Which PC game uses the most system memory?

[mazeroth]

Here's why I ask...

My PC currently has 4 gigs of RAM in it and I just ordered the parts to build my wife's PC (E2160 CPU). I'll be recycling some other parts so I'll only have about $130 in hers with a new motherboard/processor/DVD drive. I'm not sure if I really need 4 gigs of RAM in my computer and was thinking I could save some money and just put 2 gigs of my RAM into her computer and call it a day. I'll probably build a new computer for myself in 18-24 months and will probably need a different type of RAM to do so. With that, do you think it's a smart move to just share the 4 gigs between the two computers? Do you see computer games needing over 2 gigs of RAM in the near future? Both PCs will have XP on them.

 

[shortylickens]

I should think Supreme Commander on a huge map totally filled with units would need a lot.

But I bet somebody else could come up with a better example.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

With XP 2 gigs is plenty. Share the ram.

 

[apoppin]

XP .. 2 GB is plenty

Gothic3 has a memory leak and will burn thru any amount of RAM

 

[HeXploiT]

I will answer the title instead of the body. Games like Crysis(x64) on very high setting or total war on high settings and with multiple armies on the field really use 4gigs but aside from that the majority of game do perfectly fine with 2gb.

 

[Ultralight]

Originally posted by: apoppin
XP .. 2 GB is plenty

Gothic3 has a memory leak and will burn thru any amount of RAM

I don't hijack threads but apoppin's comment concerning Gothic 3's memory leak intrigues me. Did they ever fix this issue with a patch?

 

[flexy]

lol..i just wanted to say "Gothic III". It needs about *infinite* of RAM..even stutters running w/ 4GB.

Funny thing...i started playing GIII on my old machine w/ 1GB under XP.....it runs better now on new rig, sure,...but still the occasional stutter when it loads whatever it loads. Sadly, another game which doesnt really support antialiasing (although there are hacks)...another game i have installed but never really "played"...just too many glitches..

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: Ultralight

Originally posted by: apoppin
XP .. 2 GB is plenty

Gothic3 has a memory leak and will burn thru any amount of RAM

I don't hijack threads but apoppin's comment concerning Gothic 3's memory leak intrigues me. Did they ever fix this issue with a patch?

Community patch 1.6 has fixed it. I used to get the out of memory error every 90 minutes or so, since the latest patch I haven't gotten that error.

 

[CVSiN]

Hellgate had one of those HUGE memleak holes in it as well..
did they ever fix that?

 

[Markbnj]

On 32-bit editions of Windows....

"Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature.

The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. When the physical RAM in the system exceeds 16 GB and the /3GB switch is used, the operating system will ignore the additional RAM until the /3GB switch is removed. This is because of the increased size of the kernel required to support more Page Table Entries. The assumption is made that the administrator would rather not lose the /3GB functionality silently and automatically; therefore, this requires the administrator to explicitly change this setting.

The /3GB switch allocates 3 GB of virtual address space to an application that uses IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header. This switch allows applications to address 1 GB of additional virtual address space above 2 GB."

From:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/...server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

 

[NanoStuff]

FSX is sucking dry all 4GB of RAM on Vista 64 with texture LOD in overdrive using photo scenery

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
FSX is sucking dry all 4GB of RAM on Vista 64 with texture LOD in overdrive using photo scenery

It amazes me what a resource hog that game is. Utterly terrible considering it doesn't really look that great with everything cranked up.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

SupCom/FA with 8 AI, 1000 unit limit, on 80x80 map. Even better, add water to the mix. Even skulltrail can't keep up. The only thing limiting that is the fact that SupCom/FA can only address 4GB using the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag.

 

[KIAman]

Pshhh... Vanguard takes up to 6gb of my memory.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Utterly terrible considering it doesn't really look that great with everything cranked up.

It doesn't, the game is lots of empty promises. You really have to get some good photo scenery and go from there. With Real Environment X + photo scenery it could become pretty interesting, if the CPU is up for it.

 

[JustaGeek]

Quake 4 in Ultra High Quality settings would use ~72% of 3GB RAM that I used to have, even in 32-bit XP.

That translates to about 2.18GB of used RAM.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: KIAman
Pshhh... Vanguard takes up to 6gb of my memory.

How does it do that? Unless it's 64-bit software, a 32bit Windows program will only be able to access 2Gb, and 3Gig with the PAE extension

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: CVSiN
Hellgate had one of those HUGE memleak holes in it as well..
did they ever fix that?

