When can 16gb of RAM become a bottleneck?

[neatfeatguy]

disabled page file

I found games having memory issues with the paging file disabled. Regardless of the games not making full use of the GPU memory and not even coming close to making use of the 16GB system RAM.

I don't recommend turning off the paging file.

 

[EarthDog]

Not that much. One of uses for that is to farm steam cards. At least that's one of ways to do it. Currently exist dedicated farming programs which do not require game to actually run rather they bypass steam client to think the game is running.

I would love to say running multiple games at the same time is helpful in case of ac games unbearably long credits (up to over 40 minutes) but whenever ac's window is out of focus credits pause until window is back in focus.

Get some meds if you can't wait...

 

[Vya Domus]

So 16GB will definitly not be good for at least the next 3 years depending on what OP intends to do with is computer.

"not be good " is an awfully vague and unproven claim just as well. An RTX 2060 might not be good for the next there years or a Ryzen 3600 or indeed, 16 GB of RAM. At best you can try and predict based on whats going on at the moment, next gen consoles are unlikely to sport more than 16 GB and the overwhelming majority of games still aren't even close to these values.

I argue 16 GB will "be good" (whatever this metric is even supposed to mean) for the next three years, you can pin this comment somewhere and come back three years later and will see if it was true or not.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I find it quite strange that people keep responding that when it has been proven to be wrong multiple time on this thread.

Some games definitely need more than 16GB. As you can see in the attached screen, i got an insufficient virtual memory warning while playing Anno 1800 (with 16GB of ram and ~10GB Virtual memory allocated by windows). The screen indicate that Anno was using almost 20GB at the time, and it's the game alone. So 16GB will definitely not be good for at least the next 3 years depending on what OP intends to do with is computer.

First, spell-check is your friend. Use it.
Second, Anno1800 is the extreme exception rather than the rule.
Third, even in systems with 32GB and above Anno1800 still loads up "virtual memory" to a sizable amount. How much actual system ram you have is irrelevant as that behavior is a built-in function of the game.
Fourth, for 99% of all software the general public currently runs on their systems, including games, 16GB of system ram is more than enough and will be for the the next few years. Only power-users need more and they know this.

I argue 16 GB will "be good" (whatever this metric is even supposed to mean) for the next three years, you can pin this comment somewhere and come back three years later and will see if it was true or not.

Agreed.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

16GB seems good.
Just make sure it's fast and tight

 

[Chomiq]

No game I know of will eat 16 gb of ram.

But a lazy person with a browser open with millions of tabs and then plays a game will have problems eventually.

Squad has a single map that's so messed up it eats up the entire ram. But yeah, that's a title in Alpha stage with some memory leak on a single map.

 

[anachron]

"not be good " is an awfully vague and unproven claim just as well. An RTX 2060 might not be good for the next there years or a Ryzen 3600 or indeed, 16 GB of RAM. At best you can try and predict based on whats going on at the moment, next gen consoles are unlikely to sport more than 16 GB and the overwhelming majority of games still aren't even close to these values.

I argue 16 GB will "be good" (whatever this metric is even supposed to mean) for the next three years, you can pin this comment somewhere and come back three years later and will see if it was true or not.

The original question was "I'm wondering if 16gb is enough for most gaming situations? Or is there some scenario where 16gb could be a bottleneck?", so while i agree with you that the answer for the first part is yes in most case, saying that there are no reasonable scenarios where there can be a bottleneck is not true.

I'm pretty much sure 16GB will still work in a 3 years, but that doesn't mean it will not be a bottleneck in some cases. When i did get from 8GB to 16GB a few years ago, the economic simulation game i was playing was working previously, but i got a lot better loading times and less stuttering while playing after the upgrade.

First, spell-check is your friend. Use it.

Well, thanks for the corrections, Chrome was only spell checking in French as English is not my native language. I didn't even think to check if i could add English

As for the second part of your message, i would be curious to see if it does use that much virtual memory with more RAM, as it would be a quite annoying behavior to still need to allocate that much virtual memory when the game could just sit in RAM.

 

[Jism]

I'll have 30 Chrome tabs open, two games, two chat apps, and music and still won't hit 16GB on a 3440x1440. You're fine.

