What PC game titles use the most memory?

[dualsmp]

Did a search and found a few threads from 2008, so what game titles use the most memory now that it's 2010? I don't really game much, but when contemplating how much memory to buy for my new rig I checked Steam and found several games that have "recommended" system requirements of 3 GB RAM (Bioshock 2 was one). Napoleon Total War was 4 GB RAM recommended under Vista/Win7 which was the highest I found for "recommended". The most I found which wasn't recommended but "optimum" was Metro 2033 at 8GB RAM (pretty darn high).

So give me your short list, maybe top 5 games that use the most memory whether "recommended" or real game play.

 

[Jumpem]

Age of Conan wanted 4GB+.

 

[mfenn]

GTA IV needs a lot of VRAM to turn everything up (not exactly what you are asking, but meh)

 

[KaOTiK]

Metro 2033 Optimum requirements are 8GB+ but who knows till it is out if it will actually make use of that much, I can't wait to see if my 16GB of ram will actually get another use besides for rendering and work stuff haha

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Half Life 2 Cinematic Mod will eat more than 4 sometimes.

 

[marmasatt]

The Stalkers will get 3-4 megs easy.

 

[Maximilian]

The Stalkers will get 3-4 megs easy.

Nice, i got 6144 megs to run emm with

 

[AndroidVageta]

Half Life 2 Cinematic Mod will eat more than 4 sometimes.

Is this true? I JUST heard of this mod this morning before work and started downloading before I left (10 gigs!)...have you played it? How is it? Does it really make it feel like a "new" game? Thanks!

 

[Gillbot]

Supreme Commander and a HUGE map with lots of units?

 

[Zenoth]

Is this true? I JUST heard of this mod this morning before work and started downloading before I left (10 gigs!)...have you played it? How is it? Does it really make it feel like a "new" game? Thanks!

It's true for the older versions, but Cinematic Mod version 10 is much better optimized than any previous ones, I myself am playing it occasionally and it never went above 1.8GB (I mean for version 10), at least not as far as my own observations allowed me to notice, maybe there were higher peaks that I never saw, that's possible, but I'd doubt it. Additionally, I concur about Grand Theft Auto IV and the original Supreme Commander being very demanding on the memory. Also Empire: Total War on its very highest settings and big battles (usually either on Sea or on Land with a 3 versus 3) is also demanding.

 

[vj8usa]

I've heard X3 can use a ton of RAM, but I've never played it so I have no firsthand experience.

 

[Nox51]

Think Supreme Commander 1 is the king here. Going on my memory it wasn't 3.5GB aware before a patch and you could quite routinely make it bounce off that wall and crash.

I certainly managed to make it run out of memory once with too much unit spam (massive spam hitting the unit limit and nukes flying around) and crash. The standard AI was notorious for eating memory too in some versions. After patching and the Forged Alliance expansion it's much better no issues but still uses a fair bit I think.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Basically, all you're asking is what game is horribly optimized/leaks memory.

 

[MStele]

Did a search and found a few threads from 2008, so what game titles use the most memory now that it's 2010? I don't really game much, but when contemplating how much memory to buy for my new rig I checked Steam and found several games that have "recommended" system requirements of 3 GB RAM (Bioshock 2 was one). Napoleon Total War was 4 GB RAM recommended under Vista/Win7 which was the highest I found for "recommended". The most I found which wasn't recommended but "optimum" was Metro 2033 at 8GB RAM (pretty darn high).

So give me your short list, maybe top 5 games that use the most memory whether "recommended" or real game play.

Those high recommended numbers mainly pertain to 64-bit systems. The maximum memory footprint for 32-bit software within Windows 64-bit was increased from 2GB to 3GB. Prior to this, if you had 3GB ram, the game would only use 2GB max, therefore leaving 1GB for system operation. Since in 64-bit Windows 32-bit Games can use 3GB, you can see how you can quickly use up ram that the system needs to operate, therefore 4GB is a good number to have for most stuff today. I'm pretty sure game developers will build memory limiters into 64-bit native software, but it's still early to say what that number will be.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Is this true? I JUST heard of this mod this morning before work and started downloading before I left (10 gigs!)...have you played it? How is it? Does it really make it feel like a "new" game? Thanks!

If you have the GPU and ram to handle it with everything maxed out it makes for a really great play through of the series. One of the biggest differences besides the better graphics is the change of feel in the game. Everything is retextured to make it feel more post-apocalyptic, so the game is overall darker, which I feel is appropriate for the setting. I really really like it.

The mod is massive and make sure you get all the updates and such. I'm still surprised the creator dumps so much time into still, but I am very happy he does.

 

[tweakboy]

Crysis or Crysis 2 engine
Unreal Engine 3 used on Gears and UT3
COD MW2 engine

thx