[RESOLVED] Only uses 9.9GB of 16GB RAM

[Vanders]

As the title says, Dimmdrive reports only 9.9GB available to use.

I have gone through a few pages in this forum and on a similar issue someone said it could be less due to other things in use but steam and what the PC runs by default can't be using six gigs of ram.

DEV EDIT TO TLDR THIS: Make sure Dimmdrive is set to OFF, then go into the SETTINGS and change the size.

[Mystix]

Did you go into the DimmDrive settings yet? By default, it may set a recommended number according to how much RAM you have on your system, as some you'd want to have reserved for Windows, installed drivers, background services and such (which may typically use from 1.5 to 2 GB of RAM) and other to be reserved for general usage as your computer needs it (you'd probably want to have at least a couple of GB available for general usage).

But you can still change the number to be used by the DimmDrive RAM-disk (as you say you have 16GB, I might suggest you probably don't go much higher than 11 max to be used by DimmDrive. The recommended setting of 10GB is probably on the "safe side" though so as not to interfere with Windows and general usage needs).

[🆂tartup🆃im]

Dimmdrive will list the RAM that is available. So just reboot and load up Dimmdrive before running anything.

Also, you are not going to want to come so close to RAM uses where you have nothing left for your game :)

If you have an issue after the reboot, please link a screenshot I could take a look at from imgur.com with your Dimmdrive and something like Task Manager / DXDiag that shows your PC Specs.

[Logan J. Fisher]

The logical answer is that your computer is using 6.1GB of RAM on other processes.

[Vanders]

Sorry, I don't have an imgur account. Hope this is enough:

OS: WIndows 7
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Processor: i7-3930K 3.20GHz
Video: AMD Radeon R9 290X
VRAM: 4095 MB

In the Dimmdrive setting:
Programme size: 10.8
Available DD size: 9.9
Remaing DD size: -0.9

Task manager reports that only 3.04GB are being used with no extra applicaiton other than Steam open and 13.18GB still available.

I have gone into settings to manually select files, for example I'm understandably trying to reduce Skyrim load times and I have selected only the texutres and meshes folders but even the textures alone is just over 9.9GB. (Although I was just exploring to see what files I should select to attempt shorter loading times)

[Spieler4]

Have exact same dillema.
windows 7 home premium
16gb 4x4gb corsair vengance 2133mhz quad mode
Only 9.2 gb useable
enable or disable pagefile makes no difference

Windows Task Manager

Physical Memory (MB)
Total 15555
Cached 1075
Available 13471
Free 12528

2.06Gb used


gtx 760
Total available graphics 4096 mb
Dedicated video memory 2048 mb gddr5
Shared system memory 2048 mb

gfx is using 2048 mb of system ram

[Spieler4]

Just found a SOLUTION !!!!!

Go to dimmdrive settings and click drive size box and change it to ex. 14 GB
Then enable game and hit dimmdrive ON :-)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=382335866

only 112 mb free :-))

[Vanders]

It worked! I didn't even know you could change that number so I'm feeling a bit stupid now, but to be fair it's not immediately obvious when you click on it.

I wonder why Tim didn't say this in the first place...

[Scribbles]

So, I don't actually own dimmdrive (thinking about it, but probably not until I build a new PC or see a sale), but I have to assume that enabling a ramdrive for your game that consumes nearly all of your RAM is not going to be a performance improvement, unless I misunderstand how it works.

A ram drive will create a file system in RAM to host the files that a game normally loads from the hard disk, but this has no impact on the game's usage of system memory. When the game runs, it will load resources from the file system (which is actually ram, thanks to dimmdrive) into the private memory space created for executing the game (also ram); this means that any resources that the game loads from disk to memory when your game is running normally from a hard drive, are now in memory twice, since the disk that it loads from is also in memory.

Basically, you may be able to run the game from memory by changing the max size of your ram drive, but your game's working memory may end up being cached to the hard drive (which would significant performance penalties), depending on how windows decides to distribute system resources.

[🆂tartup🆃im]

Hey there!

Yea guys, sorry, I just assumed that you knew that you could actually change Dimmdrive's drive size from the settings area :) My bad!!! I can say that better documentation is forthcoming!

ZR: That isn't correct really. In essence, Dimmdrive puts the game's important files into a RAM-based drive. This means whenever the game needs to read those files, re-read them, read them again, etc., that access happens incredibly fast. Monstrously fast. This is why things like in-game loads (eg, Skyrim) benefit greatly, wide open-world games have faster graphics "popping" on screen, and now we have a lot of people reporting significant FPS gains for those really, large games, as well as FPS boosts on middle/low end systems. So high end systems with high end games, and middle/low end systems with middle/low end games, have benefit, whereas very high end systems playing low end games won't see a benefit.

Basically think about it like this. Your GPU has 2/3/4/etc GB of RAM. Some of that is for the actual game itself, some is for things like frame buffers and such. Now also imagine you're playing a game that is 30GB. So your 2GB GPU and 30GB game. Data from that game are going to be flying in/out of your GPU, constantly. Now imagine your HD is 100MB/s, or even a high-end SSD of 300-500MB/s. Having an incredibly fast input from your HD-> GPU starts to become something where benefits can be gained.

It won't help with minesweeper, solitaire, etc., but it massively helps with ARMA3, Shadow of Mordor, and such. The middle ground between tiny games and massive games starts to then become a matter of what YOU want for gains, and your system specs, and the game specs.

Hope that helps :)

[nerk hayze]

I fed my Z drive 10.9 gigs from 12 gigs of RAM total, and the game in question was served by Dimmdrive.