why does it use my RAM so much

[AMEOR]

can you help me please !

[failsafe]

because of assets? If you have lot of DLC + lof of workshop assets you need lot of ram to handle this. Or good paging. I manage to play with most DLC and plenty of assets on 8GB with good paging, but since paging is little dependent on windows settings, it is a random thing.

[Tsubame ⭐]

This game has a lot of content, most or all of which may be used at all times in the game, or be available for use. Simple as that. Is not a FPS game where only bits of the game are required at specific times of the game.

And modded assets will drastically add to that.

Nothing you can do about it except ensure you have the disk drive space for page filing purposes, as page filing uses the available disk drive space for memory purposes.

Setting page filing settings to manual, and increasing the minimum/maximum amounts to around 3x-4x that of RAM, will help, as Windows sometimes has issues with that on automatic mode.

Rough memory requirements:

8GB RAM: Base game
12GB RAM: Base game + 100 assets, 1-2 DLC's
16GB RAM: Base game + 500 assets, 5-10 DLC's
32GB RAM: Base game + 2000 assets, 15 DLC's
64GB RAM: Base game + 4000 assets, All DLC's

[Catratio]

Originally posted by failsafe:

I manage to play with most DLC and plenty of assets on 8GB with good paging, but since paging is little dependent on windows settings, it is a random thing.

Do you have a SSD? I have 16 GB RAM and it lags like crazy when I go to a new area of my city, or open a menu I haven't used in a while. 40 GB pagefile, only half full, but I suspect all the lag comes from trying to pull up that newly needed information from disk. I just have a standard HDD though so wondering if SSD really makes it that much better. I had to upgrade from 8 GB four years ago and again it's at it's limit.

[failsafe]

Originally posted by Catratio:

Originally posted by failsafe:

I manage to play with most DLC and plenty of assets on 8GB with good paging, but since paging is little dependent on windows settings, it is a random thing.

Do you have a SSD? I have 16 GB RAM and it lags like crazy when I go to a new area of my city, or open a menu I haven't used in a while. 40 GB pagefile, only half full, but I suspect all the lag comes from trying to pull up that newly needed information from disk. I just have a standard HDD though so wondering if SSD really makes it that much better. I had to upgrade from 8 GB four years ago and again it's at it's limit.

Yes. SSD is a must. Honestly, game becomes laggy when city grows above some 120-150k, but I dont like building large cities, I focus mostly on 80-100k, so it is not an issue for me.

[snowflitzer]

create a page file with this guide (set it to at least 32000 min and max (which is 32GB)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2114415052

[Free1]

If you don't already have this mod, subscribe to it. It will help to more efficiently manage your RAM in-game, most players use it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2858591409

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Catratio:

Do you have a SSD? I have 16 GB RAM and it lags like crazy when I go to a new area of my city, or open a menu I haven't used in a while. 40 GB pagefile, only half full, but I suspect all the lag comes from trying to pull up that newly needed information from disk. I just have a standard HDD though so wondering if SSD really makes it that much better. I had to upgrade from 8 GB four years ago and again it's at it's limit.

A standard hard disk drive processes data at 125MB per second.
A standard nvme 4.0 x4 SSD can transfer over 7,000MB per second.

So, an M.2 nvme SSD stick can be significantly faster. But you need a system with a M,2 connector to use one. You should get one with DRAM on SSD for best performance and longer life span.

Make sure you use it for a windows drive for best results.

[CyberVibes]

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

A standard hard disk drive processes data at 125MB per second.
A standard nvme 4.0 x4 SSD can transfer over 7,000MB per second.

That depends on the motherboard being PCIe4 compliant on the NVMe lanes altho with that said i've bought 2 M2 NVMe drives and a GPU that are PCIe4 that run fine on PCIe3 and will be useful when i upgrade to a PCIe4 board as i'll get twice the speed out of them.

[Catratio]

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

A standard hard disk drive processes data at 125MB per second.
A standard nvme 4.0 x4 SSD can transfer over 7,000MB per second.

That's crazy. Good to know for the future. Next PC I'll definitely include a SSD, but not going to bother upgrading this one for it. CS is the only game I play that would use it, and I only build like one city a year. Had no idea SSDs were that much faster though.

[Donauwelle]

64GB Ram 256GB pagefile on a 7.000MS m2 NVME (Samsung 980Pro) reserved only for Pagefiles sitting in a ROG STRIX Z690-A
~50 Mods + ~4000 Assets....
Ram still on fire
Runs like a charm.... But Ram... Ram is full.....

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Catratio:

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

A standard hard disk drive processes data at 125MB per second.
A standard nvme 4.0 x4 SSD can transfer over 7,000MB per second.

That's crazy. Good to know for the future. Next PC I'll definitely include a SSD, but not going to bother upgrading this one for it. CS is the only game I play that would use it, and I only build like one city a year. Had no idea SSDs were that much faster though.

If you change your mind, you can get PCIe adapter cards for nvme drive (assuming you have a desktop):
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pcie+m.2+card&i=electronics&crid=2YC3DVFFAAZUT&sprefix=pcie+m.2+card%2Celectronics%2C133&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

[CyberVibes]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

64GB Ram 256GB pagefile on a 7.000MS m2 NVME (Samsung 980Pro) reserved only for Pagefiles sitting in a ROG STRIX Z690-A
~50 Mods + ~4000 Assets....
Ram still on fire
Runs like a charm.... But Ram... Ram is full.....

You've got a similar set up to me except i have 96GB ram, the game will use up to 64GB of ram and also whatever vram you have in your GPU in my case it's 12GB so yeah it uses 78GB on load but this reduces down to about 34GB after the games been running for about 20 mins.

The base game with all the DLC's should only use up to 16GB. How my 20GB of workshop gets to use up to 3 times it's original amount to 60GB on load is still a mystery to me.

EDIT: Correction i have 28.29GB of workshop seems either Windows folder properties is wrong or Steams is.

[Catratio]

Base game plus all DLCs (except for three) takes up 31 GB RAM for me if I'm reading the LSM's load screen correctly. 13 GB in actual RAM, another 18 GB in pagefile

[CyberVibes]

Originally posted by Catratio:

Base game plus all DLCs (except for three) takes up 31 GB RAM for me if I'm reading the LSM's load screen correctly. 13 GB in actual RAM, another 18 GB in pagefile

Are you using any workshop as 16GB is the minimum requirement and that should cover all the DLC's unless i've missed something.

I have all but the last 2 main DLCs discluding radio and content creator packs my CS folder in steamapps shows 13.5GB my Colossal Order folder in userdata shows 18.8GB with 14.07GB in personal addons and mod related files so combining them both and removing the 14.07GB equals 17.6GB in system files. There's no way every file gets loaded up when starting the game and even if that was possible you still have double the amount so would be interesting to find out whats bulking your game out if you're all vanilla.

[Catratio]

I only have 19 workshop assets, just low poly trees that don't take up much space. After bulk buying 7 DLCs this Christmas I definitely noticed my RAM usage increase so I think the store page saying 16 GB minimum is outdated by this point. The only DLCs I don't have is Art Deco, Europe Suburbs, and the discontinued soccer stadiums. I have no radio stations either, but I was just counting asset packs/main DLCs before.