More memory

[jubyrubys]

I'm sure this has come up in the past and is probably listed in another discussion: my question is this. Is there anyway to get more memory for Steam Games. I can only keep one or two games in active memory in order to play them. I would like to play XCOM2 again but I must uninstall Skyrim and probably Fishing Planet in order to play. Otherwise, I get the message that not enough memory is available even though my computer has 1 terrabyte of storage. I know Steam doesn't care how much memory one has on their computer since it is based on their servers. Any suggestions or am I doomed to install, uninstall one game at a time? Thanks.

[crunchyfrog]

You mean download space, as in hard drive space? That's not memory.

You seem to be confused about the two things. What your computer is telling you is that you don't have enough RAM memory. Nothing to do with hard drive space where you install your games to.

So uninstalling those games won't do anything.

You need to find out what sort of RAM your PC uses (Google the manufacturer's website or check your specs for finer details as you need to know this) and buy some more.

You can check by opening the Run window on Windows (Windows key + R) and in the window type:
dxdiag

Press enter and you'll see your system specs. tell us how much memory and the details there.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

I assunme OP talking about system storage.

Anyways if you want bigger storage you have only one option, get another storage drive, that's all there is. Otherwise clear some space on your current storage drive.

If you're using a laptop, you're more in a pickle, hopefully you're not using a Mac book, because apple for some reason wants to solder their SSD to their board in newer version of the mac books if i remember correctly, preventing you from upgrading it, which in that case you need to seek out an external storage drive that use Thunderbolt if using Macbook. If normal windows laptop you can upgrade the storage to a much bigger drive, you will need to reinstall your OS, on the bigger drive, but if you have laptop that has two storage slots, then you can add the extra storage in the other slot, and format that new extra storage, and install your steam games on that.

[jubyrubys]

Thanks for this information. I have 16MB of RAM. I 'm not sure I understand how this all works. If Steam games are based on RAM, why does uninstalling them allow other games to work even though I am not playing them at the moment? I have 70 games saved by Steam and all of them have worked at one time or another. I can only keep one or two games active so I can play them. In the past, I have been able to keep 5 or more games active. Is it because these newer games (some with mods loaded) such as XCOM2 WOTC, Skyrim (but this is an older game) and Fallout4 require so much RAM? I do understand the difference between RAM and hard drive memory or at least I thought I did. When a game is started on Steam and another one finished, I thought RAM resets itself Game over--RAM cleared. I have a minor degree in computers but that has been over 20 years now. I guess a lot has changed. Thanks for responding none the less..

[nullable]

Originally posted by jubyrubys:

Thanks for this information. I have 16MB of RAM. I 'm not sure I understand how this all works.

You do seem to be operating on some bad information... and you seem to be confusing RAM and Storage space and using them interchangeably.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by jubyrubys:

Thanks for this information. I have 16MB of RAM. I 'm not sure I understand how this all works. If Steam games are based on RAM, why does uninstalling them allow other games to work even though I am not playing them at the moment? I have 70 games saved by Steam and all of them have worked at one time or another. I can only keep one or two games active so I can play them. In the past, I have been able to keep 5 or more games active. Is it because these newer games (some with mods loaded) such as XCOM2 WOTC, Skyrim (but this is an older game) and Fallout4 require so much RAM? I do understand the difference between RAM and hard drive memory or at least I thought I did. When a game is started on Steam and another one finished, I thought RAM resets itself Game over--RAM cleared. I have a minor degree in computers but that has been over 20 years now. I guess a lot has changed. Thanks for responding none the less..

Yes, you are confused.

So let's try and fix that.

Storage space, hard drives and that are like your shelves in your room - they HOLD the games you have.

Memory is the PC's BRAIN you are using to use the current game your are running

So, hard drive drive is just a method of storing and filing stuff for future use. Memory is actual silicon chips which only store what is currently being used and run.

Or storage space is like a cassette or CD, or LP. And memory is the electronic circuitry that holds what is being played back, a bit like a record player, or whatever.

I hope that helps.

