Bf3 system ram usage?

[TAC4U]

BF3 does not use 5gb.

Even if you have 1TB of ram in your PC, windows 7 will still 'use' it all, it just reserves it.

To see how much ram bf3 is using, just look at the bf3 process.

Much of the memory that Windows 7 holds onto can be released but it is held for a reason. If Windows has to constantly release memory and take it back later then that's having an impact on performance, whether that's for the system in general or for the application demanding it. I have 12GB of RAM and when playing games like Metro 2033 and Crysis 2 I can see total memory usage of around 6-7.5GB. However, I haven't noticed any obvious improvement in performance since upgrading from 4GB of RAM.

It really doesn't cost much to upgrade to 8GB of RAM and it will lead to improvements in system performance, even if it doesn't increase your framerate in games. If you've got a half-decent gaming system it doesn't make sense to skimp on memory when the investment is a fraction of what a GPU or CPU cost.

What I find strange is that games aren't shipping with 64-bit executables. If you have 8-16GB of RAM in a system then why not just fill it full of game assets if you can knock a few seconds off load times or reduce stutters from swapping out assets to VRAM? I mean, 41% of systems on Steam are running Win7 64-bit so you're talking about something that affects a very large percentage of users. I know consoles don't have much memory but is the coding that heavily console biased that increasing memory usage won't improve performance?

 

[Nexus18]

This is just after 30 min of BF 3 on rush 32 player.

So what do you think? Will another 4GB help with the 2 issues I pointed out and just general smoothness or is it more my 512MB VRAM that is the problem?


@PApa

Yeah I know, but since I have closed the background stuff that I don't really need (but would like to be able to keep them running in the background without having to close them for this) it is around 80-90% instead, so it isn't as noticeable the 2 points, which I mentioned when below 90%

 

[TAC4U]

So what do you think? Will another 4GB help with the 2 issues I pointed out and just general smoothness or is it more my 512MB VRAM that is the problem?

Look at it this way - you shouldn't have to worry about closing your web browser and other background apps in order to play a game. It's only £24 for 4GB of dual-channel memory, which is cheaper than a game. Doing so will reduce the amount of data that needs to be transferred between hard-drives and RAM and will lead to performance improvements, if only marginal.

Having only 512MB VRAM is a bottleneck, especially for the resolution you're running, but no more than the card itself, which is quite dated now. Your card is above minimum specs but falls way short of recommended specs. I'd see if you can pick up a cheap second hand card from the Member's Market, as judging by how old your card is it looks like you don't want to spend a lot on your system.

If you have to choose between memory and graphics then obviously graphics should be your priority. You won't see a real performance increase from memory, it will just improvement system responsiveness.

 

[Nexus18]

Yeah I know, although to get matching RAM, it costs £32 and at that price it is pretty crap considering you can buy 8GB for about £45.

I will create a new thread regarding that and what to do if I do decide to get new RAM as there are a few options that I need to consider and a couple of things which I am not too sure about, so feel free to help me out soonish


This is just to hear other peoples thoughts as to if I will see a good benefit at all for those 2 points mentioned.


Indeed it is! However it does run the game very smoothly surprisingly and it is the first game where I have had to turn everything to the lowest setting (although I can turn some stuff to medium, but I would rather have the extra FPS).

I would love to upgrade the GPU and have been looking at the 6870 1GB MSI hawk and the MSI 560TI 2GB, however I kind of want to wait now for the 7870 and/or the new revision of the 560s to come out and hopefully decrease the price of the current cards by a decent bit.


The GPU is a pretty major upgrade for me at the minute (but will do for a bit longer), this is really the only game along with crysis 2 and homefront where the settings have had to be reduced (didn't have to decrease crysis 2 or homefront that much though) and the only games which are coming out soon which I will be playing is Batman arkham city and COD MW 3, which should run pretty good on highish settings (I hope).

 

[ewaste]

My system was apparently munching nearly 6gig of ram or 5868meg according to task manager no idea if as others have said that is hugely inaccurate because it represents Windows 7 reserving memory.

 

[ChrisD.]

Highest I've seen the BF3 process use on my rig with 8GB of RAM was just under 2GB.

 

[Sin_Chase]

My extra 4Gb XMS3 arrived.

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