Try to disable your "Virtual memory" on DISK (SSD) and then 'reattempt". I had so many messages from Windows that the system was running low on memory. I've disabled the pagefile completely to prevent excessive wear on the (old) SSD. Now i have 32GB of RAM where 4GB is reserved for caching purposes, and there was'nt a single situation i could not fully tax it.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Well, thanks for the corrections, Chrome was only spell checking in French as English is not my native language. I didn't even think to check if i could add English

Ah, language barrier, fair enough.

As for the second part of your message, i would be curious to see if it does use that much virtual memory with more RAM, as it would be a quite annoying behavior to still need to allocate that much virtual memory when the game could just sit in RAM.

A client of mine came in not to long ago having a similar problem and we upgraded them to 48GB(from 32GB) and it was still behaving the same way. While the extra RAM improved performance a bit for that game, it wasn't much and everything else stayed the same. We then tried taking their original 32GB out and little changed. They ended up keeping the extra RAM. All I can say is that Anno 1800 is an isolated example. The devs likely did not optimize the game before release and need to fix it. Most of the systems I build/sell are mid-range mainstream systems and 8GB is a solid sweet-spot for most tasks, gaming included. 16GB would benefit some brand new AAA titles, but only just. Where 16GB or more is going to be of the most benefit is in programs that need a ton of system ram, such as a video rendering, 3D rendering or data-base type.

 

[Toothless]

Try to disable your "Virtual memory" on DISK (SSD) and then 'reattempt". I had so many messages from Windows that the system was running low on memory. I've disabled the pagefile completely to prevent excessive wear on the (old) SSD. Now i have 32GB of RAM where 4GB is reserved for caching purposes, and there was'nt a single situation i could not fully tax it.

I used to run no pagefile for the longest time, and never had issues with it even on 16GB. I leave it on for the 4864MB it has on my boot drive since 1. it's a 970 EVO and 2. I don't really care to change it. It won't make a difference to me to have it on or not because I don't get those errors.

 

[Vayra86]

16GB of RAM can be used up in some 4K games at Ultra settings like TWWH2 but only for a short time. There is currently no need to worry about that though.

Screens or it didn't happen. Never seen that, and I have clocked over 300 hours in the game. Usually seeing about 5.5 - 7 GB used - and that includes Windows - and I tend to run my rig pretty 'clean' while gaming.

With Anno 1800 maxed out, playing on 2560x1440 and discord/chrome and a few others open on a second screen, I sometimes go very close to the 16GB used. Screen taken on an early game, it got worse as the game advance...

Blame Anno for that. Its not exactly optimized, might even have a memory leak.

16GB for the foreseeable future is fine for gaming + background applications. I would refrain from buying more unless you notice hitching while using 16GB RAM. That should be the cue, not some hard to grasp number in task manager. After all, there is a pagefile and Windows can manage things just fine.

In fact, a majority of games can still get by with 8GB just fine. See example above.

no reasonable scenarios where there can be a bottleneck is not true.

I'm pretty much sure 16GB will still work in a 3 years, but that doesn't mean it will not be a bottleneck in some cases. When i did get from 8GB to 16GB a few years ago, the economic simulation game i was playing was working previously, but i got a lot better loading times and less stuttering while playing after the upgrade.

It depends on your definition of a reasonable scenario. I know what you're getting at - try Cities Skylines with a lot of mods and build a nice little city and you see the GB's fly away. But is a city builder with lots of mods at the endgame truly a reasonable scenario? Or more of a very personal (niche) use case?

Also, you are forgetting that while you may have upgraded from 8GB to 16GB, you probably also upgraded from DDR3 to DDR4, and a faster CPU, etc. Its not just capacity, fwiw, your new rig with 8GB might have done just fine.

Ah, language barrier, fair enough.

A client of mine came in not to long ago having a similar problem and we upgraded them to 48GB(from 32GB) and it was still behaving the same way. While the extra RAM improved performance a bit for that game, it wasn't much and everything else stayed the same. We then tried taking their original 32GB out and little changed. They ended up keeping the extra RAM. All I can say is that Anno 1800 is an isolated example. The devs likely did not optimize the game before release and need to fix it. Most of the systems I build/sell are mid-range mainstream systems and 8GB is a solid sweet-spot for most tasks, gaming included. 16GB would benefit some brand new AAA titles, but only just. Where 16GB or more is going to be of the most benefit is in programs that need a ton of system ram, such as a video rendering, 3D rendering or data-base type.

Lol, hadn't arrived at page 4 yet.

