Pagefile when set to recommended values is causing "low memory" errors in games?

[SM125]

A while back I was having stuttering problems in Arma 3 so whilst trying literally everything to stop it, I increased the page file to 12GB just to see. This seemed to help but now anything lower than about 4GB pagefile immediately throws low system memory errors mid-game even though the used RAM only hits 5GB of 8GB.

My OS and games played are on a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo and the page file is on a 2TB WD Green. The rest of the system is a 4690k and a 1070 so if you have any ideas what could be causing this it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[InvalidError]

Some software reserves memory directly against the swapfile and will throw hissy fits when you attempt to make the swapfile too small or turn it off altogether. I have at least one program (don't remember which) which did this, and that's how I ended up having a 4GB swapfile despite having 32GB of RAM and rarely using more than half of it. (Not counting the OS' disk cache which will usually fill most of what is left.)

 

[SM125]

Some software reserves memory directly against the swapfile and will throw hissy fits when you attempt to make the swapfile too small or turn it off altogether. I have at least one program (don't remember which) which did this, and that's how I ended up having a 4GB swapfile despite having 32GB of RAM and rarely using more than half of it. (Not counting the OS' disk cache which will usually fill most of what is left.)

Interesting, would you say it's nothing to worry about then as I was considering another 8GB to see if it helped.

Also, I'm not sure whether this is related or not but when in-game, the hdd activity light will show and the game will stutter like crazy, normally only when first going on to the game (even though the game is on the ssd??). The only thing I can think of is shadowplay's 'instant replay' feature having to constantly write or something because I chose the hdd as the temp file location.

 

[InvalidError]

When most of the memory is used, Windows will try to free up more RAM to cache files by dumping less frequently accessed memory pages to the swapfile. The stutter that coincides with the HDD activity you are seeing is likely Windows reloading pages that got swapped out earlier.

Getting that extra 8GB may not be a bad idea.

Another thing that may help is setting min=max= 4GB to 8GB to force Windows to quit "optimizing" the swapfile size.

 

[SM125]

Will give that a try.

One last thing, is having a page/swapfile on the sdd more trouble than it's worth? I understand the constant read/write increases wear but may it be worth doing to decrease stutters if they are caused by reloading pages from a slow hdd?

Thank you very much for all of the help!

 

[InvalidError]

There is no harm in trying it, an occasional page fault (having to reload stuff from swap) causing stutter means that there isn't that much stuff being written to storage.

Swapping on an SSD becomes a significant concern when it becomes nearly continuous. In my 8GB Core2Duo's case for example, swapping was so bad under my typical workloads that I had to split my swapfile across three HDDs to make performance bearable. Even after I upgraded to my current i5 with 16GB, there was still more swapping going on when I tabbed between programs for my taste and that's how I ended up with 32GB to completely get rid of it. I had already spent $600 on building that new PC mainly just to get rid of swapping and $100 more to really get there was a no-brainer for me as I had never spent less than $400 on RAM for one of my PCs before.

 

[SM125]

When in game it seems to eventually use all of the designated page file before even using all of my RAM. Will increasing to 16GB reduce the amount of swapping?

 

[Tumeden]

Set your minimum page file to the amount of ram you have in your system, and the Maximum 1.5x the amount of ram. I'd keep the page file on your SSD due to the I/O speeds alone - to each their own though. Newer SSD's have a bigger life span then SSD's from a few years ago.

 

[InvalidError]

The swapfile shouldn't be filling up without traces of where that memory is going showing up somewhere. Enable the "Memory Working Set" column in Task Manager's detail view and find what is eating all the memory. Sounds like you may have a memory leak somewhere. In that case, a larger swapfile will only take more time to fill.

 

[SM125]

The swapfile shouldn't be filling up without traces of where that memory is going showing up somewhere. Enable the "Memory Working Set" column in Task Manager's detail view and find what is eating all the memory. Sounds like you may have a memory leak somewhere. In that case, a larger swapfile will only take more time to fill.

Come to think of it I suspected a memory leak a while ago but didn't think too much of it, on Arma 3 and *only* on Arma 3, I've noticed if the system has been on for a long period of time, that the stutters would be worse and more frequent until I restarted, surely indicating a memory leak.

I'll keep an eye on it. If it is a memory leak, what are my options?

 

[InvalidError]

Update the software responsible for it if you don't already have the newest version, check if that is a known issue with the current version, re-install the software if nobody else appears to have a memory leak issue with the software you are having a leak from.