Games only use 8GB RAM, although 16GB RAM are available

[Ardenian]

I recently upgraded my RAM from 8GB to 16GB, however, Steam games do not seem to use more than 8GB.

I tested this mainly with FF15, which has 8GB as minimum requirements and 16GB as optimal requirements. RAM usage would never be higher than exactly 45%, around 7,5GB, at average settings concerning any quality setting like graphics.

Has someone an idea why the game doesn't use more RAM?

My system specifications are:
Microsoft Windows 10
x64 based
NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050 Ti
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2,67GHz, 2267 MHz, 4 cores
4x 4GB RAM, all from the same producer
Display resolution 1920x1080x60HZ

[_I_]

games will only use the ammount of ram they need

[Omega]

As the person above me says, games and other applications will only use as much as they need.

[Ardenian]

_I_님이 먼저 게시:

games will only use the ammount of ram they need

Omega님이 먼저 게시:

As the person above me says, games and other applications will only use as much as they need.

Thank you for your responses, now I am curious, what are major factors that determinate RAM usage? If a game states that 16GB are optimal, would surprise me if it used 8GB only, then, under all circumstances.

[_I_]

depends on what else is running in the background
if you have chrome open with 1000+ tabs it will use all available ram and page on the hdd

[B-o-B]

Many pcs still need to catch up, even to 8gb.

Search isn't exactly clear either.
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/7yjnw0/video_games_never_use_over_8gb_of_my_16gb_of_ram/

[Ardenian]

_I_님이 먼저 게시:

depends on what else is running in the background
if you have chrome open with 1000+ tabs it will use all available ram and page on the hdd

That might be an explanation, as I am someone who fanatically only runs one application at the time, mostly.

b☣bz님이 먼저 게시:

Many pcs still need to catch up, even to 8gb.

Search isn't exactly clear either.
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/7yjnw0/video_games_never_use_over_8gb_of_my_16gb_of_ram/

I agree, that is a huge problem, since information isn't clear and sometimes even contradicting.

[Omega]

During normal usage it is still indeed rare for a game to pull over 8GB. However, increasingly more games are demanding more then 8gb. Games like Just Caust 3 and 4, Battlefield 1 and V etc.. will easily pull more then 8GB next to what Windows and other apps require.

The most I have ever seen a game pull would be Call Of Duty Advanced Warfare which pulled around 12GB (Pretty sure it was doing some RAM caching tricks) making my system use around 14GB out of 16GB.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Does it matter? PC Gamers generally need ram above 8GB, such as 16GB otherwise you won't have enough.

[Wraithsiege]

If u want your games to use a lot of ram buy cities skylines and downlaod mods. My game currently uses all of my 16gb + around 30gb paged mmmmm sweet 10FPS

[nullable]

Ardenian님이 먼저 게시:

_I_님이 먼저 게시:

games will only use the ammount of ram they need

Omega님이 먼저 게시:

As the person above me says, games and other applications will only use as much as they need.

Thank you for your responses, now I am curious, what are major factors that determinate RAM usage? If a game states that 16GB are optimal, would surprise me if it used 8GB only, then, under all circumstances.

Because developers don't sit around finding the absolute minimal optimal settings. They also can't account for how millions of users have things configured, or what they're running in the background. So they tend to put in some common higher amount to cover their asses. If you can run the game optimally on less than what's stated what do you want? A Medal? And if you can't run on less than what's stated, at least the requirements weren't misrepresented.

I agree, that is a huge problem, since information isn't clear and sometimes even contradicting.

Well yes, welcome to PC gaming, where there's literally thousands of combinations of hardware, OS, software and drivers, and developers can realistically test about a dozen of those. As a result system requirements have never been terribly precise or authoritative.