Battlefield 3 total system resource benchmarks.

[ALXAndy]

I am not intimate with the inner workings of Windows file system and would not dare comment on numbers pulled from resource monitor without knowing the technology like the back of my hand.

I am not a GPU engineer or a file system engineer and therefore can draw no meaningful conclusions, as you cannot.

Many apps will not run properly without a Page File irrespective of whether they NEED it or not. Simply concluding BF3 needs the VRAM because without the page file in supposed VRAM limited situations BF3 crashes is ridiculous.

Then why is it that so many people received that error on cards with 1gb vram because their page file was disabled?

I did not conclude anything. I have posted some figures. They clearly show how much vram is being used on the same level on the same computer in two different scenarios.

I don't need to be an engineer to know that when a game runs short of vram it will cache textures elsewhere. This has been a long known fact. This is also why onboard graphics never replaced the add in card, because sharing system memory is pants. Sharing a hard drive paging file is even more pants.

Infact, on my 9800GT it actually took a lump of system ram to add onto the 512mb it had. Windows system info showed how much it had taken, too.

What is clear, and is obvious, is that BF3 uses the paging file. Google low memory error battlefield 3, and you will find out how many people found that out because they had disabled their paging file.

What is also clear is that BF3 most certainly uses over 1280mb of vram.

And, I have shown that today. So, unless you want to counter with the same tests showing different results?

Stop trying to drag the issue sideways and make it complicated. This is a nice easy, simple way of making it uncomplicated.

If you disable the paging file and run out of memory you will receive errors saying so. Meaning that clearly it has gone over the amount of vram on the card and has tried pulling it from elsewhere.

 

[bhavv]

Just did 15 minutes of Caspian Border 64/64 server and my system ram with the monitoring software running cam to about 4.9GB system ram used and I doubt it is displaying right because of crossfire but the latest version of GPU-Z (0.6.0) says the max memory usage was 2663MB.

This is all with page filing enabled

ANd I reckon you forgot to look at the bit under the fancy graph that says 'cached memory' and 'free memory'.

That's not your fault though because the OP forgot to include this vital information in his testing that people are now incorrectly following.

 

[Sin_Chase]

1GB 5850, 4GB DDR2 ram. 1920x1080p res

OK disabled pagefile.

GPUZ 0.6.0

Tried getting into caspian border 64 player server and while the game was loading, vram (dedicated) filled upto 650MB and dynamic memory (I believe it is hard disk related) filled upto 107MB, before the game crashed and I received the windows low memory message error.

Does it mean BF3 uses more than 1GB vram easily and pagefiling from HDD is a must with only 1024MB vram?

No, it means your RAM was compromised without a Page File to back it up as you only have 4GB installed. BF3 launched while your OS and other Apps tried to continue to run in the background and that was that.

Nothing to do with your VRAM in this instance.

 

[Mr Krugga]

1GB 5850, 4GB DDR2 ram. 1920x1080p res

OK disabled pagefile.

GPUZ 0.6.0

Tried getting into caspian border 64 player server and while the game was loading, vram (dedicated) filled upto 650MB and dynamic memory (I believe it is hard disk related) filled upto 107MB, before the game crashed and I received the windows low memory message error.

Does it mean BF3 uses more than 1GB vram easily and pagefiling from HDD is a must with only 1024MB vram?

No, it means the game ran out of shared memory.

Upgrade your RAM to 8GB and the crashes will be gone.

If you head over to Windows section of the forums, or any other forum for that matter, everyone will tell you to let the pagefile size to be set by the OS itself, unless you know how it works and how much your PC needs it at any time.

Either way, you are prone to memory leaks at some point, with or without it but it should reduce the possibility of a crash or losing data in 99.99% scenarios.

Not to mention that discussion about the pagefile should start with how page swapping works.

 

[ALXAndy]

Yea pagefile was disabled when i ran it

either way gonna revert everything back to previous settings later after i recover lol

plus it wont matter much for me soon as im planning on upgrading

I just found out that DICE patched the game to stop the low memory warning. Thus, I would imagine the game now does what you say it does when it runs out, and grind to a halt, waiting to catch up.

 

[Gregster]

Before you start disabling your page file please read this.

Disabling the Pagefile Can Lead to System Problems

The big problem with disabling your pagefile is that once you've exhausted the available RAM, your apps are going to start crashing, since there's no virtual memory for Windows to allocate—and worst case, your actual system will crash or become very unstable. When that application crashes, it's going down hard—there's no time to save your work or do anything else.


In addition to applications crashing anytime you run up against the memory limit, you'll also come across a lot of applications that simply won't run properly if the pagefile is disabled. For instance, you really won't want to run a virtual machine on a box with no pagefile, and some defrag utilities will also fail. You'll also notice some other strange, indefinable behavior when your pagefile is disabled—in my experience, a lot of things just don't always work right.

http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it

Full article. Well worth a read.

 

[ALXAndy]

No, it means the game ran out of shared memory.

Upgrade your RAM to 8GB and the crashes will be gone.

I would be interested to see if it helps any.

Very interested indeed. TBH personally I don't hold out much hope. Quite simply as with my paging file disabled I only managed to pull around 3.8gb total system memory with 6gb installed.

 

[bhavv]

My page file is disabled, and none of my games which max out my 1 Gb Vram (Civ V and texture missed skyrim) crash or lag at all.

The op has done a fine job of showing us that BF3 is simply bugged with using page filing and shared ram, I strongly suspect this is why the game is such an excessive vram hog.

