Will more RAM help??

[gfc1963]

I have 16GB of RAM and the loading screen is showing all red on the numbers that come up. I have all the DLC's but would like to get more assets. Only got abiut 100 assets. Would getting more RAM help me in this??

[MaxFX]

Yes, more RAM would help.

In the meantime you could setup a pagefile, which is virtual memory on your harddrive. Here's a guide made by snowflitzer on how to set one up: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2114415052
Downside to a pagefile is that loading times are considerably longer compared to RAM. Upgrading your RAM is preferable but costly.

[Steeeve104]

I'm having a similar issue where I'm running out of memory. I have tried the page file suggestion, but am still getting crashes, and the log is saying "write to location 00000000 caused an access violation", which I think means it can't find the page file to write to?

I'm therefore thinking of upgrading my RAM. I currently have 16gb across two sticks. Would it be better to get two more sticks to add to my existing ones, or buy two fresh 16gb sticks, to go to 32gb?

Thanks

[db48x]

Access violations like that have nothing to do with how much ram you have or whether or not you have a page file. It represents a bug in the game, or in a mod, or in your graphics driver. Bugs in mods are a fair bit more likely, but the other possibilities cannot be ruled out entirely.

[bendigo (1983-2023) RIP]

The simple answer to this question is that you can never have enough ram if you have a lot of assets added to the game. You can add as much ram as the system can handle but if you keep adding assets that ram will eventually not be enough. The best thing to do is to use a sorting system to load only the assets you want to use per game. there are a few mods that can help in that process.

Using a page file is not reccomended, especially if you have a lower end ssd as it can greatly reduce perfomance and the life of the ssd.

Upgrade the Ram if possible to as much as you can and just limit the assets and mods you use per save game so that the game does not exceed the ram of your system.

[Steeeve104]

Originally posted by db48x:

Access violations like that have nothing to do with how much ram you have or whether or not you have a page file. It represents a bug in the game, or in a mod, or in your graphics driver. Bugs in mods are a fair bit more likely, but the other possibilities cannot be ruled out entirely.

Hi, unfortunately I don't think this is the case, at least in this instance. For a bit more context, I generally only subscribe to a small number of highly rated mods, which are frequently used by content creators such as Biffa - this includes things like Move It, for example. Yesterday, I started a new city on one of Mr Miyagi's vanilla map mods, and it ran fine.

Today, I encountered a crash trying to load that game, and was unable to start a new city on one of the base game maps. The only difference is that I had added the rest of Mr Miyagi's vanilla maps plus the More Effective Transfer mod (again, one I believe Biffa uses). I was only able to load into a city again after unsubscribing from all the map mods (but keeping the Transfer mod).

Originally posted by bendigo:

The simple answer to this question is that you can never have enough ram if you have a lot of assets added to the game. You can add as much ram as the system can handle but if you keep adding assets that ram will eventually not be enough. The best thing to do is to use a sorting system to load only the assets you want to use per game. there are a few mods that can help in that process.

Using a page file is not reccomended, especially if you have a lower end ssd as it can greatly reduce perfomance and the life of the ssd.

Upgrade the Ram if possible to as much as you can and just limit the assets and mods you use per save game so that the game does not exceed the ram of your system.

Thanks, I am still considering more RAM, but am unsure whether to completely replace what I already have, or buy two more sticks of the same type - the latter would be cheaper, but is there any benefit to 2x16gb over 4x8gb

[bendigo (1983-2023) RIP]

There can be benefits to 4 sticks over 2 sticks depending on the mb. If you do choose to add to the existing ram, you need to make sure that the new ram matches the old ram clock speeds and type. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to find matching ram to add to old ram.

[db48x]

Originally posted by Steeeve104:

Hi, unfortunately I don't think this is the case, at least in this instance. For a bit more context, I generally only subscribe to a small number of highly rated mods, which are frequently used by content creators such as Biffa - this includes things like Move It, for example. Yesterday, I started a new city on one of Mr Miyagi's vanilla map mods, and it ran fine.

Even well–regarded mods can have bugs that are rare or are only encountered in odd situations. Using mods that Biffa uses is no guarantee that they don’t have bugs.

Note also that access violations and crashes can both be caused by hardware problems. Faulty power supplies, faulty ram, even a defect in the motherboard.

