nUI memory usage
 

I've installed the nUI 5.3.01+ and have been having severe performance issues while raiding. My fps's have always been low, but it was getting impossible to play. I decided to install FU_performance and was shocked with what i saw: nUI was using a ton of memory, but the worst was the increase rate, measured In Megabytes.

I atached a few prints with and without nUI.

first pick, during combat.
Second pic out off combat with nUI
Third pic out of combat without nUI.

After i disabled nUI the performance improved a lot. For what i was able to see, with nUI on, the game was invoking the garbadge dump every few seconds, while without nUI it wasn't needed.

The prints may not be the best. When i have time i'll do a fresh install and try it again.

Flinger -- the memory usage issue is not really an issue except for the fact that the garbage collector does clearly have non-trivial problems since WoW 3.0

That said... my top priority now, aside from finishing the detachment of the configuration data from the layout engine, is cleaning up nUI's memory usage to reduce the load on the borked garbage collector.

However... it is *very* important that you understand the problem is *not* nUI. This post is a perfect illustration of the issue... http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...03572404&sid=1 -- raiders everywhere have been having endless FPS issues even in otherwise "lightweight" configurations.

Do know I am working on improving nUI's footprint.

its does that all the time there no need to worried its goes from 10mb to about 25mb if I'm not raiding about 25mb to 35mb when i am but it drops back down because it is the garbage that nUI is throwing when it working just like any other addon just have to remember that its a standalone coded UI

Yes, i am aware of that.
I noticed that the problem was in the garbage collector, and i supose, correct me if i'm wrong, that it is triggered by the amount of memory being used. I also know that isn't under your control, execept for trying to reduce the amount of memory/garbage used/generated by nUI.

I'm glad you are aware of the problem, and working on minimizing it.

I'm also aware of that, and i must agree it was a litle unfair from me to just comparing both performances, with and without nUI. I should compare nUI with other addons doing the same work. I believe the Unit frames alone must use a lot of memory.

I will be making a non nUI raiding interface, and will post any relevant data i may come across. Though i love nUI, the diference, as slight as it may seem, is huge on such a low performance system as mine. Hope you can improve it soon, so i can get back using it.

Yeah, I have been having the same issue whenever I raid or run instances. I pretty much have no problems when just solo questing but once I get into an instance/raid the whole thing borks out on me. One thing that I have done to help alleviate the situation is to set a macro for a garbage dump on a hot key so whenever my fps tanks I can just hit the garbage dump macro and poof I'm back in business sooner than just waiting it out.

Well... the problem here is that I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place... the issue is that there's a problem that is not unique to nUI. It is impacting a LOT of mods out there ever since 3.0 and appears to be even worse in 3.1 -- I'm working to alleviate the problem as much as I can by reducing how much garbage nUI generates, but I don't know that I can truly fix it. Even very lightweight UIs are having FPS issues.

Given Bliz's new addon development policy, if I were a conspiracy theorist I would suggest it wasn't by accident. However, I do believe it to be just coincidence. The problem, however, is fixing it.

/sigh

This thread is a good example of the FPS issue in play for people who are using mods other than nUI... http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...03572404&sid=1

Could there be a memory leak in some of those instances? They had a pretty severe one in that one cave where you do the daily quest, Slaves to Saronite (I remember the huge posts on that in the bug reports forum). Blizz fixed that one though. The FPS drops in that cave were pretty bad and would cripple even the best gaming systems.

Yeah -- I think it's pretty clear Bliz has a couple of serious bugs in the UI engine as of 3.0 and 3.1 -- no telling how long it will take to fix.

The problem is though that people go into raids and they have to have their addons. This makes it impossible to submit a bug report to the Blizz devs unless they're playing with a default clean setup. So it's a catch 22 :(

Very true.

Well, it is true i can't do much testing in Raids, otherwise my raid leader will kicking my butt big time, but i supose some testing can be done in battlegrounds. AV is perhaps the perfect place for it.

Were you refering to nUI alone, or to all the addons together? Because nUI alone, in my test, was using over 40 MB.


I am currently trying to improve my system's performance, resorting to all kind of tricks i can remember. Possibly i'll have to increase the memory, from the current 2GB to 4GB, though it will require a big investment as my computer only works on ECC registered RAM.

Did you check out the System Performance Guide, 3.1 edition sticky over on the Tech Support forum? There might be something that can help you there.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...71909544&sid=1

Can you replicate the same problems these people have been having Mr a Bagel and Coffee every day man ?