You don't have 16MB of RAM, it has to be much more than that. As I said, do the dxdiag thing I suggested and report back what the screen tells you your specs are, and we'll advise from there.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Ah ok, so I understand now what you're saying, yes this is related to memory, or RAM usage, as the more stuff running, the more of your memory being used on your RAM as random data is stored on the RAM for the app's that are open, and running on the System at the time.

I assume you're running into memory usage issue, and i don't see the point of needing to run all these games at once, just play one at a time you want, and you have a much better game experience. Because when you run into memory limit issues, you may experience issues, like app/game crashing, or BSOD on Windows. Another thing to point, can affect your gaming performance, causing frame dips more often, or even cause FPS issues, as well possible game freezeing/stuttering issues.

The data stored on RAM is only cleared when it's told by your OS to release that data if app is closed, or was told by the app to release the data from the RAM memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtEbrY4nDIQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVad0c2cljo

[Phantom]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_data_storage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory

RAM is considered as a volatile type of memory, and is not to be considered with non-volatile memory.

[jubyrubys]

Is "storage space" the same as hard drive capacity? My hard drive is 1 TB. My ram is 16MB. I know the two are not the same. Random Access Memory clears when the computer is turned off. Hard drive memory does not clear once it is saved and the computer is turned off. Am I right? What does Steam send you and where does it go when you start one of their games? My guess is the code sent to my RAM in order to play. The main game is kept on their servers--not on my computer. I believe that only the saved games are kept on my computer--not the Steam Cloud. This explains why I can play an old game that I deleted on Steam years ago and then later reinstalled it and picked up where I left off.

[nullable]

Originally posted by jubyrubys:

Is "storage space" the same as hard drive capacity? My hard drive is 1 TB. My ram is 16MB. I know the two are not the same. Random Access Memory clears when the computer is turned off. Hard drive memory does not clear once it is saved and the computer is turned off. Am I right? What does Steam send you and where does it go when you start one of their games? My guess is the code sent to my RAM in order to play. The main game is kept on their servers--not on my computer. I believe that only the saved games are kept on my computer--not the Steam Cloud. This explains why I can play an old game that I deleted on Steam years ago and then later reinstalled it and picked up where I left off.

You download the game to your HDD and run the executable off your HDD like any other desktop software. There is literally no difference in that respect.

[jubyrubys]

To crunchyfrog: My computer is approaching 10 years old. Maybe that is the problem. I called up the screen you suggested. It shows 16348MB RAM using an Intel Core i7-4930 CPU. I have not loaded any additional RAM since I bought the machine. I appreciate your trying to help me but it still doesn't make sense. Maybe I need more time to digest this information.

[demo]

Originally posted by jubyrubys:

Is "storage space" the same as hard drive capacity? My hard drive is 1 TB. My ram is 16MB.

The RAM is probably 16 GB not MB. (Gigabytes not Megabytes)

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

16348MB = 16.3GB RAM
1000MB = 1GB

Take as much time you need to understand, also I recommend not trying to run more than one game at a time, just stick to running one game at a time for the best gaming experience.

[jubyrubys]

To DrShadowds: I agree with what you said. When I play a Steam game, I have nothing else running (except Windows and the Steam Program) and the games always play fine--no crashing or slowing. I never have two games playing at once. What in don't understand is why can I only have one or at most 2 games ready to play in my Steam Library?

[demo]

Disk storage is where the program or game lives whilst not being used, RAM is where its loaded when in use, (the PC can read and write to RAM a LOT faster than on any disk - including SSD`s).
When you run a game, the PC reads from the disk into the faster RAM, in order to run the game.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

16348MB = 16.3GB RAM
1000MB = 1GB

Take as much time you need to understand, also I recommend not trying to run more than one game at a time, just stick to running one game at a time for the best gaming experience.

Well RAM is calculated as base2, not base10. Technically RAM is Gibibytes/GiB but colloquially we've been saying GB for decades. So 16,348MB is 16GB in most any conversation unless all parties agree to differentiate between base2 and base10 units.

And in that case 1GB is 1,073,741,824 bytes, not 1,000,000,000 bytes. Harddrive manufactureres use base10 to measure storage. But Windows uses base2 to utilize it, hence the disparity between the space on the label and the space available on your PC.