I'm putting this in the Mods section because Morrowind by itself isn't usually resource-intensive enough to cause the problems detailed here. I've seen this subject in other threads but there's usually a bit of confusion.

Anyways, if you mod, you know the correlations between mods and CTDs.

I'm sure we've all seen it before. Someone is pushed to the point of making a thread to address the issue of their game crashing "at random," "frequently" and "without provocation" after installing "X" amount of mods, graphic replacers and MGE. The typical response to this is to post your load order, which usually does nothing but bring to the person's realization that too many mods will pretty much break the game. This is because of Morrowind is an older game with archaic programming, and ends up being a total resource hog in the end. This fact may drive someone to upgrade their rig in response to the crashing, but the money they put into their upgrades has "diminishing returns" with this older software.
Well, I have some useful tidbits of information that everyone should know about their operating system.

We are typically led to believe that when it comes to memory, more is always better. While more memory can solve a plethora of issues on some machines, the idea of "the more the better" isn't necessarily true. Here's why.
By default, Windows will only allocate a grand total of 2GB of ram to 32-bit programs. Whether your machine has 4GB, 6GB or even 8GB of RAM, Windows will still allocate 2GB of ram to every 32-bit program running, leaving the remainder of your memory to the operating system. This means that even as some people throw hundreds of dollars toward lots of RAM, most games, from the older Morrowind to the newer Fallout 3 and Sims 3, will only use up to 2GB of RAM. If the game calls for more than 2GB at a time, Windows is unable to comply and the program fails with a graceful CTD. (Typically upon loading the game, loading new cells, or even after a certain amount of time playing, etc.) Most games only need up to 2GB at a time at most--but larger games (new Bethesda RPGs like Oblivion and Fallout 3, Morrowind with lots of mods, Sims 3 with lots of mods, etc) might have to call for more than 2GB. It's not like you can really tell when or why the program needs this RAM--It just does, at times, and when that happens it crashes "at random."
This is why Bethesda's RPGs are painfully unstable when enough content is added. Each of their 32-bit .exes can only address up to 2GB of RAM.
32-bit programs on 32-bit Windows can address 2GB of RAM.
32-bit programs on 64-bit Windows can address 2GB of RAM.*
64-bit programs on 64-bit Windows can address 8TB of RAM.
Most programs now-a-days are still 32-bit and probably will be for awhile to come.

So what to do about this?
*I have seen a few programs designed to let a 64-bit Windows designate more Addressable Space (RAM) to a 32-bit program, because 64-bit Windows doesn't have the same limit of RAM that a program can access (even though that 32-bit program probably has that limit anyway, hence the program to remove it). What most people don't seem to know, however, is that the limit to addressable RAM to programs on a 32-bit operating system can be changed. Here's how it's done:

For Windows XP 32-bit:
- Go to My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery.
- Click on Settings.
- Click Edit to edit the BOOT.INI, and add "/3GB /userva=2900" to the end.

For Windows Vista/7 32-bit:
- Go to the Start button and type in "cmd" into the search field. This will bring up the command prompt.
- In the command prompt, type in "bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072"

Now Windows should be able to allocate more than 2GB to any of your 32-bit programs. However, the program must also be tailored to address more than the default 2GB.
You can use many of the programs that alter the program's heading and make any 32-bit .exe "Large Address Aware," so it can use all the memory your OS can offer.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=112556
http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

That's it! Morrowind can now address 3GB and my other 1GB goes to the OS--this is a happy, stable medium on my machine, and my game doesn't crash because I "looked at Vivec city" anymore.
Fallout 3 plays with tons of mods and now only crashes once a blue moon.
I'm eager to try this with Oblivion, but not if I can play Morrowind now!

Even with a large address aware patch, my bethesda games still crash pretty frequently. In Morrowind's case, I have always assumed this has to do with bugs in the Graphics Extender, or at least a fair amount of those crashes.

