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Memory usage and small platforms?

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:54 pm
by Syllopsium
I know Exult doesn't work in the same way that Ultima 7 did originally, that shapes and other graphics are kept in memory rather than loaded from disk, and there is a different sound system.

That aside, is there a guide to where all the memory goes? I pondered porting to PalmOS a while back, but gave up basically due to the sheer crapiness of PalmOS 5 memory handling plus the hassle in handling SDL calls.

Well, now an SDL beta is out for PalmOS 5, and there's always UMDH for hacking a larger heap in there so I'm considering it at some point.

I would, however, like to know if it's even worth bothering - what's the minimum reasonable footprint. Would the most effective way of reducing memory usage be to recreate the original method of swapping to disk? (I do remember playing the original on a 486; the disk light was permanently on..)

PK

Re: Memory usage and small platforms?

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:56 am
by drcode
Exult's quite a memory hog, especially compared to the original. I'm guessing it uses at least 20Mb. It would be a lot of work to reduce this, and the memory being put into small devices is increasing so fast that I don't think anyone wants to spend the time.