>_>
<_<

I wonder if there's anything in badaddons.wcf in the affected users Wow folders -_-

That's the hard part... replicating it... it seems to be on a system by system basis... some players are running 30-40fps in raids, others are at 7 and both running the same version of nUI and in testing in some cases nUI is the only enabled addon. But what's the variable that causes one person to have no FPS issues and someone else to be slam dunked?

That's the part where I have no clue. Maybe I need another bagel.

A huge memory increase, usually means tables are created in an OnUpdate or OnEvent handler.

There was an addon once which hooked all frames in the UI, and measured the time and memory increase before and after those events fired. I just cannot remember where to get it anymore.

The problem isn't the memory -- I know what memory is created when and where, the problem is why to do some people have a huge FPS hit and others don't -- that's the one I'm working on... though in part by trying to eliminate the creation of garbage memory... which isn't an issue of not knowing which garbage memory I need to get rid of so much as figuring out another way to accomplish the same task without creating it in the first place.

Scott, Have you verified that everyone has the same settings in nUI? In otherwords, do some have /nui anim on and others have it off? Some difference in the way they are using nUI perhaps?

I mean, verifying that they have other Mods disabled is cool, but what about the differences in nUI itself.

Also out of random curiosity how much will a users computer be a factor in this? If they are maxing out their processor and ram to run things would that make a difference? I ask out of mere curiosity as i try to be the tech guy for my guildies and im a bit of a geek so it helps =P

Options could certainly be a contributing factor. However the sheer number of possible permutations makes tracking that down and nearly impossible task. I'll have to give some thought to which options could have an impact on performance as most or on/off and location type things.

System capacity could always be an issue. That said, and interestingly enough, it seems that the people who have the most problems are typically those with the most up-to-date computers. So I'm not certain that is a factor, though perhaps O/S or other system architecture could be an issue -- which would all be outside the realm of things I could do anything about.

It bears repeating here that people who are not using nUI have these issues as well.

Let me just quickly add my two coppers worth.

I also see this memory increase, and am running a very low end system (5 year old now) and the rate of memory increase fluctuates depending whether I have my eyes crossed or...... ermmm...

Heh, in fact, since having asked for your help previously with this problem, Oh Father of nUI (forget which thread), I've done the testing with just core nUI+ running, and disabling/re-enabling all add-ons and have not been able to pin it down to any individual program running.

This GC problem is different from day to day playing, some days nUI will increase at a .3MB p/s rate (which I can work with), others at 1-2Mb p/s (which means an FPS drop and frame freeze every 6-7 minutes... not good). However, when I get this massive memory usage increase, I find that logging out completely and restarting "fixes" this.

Hence could it be a problem with something not loading correctly at start-up or am I just showing my ineptitude with all things coded?

Cheers

Does that mean we get to call him Big Daddy? :p




Sorry.. very tired and giddy lol. When I read what you said I remembered Kelly Ripa and how she calls Regis Philbin "Big Daddy"..... hilarious!

Yeah baby. ~lol~

Can I have a hairy chest and wear gold chains too?

OMG *shudders*

I did NOT need to read that first thing in the morning. :p

*tries to drown out the thoughts with super strong coffee*

Wait, I thought that was the case anyway. It's not??

~lol~

Well... I don't wear the gold chains and since I'm fair haired, you almost wouldn't know the other.

~grin~

Oh. :eek: Thank you for the clarification.... I think.



:p

Has anyone seen my Brain Bleach? I really need to get that mental image out of my head.
;)

Can't help you with that, though I do have some extra chlorine for the gene pool.

there a few people at work i need removed from the gene pool <.<

Okay... now that 5.03.04 is out, I would like to get some feedback from folks in the field... how are things looking with the new event/update engine?

How do frame rate and memory usage look?

Is there a notable change in either in practice?

Being that I spend all my time writing code instead of playing these days, I really haven't been able to measure this myself, so feedback from the field is needed so I can get a measure of whether or not I'm headed in the right direction.

So far so good here. I haven't hit a 40 man BG yet, but memory seems mostly consistent while solo at around 12-16 megs, very slowly climbing to the 16 mark. I haven't noticed any stuttering/lag looking issues either from that damn Blizz garbage collector.

:banana::banana::banana::banana:

Now that just won't do Scott. I order you to play WoW more. I mean you want to test your addons surely - grins.

I'll be able to test it all out when the raids reset Tuesday unless we do something tonight.

Everything appears to be just fine on my end. 66 FPS in 10 man Nax, and most of my settings are on high (even Shadows is nudged up just a tad). Memory usage appears to be okay as well.

I like those kinds of numbers ~smile~

25 man caused me to go down to 11 fps. Not sure of the memory consumption as I forgot to check that but will check again tonight. I usually don't have my graphic settings up maxed except on the stuff thats important.

