I was just using the Construction Set for Morrowind, and noticed something very disturbing: It used up 2GB(!) of memory !! Now Alfred VanDorssen is my name, and big memory is my game, but this is ridiculous. For working on a single cell!? Unbelievable! This, people, is no severely complex cell; in fact it is probably less so than others. Has anyone else run into this experience where the CS appears to chew up memory in seemingly exponential leaps? Twice Windows warned me that it had to increase VM. I never had this happen before, so I am truly perplexed.

Is there some setting I am not using and should? Is there a work around. Is it a fact of life? Please tell me.

The Constrution set is not 2GB what you are seeing is both morrowind and the constrution set. And about CS being super complex, I never saw it too complex. I never ran into a problem of having to get more VM. Maybe your computer needs better memory or graphics card. But I don't think there is a setting either. If you think about it 2GB is just right for Morrowind combined with the CS. Morrowind is such a large game that you do need lots of Memory. So what ever your saying or questioning...Just drop it. No one cares. Just get more memory and play the game.

I beg your pardon, but no, I do not think the computer is the culprit and I do not think the layman’s' answer of "just get more memory" will cure it, although it could be buggy drivers or something... But I would think that sort of thing would happen with most D3D games. The Construction Set itself is not complex, and neither is the mod I was working on, and I did not have Morrowind proper open at the time (that only takes up about 512MB memory on my system in any event). I know that some complex mods (while compiling complex scripts and what not) can become general resource hogs, I have never seen a single program on my system (aside from certain simulation software) use a peak of 2GB of memory before. Also of note is that I have never had this problem until today. I finally patched Morrowind to v. 1.6.1820, and that may have something to do with it.

If anyone has had a similar experience and has thoughtful advice on how to correct the problem, I would like to have it. Just refrain from making the kind of uninformed blanket statements spewed by every Best Buy trainee since time immemorial. Then again, I probably should have included the specs along with the initial inquiry.

Computer Specs (old news to many forum members):

-Dual Intel Xeon 3.06GHz w/ HT

-Tyan Thunder i860 motherboard

-2048MB Registered Dual Channel PC1066RDRAM (equiv. to PC4800DDR)

-ATI Radeon 9800XT (256MB)

-SoundBlaster Live! Platinum

-Dual 10,000RPM Seagate SCSI Ultra 320 hard drives (37GB) in Raid 0 array with -
256MB cache on SCSI controller (Adaptec 3210S; 64 bit/66MHz PCI)

-3Com 3C-905TX NIC w/parrallel tasking (does not take up CPU resources for network operations)

-16x MSI DVDROM Drive on dedicated Ultra ATA 100 bus

-LG 52x32x52 CDR(W) Drive

-60GB Maxtor Ultra 133 boot/swap hard drive

Incidently, I opened up the task manager again while I was working in the CS... here is a screen shot:

Is this affecting your computer's ability to function normally? I ask this because while it has reached insanely high levels of memory use, the CS doesn't show any percent of CPU usage.

While that is crazy, I don't see why it really matters if it affects nothing....

The maximum usage of near 2 gigs might've been during the start-up of the CS; this is where I think it would've normally happened.

Ah, HA!

I just received an email from Bethesda this morning, and it appears they were able to solve my little dilemma: Apparently it was a combination of my video card, the driver, and the patch. I tried asking for a more detailed reason, but they have not yet responded. In any case, after upgrading my video drivers, TES:CS now uses a paltry 512MB peak and about 220MB average.

My compliments to Bethesda for solving the issue so quickly and thoroughly.