This is interesting...
The last couple of builds have had issues with frequent CPU spikes, these spikes actually lock up the whole computer for a second or few, it reminds me of something Will Leverett said in a PTU chat a couple weeks ago when someone asked about System RAM, he said 8GB is not enough and 16GB would struggle as the state currently is.
I have 16GB and brushed it off as twaddle noise as i have never had a problem with not having enough System RAM, that was until the patches over this last week, they pretty much fixed all the server crashing but instead in higher populated areas like Olisar and Levski there is a lot of stuttering from HDD thrashing, CPU spikes and regular system freezing during those spikes....
Now with that said one of the PTU guys put the relation with System RAM and the CPU spike freezing to the test, some interesting results.
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4GB RAM Test
Unfortunately this test could not be completed. It took over 15 minutes to get to the main menu and once there, the mouse pointer was so slow that it took almost 2 minutes to get to the crusader button. We decided to cancel this test as clearly, it was not going to perform well, if at all.
NOTE: When attempting to quit the game at the main menu, it took almost 10 minutes for the game to close.
CPU usage was at 100% the entire time sc.exe was running. Additionally, 98% of RAM usage was consumed and calls to the Windows paging file was extremely high. CPU spike tests could not be performed as the CPU was never less then 100%.
About 12 seconds after sc.exe successfully terminated, a Windows Blue Screen event occurred.
8GB RAM Test
This test was the first successful test to be performed. Playability was low in this state as every 10-15 seconds a pause was observed, lasting for 1-2 seconds each. While the test lasted for the entire test duration, it was hard to play. Flight was achievable but took a lot of skill. CPU Spike tests found that a spike occurred every 10-15 seconds for no longer then 1 second each. It was also observed that the CPU spike would occur when the paging file received a very high activity and may be linked to this event.
CPU usage was no less then 85% the entire time sc.exe was running. RAM usage was no less then 85% and calls to the Windows paging file was very high.
16GB RAM Test
This was the first test to be considered stable. Playability was moderate to high with pauses observed once every 1-4 minutes lasting an average of 1 second each. The longest pause was 3 seconds and the shortest pause was less then 1 second. It was found that during each pause, the paging file received a high activity level and may be linked.
CPU usage did not exceed 83%. At the lowest level, CPU usage was at 38% with an average of 45%. Calls to the Windows paging file was moderate to high.
24GB RAM Test
This test was the first test to not experience any CPU spikes. That being said, pauses were observed once every 5-10 minutes lasting no longer then 1 second each and averaging 639ms. Although it was observed that the paging file received traffic during a pause, it was considered low and did not exceed 10% of available IOPS. It is unlikely that pauses can be linked to any paging file activity.
CPU usage did not exceed 60% and averaged at 39%. Calls to the Windows paging file were low.
32GB RAM Test
This test was extremely stable. Playability was very high and pauses were only experienced twice in the 30 minute test cycle. Each pause lasted no more then 500ms and no paging activity was observed during the two pauses.
CPU usage did not exceed 52% and averaged 37%. Calls to the windows paging file occurred 7 distinct times. All 7 were batch calls.
64GB RAM Test
This was the first Extreme configuration test performed. Playability was very high a pause was only observed 1 time. Best guess was a small bottleneck issue on the network that caused the pause as network traffic spiked at that time.
CPU usage did not exceed 53% and averaged 39%. Calls to the windows paging file occurred 2 times and was in batching mode during both calls.
128GB RAM Test
This was the second Extreme configuration test performed. Unfortunately, the test was not successful as sc.exe would CTD during the loading screen to the main menu (before it would call full screen mode). This however, is not unusual as there are currently no games on the market capable of running with this amount of memory.
There are no CPU usage or paging file observations to report as this test was not able to complete.
Full thread here....
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...um/4/thread/star-citizen-performance-test-ram