As per my previous post (which by the way seemed to have gotten hijacked as it was never answered) it's still happening with the latest version.

I log in, give my ancient system 2-3 mins to stabilise and wander off into the Hulu to smite some nasties.... now, I still haven't pinned this issue down to anything, but some days I'm able to play for hours on end (with mega caffeine hits...... :p ) and no issues, yet on other days, within half an hour the GC goes nuts and nUI keeps loading at 1Mb per 3 seconds, hits the GC point, freezes between 5-12 seconds (even though everything in the background is still going - ie: if in a fight, keep getting smashed and am able to mash my buttons by listening to what sound currently plays with my key rotation - have I mentioned I DETEST fighting blind, as that's what it's like) and it will hit the GC on average every 2 to 3 minutes.

The only 'fix' I've found for this is to completely shut down WoW and start from scratch. This, as I've already stated, tends to 'fix' the problem.... Any clues?... coz I'm completely clueless :D

Cheers

Are you on 5.03.04 yet Senutyenool?

The memory issue you're describing, though not 100% fixed yet, has been addressed in the 5.03.03/5.03.04 development version. At this point, in testing, I'm seeing nUI tick about 10k every 5-10 seconds on average and the garbage collector running far more gently as a result... that's a *long* way from the numbers you're reporting which are pretty much identical to what I was seeing *before* those two patches.

Yes, I'm running 5.03.04, hence why I thought I'd throw this out there.

I have a feeling it might partially be due to my old, 4 year + system (running only 1Gb of RAM), maybe coupled with being restricted to using dial-up that might, repeat might be part of the issue. But it's hard to make this a definitive answer as the 'problem' flucuates from day to day.

I'll just keep monitoring it, and if it gets too 'hinky', it's only a matter of a complete reload. As stated, being restricted to dial-up (for hopefully only 6-8 more weeks) doesn't allow me to join raids at this stage anyway, so till I get back to the realms of faster connections I'll muddle along, once I get 'hooked' up again I'll monitor it again and if needed post back my results.

Cheers

Okies... and for what it's worth, a simple '/nui rl' should have the exact same effect as a "complete reload" and is much faster.

Nope, doesn't fix it, nor does a /console reloadui....

Next....:confused:

Cheers

Well... if a '/console reloadui' doesn't fix it, then the problem you have is either in WoW itself or your computer because the '/nui rl' and '/console reloadui' restart the entire addon engine from the ground up... new thread, new memory, reload all of the source code for the mods, reinitialize saved variables, etc. So, if that doesn't fix the problem, then the problem is not related to your addons.

Yeah, had a sneaking suspision that it wasn't the case, now to try and track down what in my system is causing me grief...... might have to talk to the Household Command Officer about aquiring a new PC..... /sigh

Cheers

Scott,

I don't know what is going on, but I always seem to be in the minority. When other people have problems, my system runs like a dream. When changes are made to correct problems, that is when my system starts acting up.

Now I will be the first to say that I am an addon junkie. I have quite a few addons running at the same time. That said...when I am trouble shooting problems, I always backup my WTF folder, delete it and begin the process of disabling 5 addons at a time until I find the cause of my problem(s).

After about an hour of using this method, I have 2 addons that seem to aggravate the Bliz garbage collecting bug.

nUI and Carbonite

I am sure other addons have the same issue, its just these 2 that cause the most problems. Even running solo with no other addons, the problem is there, it just takes a little longer to peak.

I am running the latest version 5.03.04-Dev on a Macbook Pro w/ 2gb ram.
I don't do much raiding so I can't tell you if this happens in a raid scenario. With all my addons active, it takes about 1 hr for me to start having low FPS and high memory usage issues.
(FPS drops to 5)
(nUI memory usage jumps from 10mb to 55mb)
(Carbonite memory usage jumps from 13mb to 25mb)

Both nUI and carbonite running solo, it takes about 3 hrs for the problem to start. I have not tested all my addons solo, but Auctioneer ( which is the next addon with high memory usage ) running solo for 5 hrs does not cause the issue. LOL.. I have way to many addons to test them all out solo. This round of testing took me almost a week to do.

I waited this long to report my problem because I wanted to make sure I isolated all other addons first.

I know there are some bugs with Bliz and you are doing all you can to lighten the problem. I just figured I would report my problem with some detail, just in case there are others out there who were affected with the latest update. I don't think there is anything that can be done, until Bliz fixes issues on their end. I could be wrong though. I am no programmer, just a user that knows enough to be dangerous.

I did not have the memory or FPS issue until this last release. And yes, /nui rl does clear the problem. That is how I have been getting by. About every hour I have to send that command and then I am good for another hour.

