When can 16gb of RAM become a bottleneck?

[Vayra86]

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.


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.

@kapone32
If you cannot quote from external sources or just can't paste external sources, just make a snip of it and paste that. You can straight copy paste it on TPU. Hit start, type snip, click New and drag what you want to post, paste where you need it.

But yeah, radious mods, with enough mods you can break any 'usual limit'. I pointed out a similar one with Cities Skylines. Again, a modded version of the game. I saw Fallout 4 pass us by too, again modded. Skyrim is right up there too.

Still though, this does not tell us 'the games need more than 16GB'. You can push any ridiculous amount of assets and horribly inefficient code through modding, is that really something you should go on? In that case, might as well just scale up to 64GB while you're at it. I'm sure you can find someone who exceeds that too

Wrt the OP's question, its good to make this distinction very clear. For 'mainstream', ie using games as they were intended, 8-16GB is easily enough and will be for the coming years. And if you do need more because you mod your games, you're not making these topics on TPU, you know the answer

 

[kapone32]

If you cannot quote from external sources or just can't paste external sources, just make a snip of it and paste that. You can straight copy paste it on TPU. Hit start, type snip, click New and drag what you want to post.

But yeah, radious mods, with enough mods you can break any 'usual limit'. I pointed out a similar one with Cities Skylines. Again, a modded version of the game.

Still though, this does not tell us 'the games need more than 16GB'. You can push any ridiculous amount of assets through modding, is that really something you should go on? In that case, might as well just scale up to 64GB while you're at it. I'm sure you can find someone who exceeds that too

Thanks for the info. I don't think 64 is necessary the game would use about 12-14 GB of RAM so I went to 32 and am happy. I agree with you that there are people out there with 128GB of RAM that have no real need for it. I was going to be one of them when Amazon f.ed up and was selling 128GB (8*16GB) of Corsair DDR4 3200 RGB for $198.99 instead of $1989.99. Unfortunately my order was cancelled before it shipped .

 

[John Naylor]

It wasn't very long ago when 8 GB of RAM was considered plenty for gaming. Prior to that it was 4 GB. It doesn't seem really so long ago that the 1.5 GB buffer of the normal GTX 580 seemed like plenty.

Every one of out Sandy Bridge build had 2 x 8GB .... 8 GB fell by the wayside about a decade ago.

 

[er557]

Wrt the OP's question, its good to make this distinction very clear. For 'mainstream', ie using games as they were intended, 8-16GB is easily enough and will be for the coming years. And if you do need more because you mod your games, you're not making these topics on TPU, you know the answer

Agreed, but who wants to be limited in not being able to play mods of his favourite games? Just to check again, i fired up the 2014 dragon age inquisition, it launched and ate 16gb, hardly comfortable for 16gb users, I repeat - 4K ultra. Then I proceeded to play the not-so-new GTA V, redux mod, 4K ultra, started to play and went to check out task manager. I was eerily surprised the ram usage was 48GB and creeping up as the game loads assets, I took a screenshot and closed up task manager. So again, this is another perspective to this topic.

As the situation progressed, my 72 threads were screaming under the AIO's, from the game effectively using many cores, with all the alt-tabbing the system became sluggish(gta v bug), and I proceeded to log-out safely

 

[Vayra86]

Agreed, but who wants to be limited in not being able to play mods of his favourite games? Just to check again, i fired up the 2014 dragon age inquisition, it launched and ate 16gb, hardly comfortable for 16gb users, I repeat - 4K ultra. Then I proceeded to play the not-so-new GTA V, redux mod, 4K ultra, started to play and went to check out task manager. I was eerily surprised the ram usage was 48GB and creeping up as the game loads assets, I took a screenshot and closed up task manager. So again, this is another perspective to this topic.


View attachment 130222

As the situation progressed, my 72 threads were screaming under the AIO's, from the game effectively using many cores, with all the alt-tabbing the system became sluggish(gta v bug), and I proceeded to log-out safely

Well that's the thing, I also mod (most) games I play extensively, and have yet to exceed the 16GB. You have to get pretty deep in your modding to fill that up. Yes, its an enthusiast forum... but we also have a tendency to throw endless amounts of hardware at nonexistant problems. So if we're just going to do that, why even discuss this

 

[er557]

Thanks for the info. I don't think 64 is necessary the game would use about 12-14 GB of RAM so I went to 32 and am happy. I agree with you that there are people out there with 128GB of RAM that have no real need for it. I was going to be one of them when Amazon f.ed up and was selling 128GB (8*16GB) of Corsair DDR4 3200 RGB for $198.99 instead of $1989.99. Unfortunately my order was cancelled before it shipped .

I ordered that ram as well, they cancelled the order as they came to their senses, but I proceeded to order the warehouse deal of 64gb ram of very good condition(open box)... shipped it from amazon canada via host based shipping service.