 

[er557]

Ok, some things to consider, this is an enthusiast forum, beleive me you WANT that ram, anything from ram disk, hdd caching, improve game loading times, smoothness of multitasking in the OS, virtualization. BTW, having 96gb of ram(i know -excessive) leaves me with 48gb of virtual texture vram in the OS, allowing for extreme high-res texture mods, 4k, AA, and vram will never run out. (I'm talking about the windows reserved virtual vram in addition to the vram on the gpu)

 

[anachron]

It depends on your definition of a reasonable scenario. I know what you're getting at - try Cities Skylines with a lot of mods and build a nice little city and you see the GB's fly away. But is a city builder with lots of mods at the endgame truly a reasonable scenario? Or more of a very personal (niche) use case?

It's always personal as it depends on your own use of your computer. I don't know what OP play, but if he do play this kind of game, i still think he should consider buying more than 16GB of ram.

Also, you are forgetting that while you may have upgraded from 8GB to 16GB, you probably also upgraded from DDR3 to DDR4, and a faster CPU, etc. Its not just capacity, fwiw, your new rig with 8GB might have done just fine.

I didn't forget, as i didn't upgrade my rig beside adding more RAM
I had an i5 3570k with 2x4GB of DDR3-2133 bought in the end of 2012, and i added 2x4GB in 2015 specifically for this game (Train Fever with a bunch of mods). It lasted until i bought my current i5 8600k.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Ok, some things to consider, this is an enthusiast forum, beleive me you WANT that ram

This is a good point.

@OP and others,
In case I perhaps didn't give this advice, if you can afford to have 16GB or more ram, do so as it will never hurt system performance and can be a life-saver if you ever need it.

 

[Kapone33]

Screens or it didn't happen. Never seen that, and I have clocked over 300 hours in the game. Usually seeing about 5.5 - 7 GB used - and that includes Windows - and I tend to run my rig pretty 'clean' while gaming.


I can't tell you how many hours I have played that game. It could come down to a few things. I play at 4K using crossfire and I have the unit size set to extreme. I also have the Radious mod installed. What are your setting like?

 

[EarthDog]

This post is blank to me... did you bork a quote again kapone?

 

[Eskimonster]

When are you going to need more ram then 16 GB ?, is just as likely as getting struck by lightning imho.
But if you are one of the few who get stricken offen , i think you should buy 32 GB

 

[lexluthermiester]

This post is blank to me... did you bork a quote again kapone?

I see it too.

 

[anachron]

This post is blank to me... did you bork a quote again kapone?

His response is actually inside the quote :
I can't tell you how many hours I have played that game. It could come down to a few things. I play at 4K using crossfire and I have the unit size set to extreme. I also have the Radious mod installed. What are your setting like?

 

[EarthDog]

As I thought (I have the person on ignore he quoted). So like I said....... he borked the quote (by replying inside).

 

[Vya Domus]

Ok, some things to consider, this is an enthusiast forum, beleive me you WANT that ram

Oh please, not this enthusiast stuff again that I hear all the time.

I code all sorts of things that need large datasets and I always end being limited by speed not by memory, I bet my use case goes way outside what most "enthusiasts" do on here, these things don't hold any meaning.

Yes, I understand we can always come up with some stupid extreme case but this isn't what happens most of the time for most people, even on a forum of enthusiasts. Let's stop making this more RAM meme into a requirement because it just simply isn't true, not now at the very least. Some time in the future, yes, it will be but not now.

 

[Kapone33]

As I thought (I have the person on ignore he quoted). So like I said....... he borked the quote (by replying inside).

I figured it out. It posts inside when I am replying to a multi quote post. I am going to reach out to the staff to help me figure that one out.

 

[EarthDog]

I figured it out. It posts inside when I am replying to a multi quote post. I am going to reach out to the staff to help me figure that one out.

Maybe that is happening... but what I quoted was a single quote, not multi...

Just pay attention where your cursor is and the quote codes.... You need to reply outside of the [quote*]words words words[*/quotes] to be seen...

I digress.

 

[Kapone33]

Maybe that is happening... but what I quoted was a single quote, not multi...

Just pay attention where your cursor is and the quote codes.... You need to reply outside of the [quote*]words words words[*/quotes] to be seen...

I digress.

Ok sounds good. BTW I am loving the RC100

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

My brother gets very close to using all 16GB of his RAM when playing Fallout 4 with all the mods.