Full of bugs? Not really.

[Aileron]

Oops, forgot the real reason I was posting to this thread...what's this memory leak issue all about? Is there any thread/website describing it?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GodSpawn
With regard to the memory leak, and 2GB RAM:

You don't really need lots of RAM to avoid problems with a memory leak. You just need a humongous page file. The reason is that if memory is leaked, it is never accessed, and can therefore be paged out to the page file (in 4KB chunks), swapping out for physical memory that is going to be used.

I got that much RAM specifically so that I wouldn't need a page file.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I got that much RAM specifically so that I wouldn't need a page file.

Ditto.

[ljw1004]

Originally posted by Fuzzyhead
Tell me, how did you remove the (Internet) Explorer out of the WinXp kernel?

IE isn't in the "kernel". The kernel is the protected-mode bit that has secure priviledges and exposes the NT native api. IE, in the form of MSHTML.DLL, is a COM object that uses only win32 api. As a COM object it's loaded by a lot of programs that run with the system, including windows explorer. It doesn't have kernel priviledges (e.g. writing to any arbitrary address in memory, or controlling the hardware directly). It has only userland priviledges (e.g. writing only to addresses in the program's memory, and controlling the hardware only through win32 api).

[Stone-D]

Originally posted by Fuzzyhead

So if you only delete iexplore.exe, what does that do for you? Microsoft Update doesn't work, a heap of built-in HTML-features in other programmes doesn't work, you get registry issues with every major Win update.... And all that trouble for what?

Just install Firefox and forget iexplore.exe.....

Iexplore.exe and tens of megs of other funk.

As for ignoring it, I'm one of the few remaining people that believe I am the master of my own machine. I'm not a windows basher - I'm an IE basher. I'd like to use a good OS without an embedded trojan.

Whether or not you use IE, its still eating ram. My 9x installs have zero IE content, my XP installs have just the bare bones required to read CHM documents and .LIT ebooks. Windows update I don't care, I grab the patches from an administrative location when I can be bothered.

To all those warning about the dangers involved when pruning your OS - you're absolutely correct. Don't try anything like this without serious amounts of research.

I've lost count of the number of reinstalls I waited through because of this.

BTW and FYI, my custom XP install disk, with SP2 embedded, weighs in at 207 Mb, minus additional OEM drivers.

Boy its fast!

[ljw1004]

Originally posted by Stone-D
Whether or not you use IE, its still eating ram.

If you're not using IE then it's not eating ram. That's just how virtual memory works. Stuff that's not being used is paged out.

[Stone-D]

Yep, that's right... but alot of explorer's newer GUI elements use IE functionality. Control panel, active desktop, that funky panel on the left of a window, the "Click here to reveal this folder" thing.

Even add/remove, which was excellent before the shift, was rewritten to incorporate web-like elements. Now it won't fit on a low res screen, such as you get in safe mode.

jscript/vbs script commandlets wouldn't function, AFAIK, sans IE.

Of course, as I use an alternative shell, I don't miss any of this (though being a 9x/2k fan I wouldn't miss it anyway).

BTW, I'm not preaching here, these are my preferences. I grew out of that fanboi act ages ago. If people are happy, that's cool. Besides, when MacIntel gets going full steam I'm switching over.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by GodSpawn
With regard to the memory leak, and 2GB RAM:

You don't really need lots of RAM to avoid problems with a memory leak. You just need a humongous page file. The reason is that if memory is leaked, it is never accessed, and can therefore be paged out to the page file (in 4KB chunks), swapping out for physical memory that is going to be used.

Of course, you still have all the overhead of the data being written to disk, but it shouldn't have a HUGE effect.

If the paged-out memory is accessed after being paged out, then it has to be read back from disk again which causes a huge performance hit if it happens often. BUT then, by definition, it isn't a memory leak, since the memory is still being used...

So: Make yourselves a huge page file.

well-intentioned advice

assuming everyone knows how to make a page file or even knows WTF that is

[player1]

Left click My Computer, chose Properties, then Advanced tab, select Settings for Performance, click Advanced, and then Change.

[alva]

assuming everyone knows how to make a page file or even knows WTF that is

Which is on by default anyway...

So if you have no idea what is it, you have it already.

[Volstag]

My obligatory comments:

The game is very stable for me. I had three primary issues:

1) Mini-map & globe view sporadically becoming "corrupted" (for lack of a better term).
2) Hyper annoying cursor flicker.
3) Performance degrades over time.

#1 was "fixed" by the most recent Nvidia drivers. #2 is a little better since the drivers, but it still flickers something crazy. #3, IMO, is symptomatic of a memory leak... which I hope is addressed in the alleged upcoming patch.

Other than that, most of my "complaints" are of the cosmetic, enhancement nature.

In short, while it could be more stable/refined, the game is emminently playable (though I do have to reboot every 2 to 3 hours depending on size of the game world (memory leak)).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Stone-D
Iexplore.exe and tens of megs of other funk.

When you have tens or hundreds of gigs of HD space?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Volstag
My obligatory comments:

The game is very stable for me. I had three primary issues:

1) Mini-map & globe view sporadically becoming "corrupted" (for lack of a better term).
2) Hyper annoying cursor flicker.
3) Performance degrades over time.

#1 was "fixed" by the most recent Nvidia drivers. #2 is a little better since the drivers, but it still flickers something crazy. #3, IMO, is symptomatic of a memory leak... which I hope is addressed in the alleged upcoming patch.

Other than that, most of my "complaints" are of the cosmetic, enhancement nature.

In short, while it could be more stable/refined, the game is emminently playable (though I do have to reboot every 2 to 3 hours depending on size of the game world (memory leak)).

#1 happens when I alt-tab out of Civ4. It's fixed by entering and exiting the worldbuilder. #2 I haven't encountered, and #3 is the memory leak we've been discussing.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by ljw1004
IE isn't in the "kernel". The kernel is the protected-mode bit that has secure priviledges and exposes the NT native api.

IE is actually in the kernel. Microsoft co-mingled kernel code with IE code.

[Stone-D]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
When you have tens or hundreds of gigs of HD space?

I keep my C: drive small on purpose to minimize defrag times and to maximize the space available to my other data partitions. At home its currently at 5 gigs. This covers xp, 9x and program files.