Thanks,

gman

I"m curious what happens if you do this the other way around...

Rename WTF and Interface both and log into WoW, set up video and sound and exit again. Then install only nUI and play a while... what happens? Same problem?

Scott,

I am heading out for the day. I will give this a try this evening and let you know the results.

gman

I can second on this issue. Same two addons. Carbonite and nUI. This became a major issue as of late seeing as I've started to doing Wintergrasp multiple times daily and it's usual practice to form 40 man raid groups. Memory usage absolutely sky rockets once the group is maxed to the point that I've got a addon switcher addon to change to a bare minimum addons enabled profile just to go to WG. nUI I've seen go through the roof, and carbonite will spike ahead with it as well. I'm quite aware of the intense and limitless spell intensity ect with the WG zone but I believe I have my settings at a optimal medium and perhaps lower than needed with the system I'm running.

I've got 4GB memory w/Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS card w/ 1GB DDR3 dedicated ram

Well you have a better system than me .. granted I don't do wintergrasp or 40 man raids but I have noticed the odd spikage when I do 25 Naxx and I've DC'd a couple of times but then so have others that do not have nUI but do have carbonite. I don't use Carbonite but do have nUI. But, knowing how much nUI is doing and carbonite I am guessing does a lot of processing, they would be pulling in more memory usage as Blizzard hasn't got a database system in place people can use. All data used by the addon has to be stored in memory while it is active.

Scott,

4 hours of playing, without my precious addons, seems to be my limit. Following your instructions above, I played with only nUI for 4 hours. I seem to have the same problem, it just took a little longer to peak. I reloaded the UI and all went back to normal.
I'm sorry, I do not have the patience to give it another go. (4 hours is a long time) I really miss my addons and find it difficult to play without them.

I guess I will just keep reloading the UI when necessary. If you need anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,

gman

EDIT -- I am going to do the same with just Carbonite loaded. I suspect I will get the same results. I will let you know.
EDIT -- I finished testing with just Carbonite loaded. It seams that Carbonite memory jumps is actually worse than nUI. Maybe I just have an issue with my system.

Well... I can't speak for Carbonite, but I have seen some situations in which nUI is still ticking off a respectable amount of memory... I'm working on resolving that.

In the meantime though, it looks to me like the garbage collector is simply not running on your system and that's a huge problem... but also entirely unrelated to any specific mod.

Thanks Scott...

Garbage collector is working. I run performance fu and I can see the collection times on it. It does seem to reduce the amount used. It's just after a while, the collector can't keep up with the rapid gain.

No worries man... I can live with it. After all, I am the addon junkie that just can't play without my fix.

gman

I still see a massive increase in memory used 100mb+ is not unusual for nUI on my end. In the end the game starts lagging so much, that I have to relog and disable nUI, this instantly resolves the lag on my end.
Being at work atm. I cannot provide much technical information, but I will update this post when I get home with more accurate information, including version numbers etc.

EDIT: Of course the login server to my realm is down atm. so I can't even log in now to provide any further usefull info.. I will try again later. =(

I have not yet done a "clean" setup with nUI+, because I'm a stubborn fool that assumed that nothing could go wrong. So yes that will be my next course of action. Anyway, I will still provide you with as much data as I can, before attempting a clean nUI setup. Hoping that it can reveal some bugs that you can squish with that dwarf beard.

EDIT2: I am running nUI+ 5.03.01 at the time I was experiencing this. The place I experienced it was in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and in Heroic Ulduar. I have, at the time of writing this, not been able to reproduce the same error, so therefore I suggest you ignore this post. I will make a new one here, should the problem arise again, and then I will make sure to post as much information as I can.

Which version of nUI are you running?

100+ Meg! o.O

I have never seen it over about 54meg and in a 40 man raid. Very strange indeed. Have you followed the clean install instructions in http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=21716 and are you running the most current version (5.03.10) ?

I have *almost* the same issue. With Carbonite AND nUI running my memory peaked last night in WG @ 127Mb - however i do NOT get an FPS loss - i stayed up at 30+ all the time.

My system has 4GB ram, Intel 6600 and nvidia 9800GTX with 768Mb Ram

Let me ask you the same question... what version of nUI are you running?

I'm running 5.03.01 plus

AH -- okay -- that's why you're still having that issue... there has been a *lot* of work done in the development version to address that problem. However, that code has not been released yet because I still have three more modules to complete and test.

I *strongly* recommend you give 5.03.11 a try and see what happens... I'm confident you'll find your memory usage *much* lower and I also suspect you'll see a significant improvement in your frame rates.