DCS Taking more storage over time

[nicholastish]

Hey, I'm in love with the game but I don't understand why the more I play, the more SD space the game takes. I've tried everything and I can't figure out what's the issue. My guess would be that I don't have enough RAM and so my computer uses regular SD (that's as far as I understand, I'm not very techy). I heard that this has something to do with my pagefile but I'm not even sure if this is correct. I'm talking about like 20 GB of storage in half an hour of gameplay so I know this can't be the track recordings where I have to delete them consistently. Any clue on what else this could be or what I could do to fix my issue (besides getting more RAM since I have a gaming laptop). Any help would be appreciated <3

[Troll Norris]

Delete tracks,.screenshots, e.t.c. from userprofile folder. Also there are new 3D models added. Just like F-4E

[Insônia]

https://mcci.com/support/guides/how-to-change-the-windows-pagefile-size/
the pagefile may increase overtime if you set maximum size too big or "system managed".

the rule of thumb is make sure you have around 64G of memory + pagefile total. or the game may crash in few server or missions.

[X_Deadmeat_X]

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

Delete tracks,.screenshots, e.t.c. from userprofile folder.

Also delete your crash log files from "Logs" and clean up any unwanted mission editor files in the "Missions" directory under the same "Users" - "Saved Games" - "DCS" location.

The contents of the metashaders2 and fxo directories can also be deleted and they'll be regenerated as required though they aren't usually that big.

If there are maps or aircraft DLC modules you don't use then those can be uninstalled too as they are between 500MB and 10GB+.

With a laptop you probably have a single drive for everything so yes, your page file can grow automatically and will if you don't have enough RAM. Some highly populated online maps are now hitting over 64GB in memory. If you don't have that as RAM then it will be using disk to make up the shortfall.

Some instructions I wrote for another thread on checking page usage:

Details of your page space can be found by searching for "system" and on that window click the "Advanced systems settings" link at the right hand side. On that popup select the Advanced tab then the Settings button. Finally(!), in the last pop up select the Advanced tab and at the bottom you'll see a Virtual Memory section that will tell you how much it is using. If you click the Change button you'll be able to see what disks it is using and how that is decided (manually set, system managed, none) including a bit more info on min, max and actual usage. Note that a reboot will set things back to their minimum so look at it while running your game.

On my box I have 64GB of actual memory and the PC still wants to reserve at least 10GB more of page space so it can swallow up a lot, especially if you are running big missions or are online but only have 16GB or so installed.

[Troll Norris]

FYI F-4E "AI" model takes 13,7 GiB.

[X_Deadmeat_X]

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

FYI F-4E "AI" model takes 13,7 GiB.

LOL

Their company motto should be "DCS - Driving storage, CPU and GFX card upgrades since 2013 (and sometimes you can fly stuff)"!

[Troll Norris]

Originally posted by X_Deadmeat_X:

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

FYI F-4E "AI" model takes 13,7 GiB.

LOL

Their company motto should be "DCS - Driving storage, CPU and GFX card upgrades since 2013 (and sometimes you can fly stuff)"!

You know, 4k textures, high-poly models, raw sound format...

11,7GiB are just F-4E liveries.

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by X_Deadmeat_X:

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

FYI F-4E "AI" model takes 13,7 GiB.

LOL

Their company motto should be "DCS - Driving storage, CPU and GFX card upgrades since 2013 (and sometimes you can fly stuff)"!

100% reason Nvidia is now the wealthiest company in the world is all the DCS guys buying 4090s