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Posted By: DeathWolf High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 05/02/09 03:08 AM
In reference to some of the things in https://forums.mirc.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=208299&page=0#Post208299

I have been experiencing on multiple machines(all running vista/2k8 x64) extreme slow downs that show up in the perfmon results as a full cpu usage in the main thread.(Usually with many channels loaded)

The issue lasts for a few seconds and reccurs fairly often.(the whole ui becomes unresponsive)

It is unrelated to any loaded script as far as I could see(disabled them and the issue still occured).

Studying stacks during the freeze shows them always occuring in the main place in the main stack:
[... uninteresting top of stack since it's consequence of a win32 call...]
USER32.dll!LoadImageA+0x29
mirc.exe+0x23906
mirc.exe+0x15db1a

(originating addresses in mirc.exe do not change).

I am unable to find out what those functions are in mirc since there is(understandingly) no debugging info.
Posted By: argv0 Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 05/02/09 06:12 AM
As alluded in the original thread, it's likely due to the 200 channels you're on. AFAIK, Vista 32 and 64 have different heap sizes and other internals that could cause slowdowns in one version or another-- you can see an extended discussion of one specific side effect of ~200 channels here (even less, in that thread). As Khaled himself says in that thread, there are few things mIRC can do about the resources mIRC uses for channels. Note that that specific issue may not be yours, but it's certainly plausible that they share a common cause given the scenarios.
Posted By: DeathWolf Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 08/02/09 07:18 PM
the odd part is that the cpu usage is not constant at all, and only spikes at times.
(Unrelated to network activity, and there's no disk activity since logging is off)

(Also it's not a gdi heap issue since that is set to 40MB here(it's only of 1MB in xp SP1/3MB in xp SP2), which is very unlikely to be reached by just mirc all alone).

I know this is a bit talking in the wind and not helpful but he's the cpu usage chart of mirc for the past few mins for example(resolution .5s):
http://saber.kawaii-shoujo.net/Various/SS-2009-02-08-8.14.45%20PM.png

Note that the spikes are actually full cpu usage since this is a quadcore, so a single threaded program like mirc can not use more than 25%.
Posted By: RoCk Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 08/02/09 07:59 PM

Since nobody asked in neither this thread nor the other thread, I'll ask, which mIRC version are you using? Also, do you use nick colors? I ask because there was an issue which was fixed in 6.3.

From versions.txt
16/08/2007 - mIRC v6.3

Changes:
..
79.Fixed nick color list freeze issue, instead of updating all nicks
immediately when colors change, now only updates them when they
are visible.

Posted By: DeathWolf Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 08/02/09 09:38 PM
6.35
And yes, using nick colors.

EDIT: and I'd like to add just in case, that scripts are not causing it(unloaded them without a difference) and that I'm not running any resident av, yet do check my disk for virus&trojans and that everything is clean.

EDIT2: and for the more sceptic, here's an even more precise graph drawn with xperf, which also shows it's not dpc/interrupt based:
http://saber.kawaii-shoujo.net/Various/SS-2009-02-08-11.13.58%20PM.png
Posted By: DeathWolf Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 11/02/09 08:02 PM
Currently have been running with nick colors off, highlights off, notify&control off, all scripts unloaded, and I still get the freezes.
Posted By: argv0 Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 12/02/09 01:15 AM
Do you have any background images loaded in any windows of mIRC? You never really followed up on whether you're trying this on a completely clean copy of mIRC.. is it? Instead of unloading scripts after mIRC has launched, put mirc.exe in a new dir with an empty mirc.ini file and run that-- attempt to reproduce the freezing.
Posted By: DeathWolf Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 12/02/09 02:33 AM
No background images.
(All set to none.
I have actually unloaded the scripts and then restarted mirc.

I will try again with an empty profile though as soon as I finish my current tests.

It seems that disabling multi-byte display seems to have helped a bit, but I will need a few days of usage before I can actually confirm that.(the issue might still be occurring only when buffers get full enough)

EDIT: here's the full trace by the way(the trace I always get during freezes though for all I know that function could just be called a lot or simply be frozen, since procexp isnt that clear): http://pastebin.com/m18403734 (not that it can help much)

EDIT 2: on a side note, a friend told me that he has the exact same symptoms. He uses a vanilla mirc and does not have much channels open.(he uses vista 32)
(and as me he sees it even when there is just one window open)
His experience is very similar to mine, and just as me he thought at first it was a dde issue and disabled it, which didn't change a thing.
The whole issue does seem interproc related though(or windows bugging), as there's no visible disk i/o / registry calls / network activity, and it occurs in the middle of mostly nothing.

The only common point we have is that we have japanese ime's. I will try seeing if disabling that can help.(I've noticed that the freezes very commonly occur when I type, but I always attributed that to the fact I wouldnt notice short freezes otherwise)
Posted By: DeathWolf Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 12/02/09 05:32 PM
with ime turned off, the number of freezes greatly dropped(though not completly). Apparently the language services have a number of global mutexes that can easily freeze gdi.(found a few posts on that)

Not too sure on how that can be avoided though... if at all...
Posted By: DeathWolf Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 04/03/09 11:13 PM
not to be too much a dead thread resurrector but I realized I didnt post the full stack of those freezes:
Code:
[leaves for kernel calls]
USER32.dll!GetDC+0x15
USER32.dll!LoadStringA+0x3b2
USER32.dll!GetMenuItemCount+0x84d
USER32.dll!GetMenuItemCount+0xb1a
USER32.dll!LoadImageW+0x142
USER32.dll!CreateIconFromResource+0x174
USER32.dll!LoadImageW+0x22
USER32.dll!LoadImageA+0x29
mirc.exe+0x23906
mirc.exe+0x15db1a
Posted By: DJ_Sol Re: High cpu usage on vista x64/2k8 x64 - 11/07/09 07:21 PM
Are you using any dll's in mIRC?
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