 

[kapone32]

Agreed, but who wants to be limited in not being able to play mods of his favourite games? Just to check again, i fired up the 2014 dragon age inquisition, it launched and ate 16gb, hardly comfortable for 16gb users, I repeat - 4K ultra. Then I proceeded to play the not-so-new GTA V, redux mod, 4K ultra, started to play and went to check out task manager. I was eerily surprised the ram usage was 48GB and creeping up as the game loads assets, I took a screenshot and closed up task manager. So again, this is another perspective to this topic.


View attachment 130222

As the situation progressed, my 72 threads were screaming under the AIO's, from the game effectively using many cores, with all the alt-tabbing the system became sluggish(gta v bug), and I proceeded to log-out safely

I think you may have hit on something

I ordered that ram as well, they cancelled the order as they came to their senses, but I proceeded to order the warehouse deal of 64gb ram of very good condition(open box)... shipped it from amazon canada via host based shipping service.

Nice!!!

Well that's the thing, I also mod (most) games I play extensively, and have yet to exceed the 16GB. You have to get pretty deep in your modding to fill that up. Yes, its an enthusiast forum... but we also have a tendency to throw endless amounts of hardware at nonexistant problems. So if we're just going to do that, why even discuss this

Could it be that each Core uses some RAM. 48GBs is insane I am not sure what else would explain such high usage. Maybe we can ask TPU to run a test on things like the 2990WX and I9 7980XE to see if that is indeed the case.

 

[EarthDog]

Agreed, but who wants to be limited in not being able to play mods of his favourite games? Just to check again, i fired up the 2014 dragon age inquisition, it launched and ate 16gb, hardly comfortable for 16gb users, I repeat - 4K ultra. Then I proceeded to play the not-so-new GTA V, redux mod, 4K ultra, started to play and went to check out task manager. I was eerily surprised the ram usage was 48GB and creeping up as the game loads assets, I took a screenshot and closed up task manager. So again, this is another perspective to this topic.

Just to put a perspective on things...

1. You game at 4K... according to steam stats, that is about 1.5% of users.
2. Modded games. Few people mod games. I would imagine it's more than 1.5% like 4K gamers, but, perhaps you get the point...


... reiterating the fact that one-off/extreme minority situations do not make the rule.

So in the end, it takes a perfect storm of a situation to break the 16GB of use. If you play at 4K and no mods, I can't think of any game which REQUIRES more than 16GB of RAM. Mod an already difficult resolution to game at and perhaps some titles will show more use.

Just simply recommending more than 16GB without details is an injustice to the person you are helping. Considering an overwhelming majority would be fine for the next couple of years at 16GB, more is just a waste of money for most people. Again, we can all think of situations where it can be useful, but that isn't the point.

Every one of out Sandy Bridge build had 2 x 4GB .... 8 GB fell by the wayside about a few years ago.

FTFY.

 

[er557]

Could it be that each Core uses some RAM. 48GBs is insane I am not sure what else would explain such high usage. Maybe we can ask TPU to run a test on things like the 2990WX and I9 7980XE to see if that is indeed the case.

I'm pretty sure ram is shared by all cores, as is L3 cache, there are two numa junctions and each thread can access any part of ram it wants. It is not like each core needs some ram to work. However, now sitting at idle my pc uses 11GB ram already(several tray icons running) , so that may be a steep starting point.

 

[Vya Domus]

Resolution does not affect RAM usage in any way, the same applies to most other graphical settings, only major exception is textures because they have to be loaded from system memory.

The more RAM is available the less the page file will be used and the more likely will be that the OS will keep active pages in memory, similarly it's also less likely that RAM contents are going to be compressed. All of these things contribute to the fact that when more RAM is available more will appear to be used, this is not an indicator that the system was running out of memory.

Yes, for the millionth time, mods can do whatever to your RAM usage, don't use this as an argument that 16 GB isn't adequate, mods do not generate normal behavior in games. This is as meaningless as me claiming that 16 GB isn't adequate because I wrote some dumbass program that keeps allocating memory forever until it crashes.

Are we done yet ? What's the point of all this ?

 

[er557]

I agree that IN GENERAL, 16gb is a sweet spot, of course always depends on purpose of machine. Funny that OP is nowhere to be seen, we must have overwhelmed him... It could make a nice poll as to how much ram each user has and what uses do they put it to

 

[Wavetrex]

16 today is a bit tight, when I'm working I'm easily hitting the page-file.... but unfortunately it's the largest available while also having high-performance transactions and latency. (3400 CL14 and up)
32GB kits are significantly slower, and using 4 sticks will cut down on performance considerably on dual-channel CPU's.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, Samsung already announced higher capacity chips being in production, so very likely 32G in two fast "top-end" modules will be possible next year.