Yes

Hg:L runs AWESOME on Vista 64 - faster than DX9 on Vista32 - on the DX10 pathway on my crossfire rig with everything ingame *fully maxed* at 16x10!

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: KIAman
Pshhh... Vanguard takes up to 6gb of my memory.

How does it do that? Unless it's 64-bit software, a 32bit Windows program will only be able to access 2Gb, and 3Gig with the PAE extension

You never know how people are measuring it. The thing is that looking at the "working set" in Task Manager (mem usage column in processes tab) is misleading. Here's a link to a really good explanation:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ntdebugg...memory-shell-game.aspx

In brief: in a 32-bit XP installation there is 4 gigs of addressable virtual memory. Without the /3GB flag in boot.ini the kernel reserves 2GB of this for itself, and assigns every process that starts up a 2GB address space of its own. If the /3GB flag was present then the application can be built with a special compiler define that allows it to address an additional 1GB, for a total of 3GB.

Task Manager reports it's own idea of the "working set". The important thing is that TaskMan doesn't seem to distinguish between pages that are in RAM, and pages that are on disk. They are all committed pages as far as memory usage is concerned.

When you see a program apparently using huge amounts of memory beyond the 2GB (or 3GB) limit, what you are seeing is all the memory that process has in committed pages it owns. Much, if not most, of it will not be in physical RAM. A good indicator would be to open Task Manager, click the processes tab, click View | Select Columns, and check the "Page Faults" column. Chances are you'll see that the program that appears to be using more system RAM than is available is having a huge number of page faults as it is forced to swap data between disk and RAM.

Edit: regardless of how much memory the program is using it can't access addresses beyond that 2GB (or 3GB limit), so I am assuming that the working set reported by TaskMan also includes pages of ram that are committed but not currently mapped into the address space.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: KIAman
Pshhh... Vanguard takes up to 6gb of my memory.

How does it do that? Unless it's 64-bit software, a 32bit Windows program will only be able to access 2Gb, and 3Gig with the PAE extension

You never know how people are measuring it. The thing is that looking at the "working set" in Task Manager (mem usage column in processes tab) is misleading. Here's a link to a really good explanation:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ntdebugg...memory-shell-game.aspx

In brief: in a 32-bit XP installation there is 4 gigs of addressable virtual memory. Without the /3GB flag in boot.ini the kernel reserves 2GB of this for itself, and assigns every process that starts up a 2GB address space of its own. If the /3GB flag was present then the application can be built with a special compiler define that allows it to address an additional 1GB, for a total of 3GB.

Task Manager reports it's own idea of the "working set". The important thing is that TaskMan doesn't seem to distinguish between pages that are in RAM, and pages that are on disk. They are all committed pages as far as memory usage is concerned.

When you see a program apparently using huge amounts of memory beyond the 2GB (or 3GB) limit, what you are seeing is all the memory that process has in committed pages it owns. Much, if not most, of it will not be in physical RAM. A good indicator would be to open Task Manager, click the processes tab, click View | Select Columns, and check the "Page Faults" column. Chances are you'll see that the program that appears to be using more system RAM than is available is having a huge number of page faults as it is forced to swap data between disk and RAM.

Edit: regardless of how much memory the program is using it can't access addresses beyond that 2GB (or 3GB limit), so I am assuming that the working set reported by TaskMan also includes pages of ram that are committed but not currently mapped into the address space.

That's a really good short version. There's also a good detail about the differences between memory use (physical vs. virtual) in AT's Messy Transition articles. There's a few tools out there that can give you a better idea about physical/virtual RAM use like Wset private, Commit, etc. like ProcessExplorer in XP and Resource Manager in Vista. I tend to just reference Commit in Vista 64 however as long as I have that much physical RAM, as a good memory manager will try to exhaust physical memory first even if there is some paging going on.

Anyways, I've had quite a few games use near all 3GB for /largeaddressaware games like LOTRO, Witcher, CoH, SC+FA, Crysis with 4.5-6GB total commit. Crysis was actually the highest, even though the application itself didn't show all of the RAM accounted for in Crysis64.exe.

 

[invidia]

Lineage 2.

I can play Crysis with max settings at a decent 40-50FPS. But when I max L2 graphics out, it is unplayable. It uses a modified Unreal 2.0 engine. Probably the most graphically intensive MMORPG out there.