This is a great post, Casey, but I think it's important for people to realize that by using the developmental versions of MGE, they are sacrificing stability for graphics quality. .exe patches like this are nice and do help, but they won't magically take your crashes away, just make them much less frequent.

If you are going to make this an informational post for people to reference down the line, I suggest you include information about tools like mlox, the morrowind code patch, and Timeslip's EXE optimizer.

Thanks for this! I replaced my 2GB ram with 4GB today, so this should be a treat!

Any chance that this info "How to keep morrowind from crashing when using memory intensive mods/progs" could be stickied or added to the stickies?

ST the sticky

I suppose it's worth noting that in my latest reinstallation and playing of Morrowind, I've kept mods to a relative minimum, applied RAM fixes and kept my MGE graphical upgrades modest and have experienced so few CTDs a high school shop teacher could count them on one hand.

Well thats not very informative, is it their good hand or their offhand, depending on which your talking about effects how many fingers they have!

How does this method compare to the 4 gb patch method for win 7 x64 systems. Seems like both methods basically do the same thing.

Precisely; the second link is the same program that has been seen around here for a bit now, while the first link is a program with the same purpose but the added advantage of being able to toggle the flag in .exe files rather than just setting it on. It isn't different than what you've seen before.

It's a good write up of the problem and the solution, though. A sticky would be great if we could get it!

If you've a 64-bit OS, you only need to apply the 4 gb patch to Morrowind.exe, and nothing else, as the OS can already handle more than 2 gb's of memory per program.

Yeah, but who uses MGE anyway? It makes your game 10x laggier while making it a tiny bit prettier.

I never use MGE and I get by fine with normal mods, and my game still looks purty.

Right...

I know very little about these kinds of things, but back when I had only 512mb of ram available, my system would sometimes use hard drive space as a sort of slow substitute to compensate. Now I have 2GB which seems to work perfectly fine until a lot of material is added. I know this is really inefficient, but since Morrowind does not recycle ram very well I am wondering weather that approach could be used to cut down on random crashes and how one would set it up. I imagine the slow speed of hard drive memory might actually be counterproductive, could it be set up to work only when Morrowind demands more than 2GB?

Just wondering. :turtle:

No, you obviously have never used it...

It told me "Access denied" when I tried to enter that thing in the command prompt. I have no idea why, since I am on an administrator account...

So, having 3go of RAM, I suppose it's the statu quo for me. (2 for the game, 1 for the OS sounds about right)

With or without the quotation marks?

Edit: Ok, so if I am able to use more than a GB of virtual memory and the EXE and boot ini have both been set to use up to 3GBs of memory, will that work at all?

I'm not trying to say this will fix "every" crash--but it definitely fixes a lot of them when large amounts of mods or huge games are involved. MGE will sacrifice stability, but the difference with and without the Addressable Space "fix" is substantial if you load a lot of content.



Yeah--like if you have 6 gigs of RAM you can let .exe files address 3 gigs and the OS automatically will take the other 3 gigs.


I'm not quite sure how that all works--I don't know if the OS will use parts of the Addressable RAM that isn't -currently- being used by the .exe. I don't think it can, so you really should be careful where you draw the line. That's probably why the threshold is there in the first place.


I dunno. :shrug: I think you have to right-click it and run as Administrator.

Right-click what exactly? I'm typing this into the command prompt that comes up when I type 'cmd' in the search bar. There's nothing to right-click!

EDIT: Never mind, I just remembered I have 64-bit Win7. Where's that 4GB patch I hear about?

lol. Tons and tons of people use MGE. My computer can handle the shaders and a very far draw distance for distant land without losing playable framerates. The game looks more than just a tiny bit prettier, I reckon.

Gotta say I'm a bit jealous of that, haha. Though, to be honest, I'm very very very happy with the non-photo realistic approach I've taken to my set up. Highly playable frame rates are just a convenient side effect