RAM usage?

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Tried this game the other day with a friend and had some stange ram numbers going on.

Task manager reported the game using 8gb and system using 2gb. So i should have been on around 10 total. Instead afterburner showed it spiking right up to my full 16gb and staying there every launch.

Is this normal?

PS the game itself was also completly unplayable. Going from 2 to 20 to 80 to 4 to 1fps hanging and stuttering. Where my buddy on lesser hardware was reporting it working fine.

Hardware...

Ryzen 5 2600x
Gtx 1060 6gb
16gb 3000mhz ram

[van Leeuwenhoek's mustache]

DCS is really RAM-hungry, the more complex the mission is, the more RAM it'll use (specially in MP).

If you plan on doing a lot of MP, I recommend an upgrade to 32GB, DCS really needs as much fast memory as possible, otherwise it gets "clogged" (the kind of behaviour you described).

These are some performance enhancement guidelines to consider as well:

- Always delete fxo and metashader folders after each update
- The more RAM you have, the better (32+GB recommended)
- Install DCS on SSD or faster (avoid HDD)
- Set up a paging file on SSD or faster (avoid HDD).
- Get rid of any antivirus you have (don't bother with exclusions, it's not enough, just uninstall it)
- Use wired connection rather than wifi

- If you have a gaming mouse with tweakable polling rate, set it to the lowest freq setting (125Hz), DCS doesn't like high polling rates, for some reason (causes massive stutter)

- Shadows, preload radius, viewing distance and anti-aliasing have a considerable performance impact. Tweak them to find your sweetspot.

- The number of objects in the mission is the main fps killer in DCS, so avoid high object concentrations when possible.

- If you're running Windows 10, disable Windows Update service, otherwise it'll mess with drivers and other stuff, causing problems with DCS.

[Sizigmund]

This game have two graphic options that don't make much difference but cause significant FPS drops especially when you are on the ground, and they are "SSAA" and "SSLR". I turned them off, I'm using "MSAAx4" and it doing it's job very well. Also I don't like the "Motion blur" and "Depth of field" effects, I'm turning them off in every game, so I'm turned them off in this game as well.

Additionally, once I had significant FPS drops in "Euro truck simulator 2", wich was very strange, because I have a hi spec system, all other games worked O.K.. I tried everything, reinstall DX, VC++ and a lot of other additional soft that games usually needs. Nothing helped. Then I oppened my PC, pulled video adapter from it's slot, cleaned the slot on the motherboard and on the video adapter, inserted it back and voila, everything back to normal. So this may be a problem in your case too.

The one more thing I can think about is if you are using a gamig laptop, the game can use built in video adapter instead of GTX 1060. And this is why you see this RAM usage. It's because built in video adapters don't have VRAM and they using RAM instead. Anyway, if you have a desktop PC with external video adapter, it is also better to turn off built in video adapter through the BIOS's setup, so the operating system will not dedicate any RAM for it.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Its a desktop, all new parts at the start of corona except for gpu and power supply. Ryzen 5 chip with no onboard graphics so thats defo not it. The problem occurs no matter the settings, and the GPU is never taxed (at medium graphics) above 70%. The times it hits 80 feels like thats how the game should be running, but that only lasts a few seconds then its bouncing all over the place or hanging for 10 seconds to judder back to life.

It literally just eats all my ram from launch to shutdown, populated server or quiet one dosent matter.

All while my buddies sat there on his lappy with a 4gb 1050, weaker processor and same ram, saying his is only using around 6gb ram and running like a charm lol

[van Leeuwenhoek's mustache]

Make sure all power-saving features are disabled (CPU, GPU and drives).

Again, DCS will use all the RAM you have, that's normal (ED recommends 32GB).
As for your buddy's DCS only using 6GB of RAM, that's highly suspicious, definitely not normal.

What resolution are you playing at?

Are you using VR?

Are you playing DCS in fullscreen mode?
(You need to force fullscreen mode, I forgot to mention it in my previous post)

Is DCS installed in an SSD / M.2?

Did you set up the paging file?

Do you have an antivirus installed?

Can you post a screenshot of your DCS graphics settings and other relevant stuff?

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

I play 1440p, my buddy 1080p

No VR for either of us

Yep fullscreen, had to do it on options because Alt+Enter didnt work

Its on a HDD

Yep 16gb page to match 16gb ram

Nope

Will do later :)

[Red_Camarada]

Hi, I was having those issues when flying the hornet, a few months ago ED did some updates in the model and now the problem is gone, what model are you flying?

[spike2071]

Does your friend have an SSD? That is a huge help for stable frames. I won't say that you will get 80, but it will help with the random drops in frames.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

I do have a small SSD in this rig, if i can make space il try it on there, its the only thing it can be. Im not sure what model i was flying, my bud just directed me to it in the lobby SU something i think :)

[[ATP]Flo]

I saw DCS using 22-24GB on my sys. In some scenarios my 32GB aren't enough and DCS is even swapping to pagefile. So yea... 16GB is not recommended if you want a smooth as possible experience.

And of course a NVME SSD (or just SATA) is highly recommended.
Using a HDD is just as bad as using 8-16Gigs of RAM.

I use a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB and G.Skill Trident Z 32GB 3733MHz CL16.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Might wait to play this till next month then , can grab an pcie m.2 then and see how it goes. Thanks for the advice guys :)

[van Leeuwenhoek's mustache]

Ok, given the information you provided I feel confident enough to tell you that the problem is likely related to insufficient fast memory available in your system.

DCS needs to be installed in SSD / M.2, since it has to load A LOT of stuff while you play (read/write speeds need to be high, HDD speeds are simply too low, which causes freezing and stuttering).

If you have a ~120GB SSD like me, DCS won't fit in, but you can use symlinks (folder junctures)
to make it fit (80GB of free space should be more than enough).

The "heaviest" files in DCS are the maps (located in DCS World\Mods\terrains) and aircraft liveries (different locations, can be deleted if you don't use them).

In my case, I put both Caucasus and Nevada maps in my HDD (since I fly PG most of the time), and created symlinks (folder junctures) for them in my DCS folder.

This "unloaded" 50GB off the DCS installation, allowing me to fit DCS in my SSD, while still retaining access to both Caucasus and Nevada maps (although loading speeds for those maps are now slower... I experience some micro-freezing / stuttering, but it's bearable).

If I were you, I'd try doing this with the existing SSD, before buying an M.2.

See if the problem disappears when migrating to SSD.

As for the paging file, 16GB might not be enough, but I doubt increasing its size will make a difference, since HDD is still slow memory.