Forged Alliance Forever Forums
Moderator: Morax
Tanksy wrote:About the Steam version:
The exe from Steam shows its version as v1.6.6
The exe from LOUD/from CD shows its as v1.5.3603
I fixed my audio issues I originally had with LOUD, and my solution (it seems) was through copying over the DLL files from the bin directory of the steam version of the game, to the bin directory created by the LOUD updater. I have a hunch it's due to the DLL files that were provided by the Updater, being straight from the CD version of the game not correctly working with the hardware accelerated sound setting that is in place on more modern Windows operating systems. (As it is in Windows 10, for example; you can't change Hardware Accelerated sound settings through the DXDIAG tool.)
The DLL files provided with the Steam version of the game are probably kept more up-to-date, and the exe itself has had some changes made to it compared with the CD version -- Although this is probably just the Steam API, Steam DRM and Steamworks Multiplayer systems. (The "Multiplayer Lobby" changes.) There seems to be no other differences except the multiplayer lobby, and the versioning of the game. For example; The GPGnet code and files still remain in place, and are just overridden by the Steam lobby.
The reason the Steam exe might be reaching the 32-Bit memory limitations is due to the use of the Steam API and such changes. Although I would recommend against trying to use the Steam exe with LOUD, as LOUD wasn't created with the steam exe version of the game so it won't be specifcally tailored to it.
Currently I'm not looking into the exact differences, but have been making adjustments to a separately installed, unpacked version of the LOUD mod to see exactly which files are needed and which are not, what code functions are used and what are not. Overall reducing the memory used. EG: Only 5 of the Movie files are ever used by LOUD, so the rest are scrapped. Campaign audio files are scrapped. Old systems that weren't finished -- such as the Weather system, are scrapped. The game's Ambient and Music audio is also scrapped, as these were large files in the memory. None of these file removal changes have really been put into the live LOUD version, until I root out all the functions that may possibly be making calls to use these missing files. I like the idea that LOUD should be running in a separate directory entirely as a separate installation of the game, and only have the exact files it needs, but I've still to really pitch this idea to the creator of the Updater, as it would be down to him to make the updater create this "new directory" for LOUD.
TL;dr - Steam version uses more memory because API, DRM and Steamworks. That's probably why it's more prone to memory crashes.
Tanksy wrote:@Paxton
I'll have a look. Do you mean the loading screen for each faction, when entering a game? Or the loading screen for when the exe is launched? (Because those are soon to never appear again)
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