To diagnose power supply problems, you should find a tester that can monitor voltage and power delivery while the system is under load.

Testing ram is easier; just download memtest86 and run it overnight.

Software problems are more likely though.

[BeerbaroN]

If you have 16gb of ram, adding more will not solve this issue/waste of money for this game.

Ref: I have 2 systems, one with 16gb the other with 32gb with no difference in this game between the two.

[bendigo (1983-2023) RIP]

Originally posted by BeerbaroN:

If you have 16gb of ram, adding more will not solve this issue/waste of money for this game.

Ref: I have 2 systems, one with 16gb the other with 32gb with no difference in this game between the two.

The only real difference that it makes is the ability to use more mods/assets in a game. 32gb of ram allows almost twice as many mods to be loaded. Increasing ram speed does give a small boost in performance but not much. Performance is really mostly based on GPU and CPU.

[diskprince]

Hello. I tried starting with this game at only 8gb ram. loading time took 25 or more minutes, I kept adding more mods and more assets. slow slow slow. So, I bumped my ram up to 32gb and what a difference. loading time usually under 5 minutes, sometimes the memory numbers go into the "yellow" zone but no longer red. I must have about 30 mods and over 2000 subscribed assets, and amazingly it works.

[BAD *Man]

THE BIG issue is that the Pagefile normally is not fast enogh
If u run 32GB Ram and a pagefile on a NVME SSD it works great
32GB is the recommendation for all CPUs with 6or more cores today....
I run R9 5900X 64GB RAM and it runs fine
make sure ur virtual Memory is on the fastest drive u have ... minimum an SSD SATA3

[snowflitzer]

I agree with BADMAN, it is better to use the fasted drive for the page file.
Real RAM is always better...

[MarkJohnson]

To elaborate on badman's post. virtual memory is your RAM + Page File. The loading screen mod (LSM) is seeing the RAM as the limit. so when you virtual memory exceeds 16GB, the numbers turn red. so 8gb RAM + 8GB of page file will make the LSM numbers turn red, even though it only shows only 8GB of 16GB of your RAM actually being used.

Windows should be on the fastest drive, along with the page file for best results. Even better is having only windows/page file on your fastest drive, and everything else on a second drive, if you are lucky enough to have one (or willing enough to buy one).

NVMe drives can work great, especially when matched to some fast RAM. For Example:

NVMe can have speeds of up to 7GB/s (7 gigabytes per second) SSD.

RAM, is much faster. My 36000MHz RAM (PC4-28700) has 28,700 MB/s (28.7 GB/s) for one stick of RAM

Our computers can have two channels of RAM, so you can double that to 57,400 MB/s maximum. But RAM has overhead to work, so my RAM only does around 42.7 GB/s @ 3,600 MHz. so about 20% loss.

So, hopefully you figured out the second RAM number (PC4-28700) is the MB/s, so you know what your actual speed of your memory is. The MHz really don't tell you this, but I think it scales somewhat evenly, at least for the theoretical max speed) actual speeds vary depending on latencies.

Also, there is more memory in your system. You CPU has level 1, 2, & 3 Cache.

On my system it has:

L1 cache = 64KB @ 270GB/s
L2 cache = 512KB @ 104GB/s
L3 cache = 32MB @ 52 GB/s

As you can see, data is moving fast.

If you don't have NVMe drive, then a SATA 3 SSD only has about 500MB/s and a hard drive around 100-150 MB/s That's a huge difference of 7,000MB/s NVMe. Even a budget NVMe drive is +1,000 MB/s, so twice the speed of SATA SSD.

I know that's a lot of math to deal with, so feel free to ask any questions.

@snowflitzer, are you still working on updating your page file guide? I don't remember this info being in there. It might help to add it in. You may need to rewrite it as I always stray off and switch topics and may be confusing. Maybe I shouldn't post these after my bedtime. lol

[snowflitzer]

You can always helping rewrite the guide :) still working on it

[Lucifer]

Originally posted by gfc1963:

I have 16GB of RAM and the loading screen is showing all red on the numbers that come up. I have all the DLC's but would like to get more assets. Only got abiut 100 assets. Would getting more RAM help me in this??

Yes get more RAM... Please be aware that adjusting the page file should only be a quick temporary fix as it may slow your computer down and also harm it... More RAM is the way to go...