Why Steam fails

[James Liggett]

On Sat, 2005-12-03 at 15:02 -0500, Ivan Gyurdiev wrote:
> Stefan Dösinger wrote:
> > Hello,
> >   
> >> It doesn't seem to check the retval of the first alloc, which fails
> >> about half of the time in
> >> wine_anon_mmap (mmap() call) with ENOMEM. If the allocation succeeds,
> >> Steam proceeds to run.
> >> If it fails, Steam dies with the message above.
> >>     
> > I just started Steam 5 times without a single failure. I can't reproduce the 
> > problem.
> >   
> I think I'm the only one with that problem... and I can't figure out 
> what's wrong :(
> >> Isn't this supposed to be a Virtual allocation...Why does it work one
> >> time, and not the other...
> >> The manpage for mmap() says ENOMEM can occur if the process exceeds its
> >> allowed number of mappings.
> >> Is this relevant?
> >>     
> > Maybe you should check your /etc/limits file. Your distro might have limited 
> > the amount of memory a user may allocate.
> >   
> 
> The limits are the default ones - all lines in that file are commented out.
> > If you don't mind security risks, you could try to run Steam as root, and see 
> > if the problem continues. But back up your MBR first ;
> >   
> I tries that with the exact same results...
> Attempted mmap_anon of size 200MB...fails...Steam fails, with ENOMEM.
Wow, thats really weird...I can also use steam without incident (I can
even play Half-Life 2, the only issues I get are some intermittent sound
lags.) Perhaps there's something wrong with your RAM? Have you tested
any other apps that use about as much as Steam uses (about 200 MB max in
my experience) on either WINE or native apps? 

James
> 
> 
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