Oh wait, he only has 4 Gb system ram and therefore cannot even see ram usage over 3.8 Gb (because windows will NEVER use the last 256 Mb on a 4 Gb system for physical use).

Is this thread a complete joke?

 

[Gregster]

No, it means the game ran out of shared memory.

Upgrade your RAM to 8GB and the crashes will be gone.

+1 and spot on answer.

 

[Sin_Chase]

What is clear, and is obvious, is that BF3 uses the paging file. Google low memory error battlefield 3, and you will find out how many people found that out because they had disabled their paging file.

And how much physical RAM did they have installed.

Probably less than 4GB. They compromised their OSes ability to run when BF3 eat NORMAL PHYSICAL RAM and had NO PAGE FILE to back it up.

It's people clutching at straws like yourself who take an absolutely predictable outcome of disabling the pagefile in a system with low physical memory while running a RAM intensive game to link it to the necessity of more than 2GB of VRAM.

 

[ALXAndy]

Before you start disabling your page file please read this.



http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it

Full article. Well worth a read.

Greg. What we are demonstrating here basically mimics that ^

IE - if you run an app that runs out of resources and it tries to use the paging file and finds it isn't there it will crash.

In other words - we are demonstrating that BF3 will use it when you run out of vram. Meaning, you are using more than your GPU has. Meaning, if it does so with a 1gb GPU then it obviously needs more than 1gb.

The end result? it IS caching from your paging file. Which WILL hurt performance.

Sure, the game will still run on a 1gb card. It will just be utter pants. See also this -

This thread demonstrates how Gibbo managed to come up with those results. Quite clearly because the 1gb card is using the paging file, and it is hurting performance.

 

[Gregster]

What you are demonstrating is encouraging people who actually read your text to disable the page file in windows and cause system instability.

Great advice when windows crashes and they maybe have to repair it

 

[ALXAndy]

And how much physical RAM did they have installed.

Probably less than 4GB. They compromised their OSes ability to run when BF3 eat NORMAL PHYSICAL RAM and had NO PAGE FILE to back it up.

It's people clutching at straws like yourself who take an absolutely predictable outcome of disabling the pagefile in a system with low physical memory while running a RAM intensive game to link it to the necessity of more than 2GB of VRAM.

Maybe you should have read the link to the EVGA forum earlier ? the one where the guy was running 8gb ram with SLI GTX 470 and got the page file error?

TBH I will wait to see if any one can replicate that error with 8gb ram and their paging file disabled. Because I've seen it on 6gb running a 470, yet didn't get it with my 7970.

 

[adwol48]

all i know when i first bought bf3 and was playing it with 4gb of ram and a 2gb 6970 with an 8gb pagefile i was getting stuttering gameplay with constant lock ups, frame rates would vary wildly. since i moved to 12- then 16gb (got another 8gb for a good price) any stuttering has totally disappeared from the game

 

[ALXAndy]

What you are demonstrating is encouraging people who actually read your text to disable the page file in windows and cause system instability.

Great advice when windows crashes and they maybe have to repair it

Windows will not crash. The game will close, and you will get a warning. You then simply turn it back on and reboot.

And I'm not twisting any arms.

You know, it's quite funny really. I'm beginning to feel that whenever you post something that clearly shows something the same people turn up to argue.

Already got a huge pile of troll posts.

If you don't want to run the tests then don't bother. Actions speak louder than words. If, however, you have a 1gb or 1280mb GPU and 8gb of memory (to put that part of it to bed) then by all means, test away and post the results.

 

[bhavv]

Maybe you miss the point that BF3 more than likely has a page filing / shared ram usage bug that causes these crashes in this one game only when page filing is disabled. Similar to its hyperthreading bug, similar to its 4x MSAA bug on mid range graphics cards, simply put BF3 is full of bugs, and you use the worst game possible to try and argue your point because it crashes?

What's wrong with you?

I guarantee you that Civ V uses up far more system resources than this POS game, and I'll do the testing on it again later to prove this for the third or fourth time since I got the game.

In the meantime, I'll let Andy keep on embarassing himself.

 

[Gregster]

all i know when i first bought bf3 and was playing it with 4gb of ram and a 2gb 6970 with an 8gb pagefile i was getting stuttering gameplay with constant lock ups, frame rates would vary wildly. since i moved to 12- then 16gb (got another 8gb for a good price) any stuttering has totally disappeared from the game

Good info bud. A 2GB 6970 shows stuttering and adding more System RAM cured your problem.

It shows all running processes are getting bigger (or we run far more than we used to) and hence the need for more RAM.

 

[ALXAndy]

Right. Thread is being deliberately derailed, so I have started reporting troll posts.

 

[ALXAndy]

Good info bud. A 2GB 6970 shows stuttering and adding more System RAM cured your problem.

It shows all running processes are getting bigger (or we run far more than we used to) and hence the need for more RAM.

Then as I continue to say - let's see it for ourselves.

Disable paging file with tons of ram and see if you get the error !

It's quite simple really !

 

[bhavv]

Right. Thread is being deliberately derailed, so I have started reporting troll posts.

This is what you do whenever you lose an argument. Except there's no trolling in this thread, just people pointing out how wrong your methodology and conclusions are. Funny that you expect everyone to be able to provide you with their results right away to show how wrong you are due to being impatient and unwilling to give them the time to do the testing first.

I don't even think I'll bother to re do my tests for another day or two, what are you going to do after I post them and prove you wrong again? Refuse to appologize and carry on believing that you are right and the rest of the world is wrong?