Beamdog related

[Mirw]

Hi, its not Arelith related, however i ask the community if anyone faced similiar issue with the beamdog client?
See pic.



my comp is almost old as arelith so its kinda slows down things a bitsy...

thanks

(i will raise it to Beamdogs too)

[Twily]

It does this for me as well.
It can't be easily seen in your version of windows task manager, however the duplicates are background processes started by the exe when you run it. What these processes do is hard to guess; although if I had to, I would predict things such as one to check for updates, one to confirm account credentials, etc.

The same thing can be seen in other programs, such as Firefox and Discord. (and even Chrome, in your screenshot)

Most of these are rather small files, and wouldn't have any notable impact on performance after start up. (my screenshot was taken before startup was complete, once complete all of the bars dropped to 0% CPU usage)


Long story short, it's not anything to worry about. The Beamdog Client does seem to have a ton of background processes compared to most programs, but the processes handled by these are most likely things that have to be done. They could likely alter the way it's handled to have less of these show up in the task manager, but the functions they handle would then have to be handled by another process, which would then take that much more CPU/RAM usage as a result.




If you want to find what's slowing your machine down most, try sorting the task manager processes page by CPU(which is your computers processor). The number displaced is the CPU position is the percentage usage by that process, the higher the number the more of your processor it's using.
If you see anything that you don't need in that moment using a notable amount of CPU usage, closing it will help speed things up. (ie, Chrome is using 13%+8% in your screenshot)

Physical Memory limitations can slow the computer down as well, but this is only highly notable when you're either very low on or out of memory space.
I can see from your screenshot that your CPU usage is at 100%, and the physical memory is at 70%, so at that exact moment odds are it was the CPU(the processor) working as fast is it could(and not being fast enough to handle how much the computer was demanding of it) that was slowing the machine down.

If you ever see your physical memory at 95%+, you'll likely start getting huge slow downs from that. Simply close some programs that are open that you're not using and it will fix the issue.
(ps: tons of internet tabs open at one can also cause slowdowns due to more CPU and especially memory usage)

[BegoneThoth]

Try steam.

[WanderingPoet]

I run the exe directly without running the beamdog client (though I am installed via beamdog) and do not have the extra processes.

[ActionReplay]

My Steam client does the same thing :/

[Morderon]

Everybody's chrome/firefox does the same thing too.

[Opustus]

Runs fine for me without any extra processes on Steam. I've also hidden the game in my library and set my account as private as possible to limit the exposure of my nerdness to my RL friends.

[Twily]

The biggest thing to note is that extra processes aren't bad- they're an entirely normal part of many programs.

The performance impact of these varies by program, but many of the extra processes are things the primary application requires(based on which of that applications services you're using in some cases), and many background processes like that are rather small with a negligible impact on performance*.

(*with a few exceptions, IE In firefox and chrome, each tab appears to have it's own background process for it. More internet tabs = more background processes for your internet application, what you have on the page influencing the size/cpu usage of it. This is still entirely normal though.)

[Mirw]

Thank you very much for everyone the answers. (Meanwhile i dig myself into the deepness of the windows performance options and extra useless effects, and i turn off most of them making at least 15% more speed in my life ) So thanks the higlight these topics.

Kudos!

[BegoneThoth]

Everybody's chrome/firefox does the same thing too.

Those have a reason though.

Why does the Beamdog client need so many resources?

[Twily]

Everybody's chrome/firefox does the same thing too.

Those have a reason though.

Why does the Beamdog client need so many resources?

Think of it more like not being bundled together under one entry.

Even if they could change it so that there's not a ton of entries on the list, the amount of processing power and memory used will be the same. It's just how they wrote their program and it works as they intended. No need to change what isn't broken just to have a few less entries on a list that is rarely looked at.

It is also fully possible their client's code isn't optimized perfectly given the company isn't a particularly huge one*, but I'd rather see them working on fixing bugs in their games rather than optimizing a client that serves the purpose it needs to. (especially when we can launch the game without starting their client).
They wouldn't knowingly put in things that serve no purpose though, as that would do nothing aside from slow down their own program.
*although this doesn't necessarily relate to the number of processes specifically; it's the CPU/RAM usage that would be reliably reduced by optimization, and maybe a couple less processes depending on how they do it

Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_process

There's plenty of programs out there that function in this way.
Even internet browsers with only one tab open still have multiple entries.
(including the primary app, since some versions of windows don't clearly split the background processes from the rest)
Steam (7, 8 on startup)
Battle.net (4)
Discord (3)
Firefox (5 with one tab)
Chrome (8 with one tab)
Minecraft Launcher (3, never launched the game)
Skype (4)
My NVidia Driver/Shadowplay (7)

[BegoneThoth]

Steam and discord actually do multiple things though, warranting the extra use of resources.

What does the Beamdoggo client do aside from launch games?

[Mirw]

I suppose i wanted support the group who made this EE possible and it was pre-relase in Beamdog client. thats all. no extras

[whoisthisis]

Ignore it and stuff more RAM in your PC.

It could be worse, way back when one of the toolset versions in NWN somehow had gotten the disk swapping turned off. You had to have enough memory to hold the whole module. This was a big problem back when computers usually only had 128MB or 256MB of RAM. My solution? Load the PC full of ram. 1GB was a LOT back then. Cost a lot, but dammit someone had to update the module LOL

[Dalek Caan]

Ignore it and stuff more RAM in your PC.

It could be worse, way back when one of the toolset versions in NWN somehow had gotten the disk swapping turned off. You had to have enough memory to hold the whole module. This was a big problem back when computers usually only had 128MB or 256MB of RAM. My solution? Load the PC full of ram. 1GB was a LOT back then. Cost a lot, but dammit someone had to update the module LOL

Contemplating which kidney I am willing to sacrifice, given the current prices for RAM-modules ^^

[Ebonstar]

a kidney cost could run a whole net worth of ram now, isnt like a buck gig now?

create the shortcut from the main.exe and you avoid the beamdog client save when its time to update

[whoisthisis]

I have 32GB in mine. Its worth it to load the computer to the max now with RAM.

[Hunter548]

You should be able to move your beamdog install to through steam rather than through beamdog; one of the options on their website should spit out a steam code for the game, as I recall. You could do that to avoid having to use their client.

[Marsi]

There's plenty of programs out there that function in this way.
Even internet browsers with only one tab open still have multiple entries.
(including the primary app, since some versions of windows don't clearly split the background processes from the rest)
Steam (7, 8 on startup)
Battle.net (4)
Discord (3)
Firefox (5 with one tab)
Chrome (8 with one tab)
Minecraft Launcher (3, never launched the game)
Skype (4)
My NVidia Driver/Shadowplay (7)

Modern day browsers and Electron apps are notorious for being bloated so to use them as a benchmark isn't really any assurance. That doesn't make the program in question bad through-and-through, but if you don't have the latest Gamer™ Rig™ you'll notice the impact it has on your system just to achieve basic functionality.

You should be able to bypass both Steam and the Beamdog client entirely (until you need to update). Those bat files that get passed around allow you to direct connect to Arelith and have your logs saved and rotated with just a command.

More RAM could help, but it's not as simple as more RAM = more good. Upgrading to an SSD would probably be more impactful.