4gb RAM and 90%+ Memory usage in games?

Soldato
Joined
8 Oct 2007
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Hi,

I recently got a new PC: i5 760, GTX 470, 4gb RAM, Win7 64 bit

During games the memory usage seems to be very high, which causes stutter and mini freezes. The computer is reading all 4gb of the RAM.

I'm pretty sure this didn't happen when I first got the PC but it's started happening for a week or so. Here is an example when playing World of Warcraft:

2ihbaiw.jpg


This can't be normal. At first I thought it was only a WoW problem, but I tried Crysis and it is similar, although a bit less RAM usage surprisingly. Crysis also had a bit of stutter and mini freezes and actually crashed after 5 mins of gameplay, I assume because of the RAM.

In both examples the games were on around highest settings, but they should not use all 4gb of my RAM I'm pretty sure of that.

Any ideas?
 
I bet it's a Google Chrome memory leak. Can you shut down the processes you don't need to isolate the offending programme?

It's hard to tell, but I shut down almost every process apart from WoW and usage was still around 70%, way too high I think.

Well, why do you have so many chrome.exe's running?

Each Chrome tab runs as a separate process.

I'm aware I have a lot of programs etc open but the system should be able to handle it no problem.

My previous spec Q6600, 4gb RAM, GTX 260 never had this problem in WoW or any other game. I never did check the memory usage but I never needed to.

Also the previous RAM was DDR2 the new set is DDR3.

This is the new RAM if it helps: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-203-CS

Pretty sure there is something wrong with the RAM, i'll run memtest when I get a chance.

Edit: If someone with a similar spec to me could run a game for example Crysis on very high and check memory usage in task manager I'd be grateful.

Appreciate the help too by the way.
 
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I was hoping it wassn't that, that's retarded by google to be honest. :\

What's the page file set to?

Not sure what you mean by page file?

May i suggest removing a lot of **** addons? like questhelper, healbot, xpearl, complete custom interface package, or any crap like that seriously kills your ram.
Also the stuttering could be down to gfx settings, last patch reset a lot of them, 1 in particular that causes the so called stuttering you mention is lack of triple buffering, enable that if you haven't already.

I'm aware of this, It's not a specific WoW problem as it happens in other games. Thanks for the suggestion though. :)

Would be interesting to see the entire process list as he has only the top half posted

The lower half of the task manager was irrelevant, it was only background applications like drivers most of which were using less than 1mb of memory. Strife212 is right I didn't really have any demanding programs open other than WoW. I'm pretty sure we are past the days where people bother to close all thier programs and background apps before running a game, atleast I am. :p

And like I said, I ran the same programs / background apps on my previous spec and games ran fine.
 
Past the days? :p, If i'm playing a game i want only the game to be showing and the system processes used to run, well the system. If i followed your example i'd have imgburn,foobar,firefox,mpcplayer open :D. Don't see the point of having apps open that you are not currently looking at. But hey it's probably something else going on with your system and memory usage :)

Well yes I close programs I don't need, but I often tab out of games and browse the web / msn / music etc.
 
Hi guys, thanks for the feedback.

I'd answer all of the questions but I think there is no need now. Think I've found the problem, these screenshots should explain:

No major programs running:
125qdme.jpg


Same programs plus WoW on ultra settings:
muwzrm.jpg


So the question is, why do I only have 2gb out of the 4gb available for use? Looks like 2gb is "hardware reserved"?
 
I disabled Memory remapping in the bios and re-inserted the RAM. No difference.

The cpu is a possibility, I might try to reseat it later. I did recently reseat it, and I'm not sure if I had this issue before that.

Anything else I can try?

edit; the motherboard is a Asus P7P55D-E, if that helps
 
I've found the problem. One of the memory modules on the motherboard doesn't work.

I tried booting with a single stick in one slot, no boot (black screen) Tried other stick in the same slot, no boot again.

Then tried both of the sticks in the other slot and it booted normally.

Looks like the motherboard needs to be RMA'd

Thanks for the help

edit; do I contact the seller (OcUK) or the manufacturer for RMA'ing? Never done it before.
 
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