RAM Usage in games

VincentHanna

VincentHanna

VincentHanna

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I've always been of the opinion that 8GB is more than enough for games.

Because I upgraded to an X99 system though, the smallest option was 16GB DDR4 which I have no problem with.

However, I've recently been monitoring RAM usage in the Rivatuna (MSI Afterburner) whilst playing WatchDogs and now Dying Light at 4k resolution and in both I saw RAM usage as high as 10-11GB!

Is it accurately reporting the usage? Or is Windows doing something funky so it might not really be using that much?

It's the Windows 9926 Jan 2015 Technical preview, so that could also be a factor?

Anyone else measure RAM usage and has noticed this?
 
Was the application itself actually making use of the RAM?
Most games have RAM leak issues which are never fixed, BF4 went far enough to bring your game to a halt as it starts using your PageFile.

But unused RAM is useless RAM, so better that something is using it, just as long as it's not getting stupid like some games.
4K resolution may play a factor into this as well.
 
3-4gb was probably cached windows stuff I doubt the games exe uses 10-11gb

I'm still using 8gb but I wouldn't advise anyone to have 8gb these days 16gb is cheap enough and I don't see anyone needing more than that for gaming for a few years
 
You can tell how much of it is pre-cache in task manager, subtract that from used and you have the current usage. Memory is a bit more complicated than this (check out how many columns windows hides by default about memory in the column list for the apps tab) but this will give you a general picture of RAM usage on your machine.
 
If the memory is free something will try to use it! It is still no where near your limit so I wouldnt' worry, in real terms its probably only using like 5-7Gb :p
 
a lot of AA will vastly up the mem use. Also depends on vram as it will use main memory if theres not enough.

Some games cache the whole map to memory, gradually as you play the mem use can rise and if you have enough it may never flush the cache. some stream it from disk in and out preloading before use
 
i have 6gb and never seen more than about 80% usage while playing any game, only starting to think i might need to fill up my ram slots to 12 gb "at some point"
 
I always find the more you have, the more you will use. My HTPC on 4GB will use half as much doing the same thing as my PC with 16GB.

memuse.PNG


This is with just 5 tabs open in Chrome and and that's it. Open up BF4 then I'm seeing 6-8GB usage easily.
 
arknor said:
Video memory usage though? the games exe still uses the same assets and everything no matter what res and aa?
Click to expand...

On older windows at least, the memory usage for textures appeared as part of the main program memory used. Hence we used to have people saying BF2 cant use more then 2gb, its capped but in fact because the figure included textures it was using more sometimes and it could cause lag especially if textures went to pagefile

So video memory should be monitored, once thats all gone its using main memory also and with 4k res I'd guess thats possible
 
VincentHanna said:
I've always been of the opinion that 8GB is more than enough for games.

Because I upgraded to an X99 system though, the smallest option was 16GB DDR4 which I have no problem with.

However, I've recently been monitoring RAM usage in the Rivatuna (MSI Afterburner) whilst playing WatchDogs and now Dying Light at 4k resolution and in both I saw RAM usage as high as 10-11GB!

Is it accurately reporting the usage? Or is Windows doing something funky so it might not really be using that much?

It's the Windows 9926 Jan 2015 Technical preview, so that could also be a factor?

Anyone else measure RAM usage and has noticed this?
Click to expand...

Yes, there some cache going on. Not sure if it's the vRAM mirroring in the system RAM or what, but yes... With only 8GB RAM and no page file, ArmA 3, Day Z, WD and probably others, just crash out of memory or even BSOD on my rig. Using downsample in WD crashes the game after a while even with page file. Slowly 8GB won't be enough.
 
The most recent call of duty is crashing with my 8Gb saying it is running out of memory, but that game feels totally and completely broken, never gotten past about ten minutes without it crashing.

I do feel like upgrading to 16Gb though just to save the hassle of games with memory leaks.
 
Rezident said:
The most recent call of duty is crashing with my 8Gb saying it is running out of memory, but that game feels totally and completely broken, never gotten past about ten minutes without it crashing.

I do feel like upgrading to 16Gb though just to save the hassle of games with memory leaks.
Click to expand...

Surely an instability with your system? It ran fine from the off on my old rig which had 8GB Ram.

Most people in the COD thread didn't have any issues. It was one of the better performing games 'out of the box' (so to speak) on 2014.

And by that I mean it was stable enough to play without loads of patches.
 
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