How to reduce physical memory usage while playing ?

[Leveland]

Hello,

I am playing Assassin's Creed 3 on my laptop, but it lags. So, i cranked it up to high performance using Catalyst control center. The game after that change is great, but after a few minutes the game crashes because the physical memory is too high (I don't know, kinda like 90% or above). After crashing the physical memory drastically decreasing. Is there any way to reduce the physical memory usage while playing on high performance instead? I have 4 GB RAM. These are the picture of the physical memory percentage when it's on normal (Still pretty huge, though)

Spoiler

Thanks Before

 

[manofchalk]

Close any programs that are open when you want to game is the obvious one.
Then open up Task manager, open the processes tab and sort by memory usage. If you see any background applications like Skype, Steam or other programs you don't need running, end the process. If you don't recognize something, dont touch it.
Also explorer.exe isn't Internet explorer, stopping that will get rid of your whole desktop

Next go to personalization in Control Panel and pick a theme that doesn't use Aero, that will reduce your RAM usage a bit.
This next bit im not sure of, but cant hurt. Open up the install directory where AC3 is located (would be in Uplay or Steam depending on which way you got it) and right click on the .exe file that opens the game, select properties. Under compatability there should be the option to disable visual themes, tick that.

Thats all I can think of except for making some more Virtual RAM, which may hinder or benefit performance depending on how much the system relies on it. If your still having troubles, il show you how to make yourself some Virtual RAM and you can test if it fixes your issue.

 

[hytecgowthaman]

Virtual memory means use hdd space as ram.set to atleast 4000mb .

 

[hytecgowthaman]

Change Power option to high performance while playing.

 

[hytecgowthaman]

Change Power option to high performance while playing.

 

[Leveland]

Close any programs that are open when you want to game is the obvious one.
Then open up Task manager, open the processes tab and sort by memory usage. If you see any background applications like Skype, Steam or other programs you don't need running, end the process. If you don't recognize something, dont touch it.
Also explorer.exe isn't Internet explorer, stopping that will get rid of your whole desktop

Next go to personalization in Control Panel and pick a theme that doesn't use Aero, that will reduce your RAM usage a bit.
This next bit im not sure of, but cant hurt. Open up the install directory where AC3 is located (would be in Uplay or Steam depending on which way you got it) and right click on the .exe file that opens the game, select properties. Under compatability there should be the option to disable visual themes, tick that.

Thats all I can think of except for making some more Virtual RAM, which may hinder or benefit performance depending on how much the system relies on it. If your still having troubles, il show you how to make yourself some Virtual RAM and you can test if it fixes your issue.

I'm playing AC3 again with following your suggestions, but it's crashing again. On the bright side, the game played about 20 Minutes, longer than usual. I want to make it longer, probably minimal about 1 Hour. About Virtual RAM, what is it? I'm not too expert at Computer

 

[manofchalk]

Virtual RAM is a file on the HDD that for all intents and purposes, acts like RAM. It was pretty essential back in the day when the average computer had only 1GB of RAM and the rate at which programs advanced was faster than people upgrading their machines. So if the RAM overflows or something sits in the RAM too long without being used, its moved to the Virtual RAM, also known as the Pagefile, on the Hard Drive.

The reason why making it bigger might hinder performance is pretty simple, the HDD is much slower than RAM. So if you make it bigger and the computer stores more of the game data in there than before, it has to pull more data from the pagefile and will therefore slow down compared to that data being in the RAM.
The reason it may benefit performance is because Windows may recognize the game data has priority and should stay in the RAM, then relegate other stuff to the pagefile.
So its kind of a 50/50 chance.

Follow this guide to find your Virtaul RAM settings. But when you get there you want to increase the size instead of deleting it. Click on a custom size and set it to 5000MB (should be 4000MB by default) and click OK.
Back into AC3 and see if it made a difference. You may have to tweak the size a bit and by trial and error figure out how much is best.
http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/windows-tips-tutorials-articles/32471-disable-delete-recreate-paging-file-windows-7-a.html

 

[Leveland]

Virtual RAM is a file on the HDD that for all intents and purposes, acts like RAM. It was pretty essential back in the day when the average computer had only 1GB of RAM and the rate at which programs advanced was faster than people upgrading their machines. So if the RAM overflows or something sits in the RAM too long without being used, its moved to the Virtual RAM, also known as the Pagefile, on the Hard Drive.

The reason why making it bigger might hinder performance is pretty simple, the HDD is much slower than RAM. So if you make it bigger and the computer stores more of the game data in there than before, it has to pull more data from the pagefile and will therefore slow down compared to that data being in the RAM.
The reason it may benefit performance is because Windows may recognize the game data has priority and should stay in the RAM, then relegate other stuff to the pagefile.
So its kind of a 50/50 chance.

Follow this guide to find your Virtaul RAM settings. But when you get there you want to increase the size instead of deleting it. Click on a custom size and set it to 5000MB (should be 4000MB by default) and click OK.
Back into AC3 and see if it made a difference. You may have to tweak the size a bit and by trial and error figure out how much is best.
http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/windows-tips-tutorials-articles/32471-disable-delete-recreate-paging-file-windows-7-a.html

Thanks! Now I can play without crashes, and running smoothly.

 

[Leveland]

Best answer selected by Leveland.