPanel_AnyMeter(testing) – Allows me to not show xp or rep on dashboard

Auctioneer – tried others but always come back.

cargoShip – lightweight LDB display but it's heavy on lua config
Ara_Broker_Guild_Friends
Ara_Broker_Money
Ara_Broker_SpecSwitcher
Ara_Broker_Tradeskills
Attrition - durability
Broker_Bags
Broker_GotMail
Broker_Equipment
nUI_Config_LDB

cargBags – lightweight bag framework
cargBags_Nivaya – very nice bag addon

Ampere - addon manager
Cork - reminder addon
EasyMail - simple. there may be better options.
GatherMate - works with Sexymap & data updated regularly
MikScrollingBattleText
OPie & OPie_EquipmentManager
PhanxChat – still looking for the perfect chat addon.
SexyMap – I just use the gather hud (gathering is so easy with this)
Skillet & LilSparkysWorkshop - Seem to be a good combo.

Skada & nUI_InfoPanel_Skada

Petrah · 08-11-09, 01:10 PM

Vis...

Out of pure curiosity, I made a backup of my WTF and Interface folders and installed all of the addons that you have (with the exception of clearfont2). Immediately upon login my FPS dropped to stupid low numbers. Standing in Silvermoon City on my Pally at the AH, I normally get roughly 121 or so FPS. But with the addons you use I was lucky to get 30 FPS. I dropped (in this order) Auctioneer and all of it's plugins. My FPS went up to about 68. I dropped Armory and my FPS went up to about 70. Analyst, Atlasloot, and Factionizer went next and it brought me back up to around 120 FPS.

Addon Memory usage was over 100mb. Once I dropped those addons it went down to 31mb.

Windows Vista 64bit, Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3GHz, 4GB(2x2GB) G-Skill DDR2 1066 MHz @ 5-5-5-15, Saphire Radeon 1GB GDDR5 4870.

Vis · 08-11-09, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by Silenia

Vis...

Out of pure curiosity, I made a backup of my WTF and Interface folders and installed all of the addons that you have (with the exception of clearfont2). Immediately upon login my FPS dropped to stupid low numbers. Standing in Silvermoon City on my Pally at the AH, I normally get roughly 121 or so FPS. But with the addons you use I was lucky to get 30 FPS. I dropped (in this order) Auctioneer and all of it's plugins. My FPS went up to about 68. I dropped Armory and my FPS went up to about 70. Analyst, Atlasloot, and Factionizer went next and it brought me back up to around 120 FPS.

Addon Memory usage was over 100mb. Once I dropped those addons it went down to 31mb.

Windows Vista 64bit, Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3GHz, 4GB(2x2GB) G-Skill DDR2 1066 MHz @ 5-5-5-15, Saphire Radeon 1GB GDDR5 4870.

I had a feeling one of the biggest hits would be from Auctioneer. And of course, that is one of the best ones for what it does, lol. Maybe it's time with Blizz adding vendor pricing to disable that on all but bank toons since that is where it's needed most, lol.

For reference, I usually pull 30-40 fps in Dala during Peak hours with that full load I mentioned. I haven't tried disabling too much yet, but just slowly whittiling away at different addons and tweaking settings.

Thank you for taking the time to play around with them though. That's one helluva install you probably went through, lol.