 

[EarthDog]

32GB kits are significantly slower, and using 4 sticks will cut down on performance considerably on dual-channel CPU's

they are and it does? Link please..

 

[Metroid]

Cities skylines itself eats 13gb doing nothing, just loading a map with no mods, customs things or anything else. I had to add another 16gb to play the game comfortably. So I guess in my case 32gb minimum. From 16gb 3466mhz, I had to lower it to 3333mhz 32gb to boot, ran memtest using 30gb for 30 minutes and no problems, pretty stable.

16 to 32, 32 to 64gb, will always have to lose timings or mhz to make it stable if you have not paid $1000 - $2000 for your kit.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Resolution does not affect RAM usage in any way, the same applies to most other graphical settings, only major exception is textures because they have to be loaded from system memory.

The more RAM is available the less the page file will be used and the more likely will be that the OS will keep active pages in memory, similarly it's also less likely that RAM contents are going to be compressed. All of these things contribute to the fact that when more RAM is available more will appear to be used, this is not an indicator that the system was running out of memory.

Yes, for the millionth time, mods can do whatever to your RAM usage, don't use this as an argument that 16 GB isn't adequate, mods do not generate normal behavior in games. This is as meaningless as me claiming that 16 GB isn't adequate because I wrote some dumbass program that keeps allocating memory forever until it crashes.

Are we done yet ? What's the point of all this ?

Wait.... People still use page file with 16GB of memory or more? HAHA.

The point is for a bunch of opinions thrown on the table for good debate.

But nobody has seemed to address the bottleneck.

OK so easy peasy. check this out.
When windows informs you that you've used all the memory up, it's time to go buy more. If not, then worry not. (turn off page file)

Bottle neck typically is a speed issue or lack thereof. It's been tested through all time that fast memory speeds with tight as possible timings improves system performance. Opinion need not apply.

 

[Vya Domus]

It's not a good idea to turn off page file, it's a system meant to work even with terabytes of RAM. It's not there for some sort of speed gain as much as it is for properly managing the memory for different threads/processes.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Meh Ive never had a problem. But I suppose CODBO and posting at forums like this isnt far off from anyone elses daily usage and really havent a need to use page file.

Now I wonder if I could set page file to my Ramdisk??? Hhhmmm...

 

[Toothless]

Now I'm starting to think of sticking one of my m.2 drives in and making the entire thing pagefile to see if there's a difference.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Page file is mostly used when system memory is full.... And if its full you go buy more memory.

Theres actually no other real use for page file. Lol.

 

[Toothless]

Page file is mostly used when system memory is full.... And if its full you go buy more memory.

Theres actually no other real use for page file. Lol.

Unless you're on Z97 where the cap is 32gb.

 

[trog100]

windows virtual memory.. made up of ram and a storage drive..

when the system runs out of the real stuff it used a page file.. years ago with spinning disks windows fake ram pretty much made the system unusable.. it wouldnt crash but it was silly slow..

what happens if a page file comes off a new fast nvme drive i havnt a clue.. relatively speaking it could still be silly slow but maybe not..

i run with no page file.. i do have 32 gigs of ram though..

trog

 

[EarthDog]

Page file is mostly used when system memory is full.... And if its full you go buy more memory.

Theres actually no other real use for page file. Lol.

Page file is used by many things if it simply exists. Ive got 32GB of RAM and with 27.7 GB free almost 1GB is used (static size set to 2GB). Not much... but, it is used even if it there is free RAM. Process with less activity can go there.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

It existed years and years ago... Like when a system had 1 or 2gb of memory and programs often would fill RAM.
Today, you dont need it for anything.
Recommended amount of page file is a minimum of 1.5x the amount of RAM in your system.

Try it off EarthDog. See if it makes any real difference for you. You might utilize a few extra mb out of you RAM at best I reckon.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Resolution does not affect RAM usage in any way

Completely incorrect. Textures are loaded into system RAM for preprocessing BEFORE they are sent to the GPU. No game loads data directly to the GPU. Otherwise we would not have a need for powerful CPU's and system ram for gaming.

Recommended amount of page file is a minimum of 1.5x the amount of RAM in your system.

For some that would mean 12GB, 24GB, 48GB or more for pagefile size which is completely unneeded. Times have changed, that 1.5x system ram notion became out dated when we moved beyond 4GB of system ram.

 

[EarthDog]

It existed years and years ago... Like when a system had 1 or 2gb of memory and programs often would fill RAM.
Today, you dont need it for anything.
Recommended amount of page file is a minimum of 1.5x the amount of RAM in your system.

Try it off EarthDog. See if it makes any real difference for you. You might utilize a few extra mb out of you RAM at best I reckon.

I've tried to run with it disabled but I have had issues with software (I want to say Photoshop?) and just left it as is (outside of setting a static size). I've also disabled it and it worked... so it depends on the use and user. For most that should be fine.