RAM usage while gaming

[Wite with problems]

I play GTA V on 4GB RAM on a Windows 10.
Before playing I make sure that all unwanted processes are cleared.

So I have about 40% memory being used out of which Windows is using 1.6GB
I start playing GTA V and see that about 90% of RAM is being used and GTA V is using 1.8GB of RAM.

Fine. After playing for some time the game freezes every now and then especially when driving. Now, GTA V is using only 600MB of RAM but still, 90% of RAM is being used. No additional apps are shown on the list of processes. What is causing this problem and how can I fix it? (Other than buying more RAM)

 

[ledhead11]

The stuttering/freezing is likely being caused by page file swapping. Unless the page file is disabled(and you shouldn't with only 4gb) Windows will write excess ram info to the pagefile on the hard drive. For gaming, this will cause the effect your witnessing. Its usually more unnoticeable but slower when non-visual apps cause this but games like GTA V are more demanding. 4GB is really the bare minimum. That is also why you saw the change from 1.8 to 600MB, it shifted to the pagefile at that moment.

You can adjust the pagefile size and tinker to try and gain a few fps but really you need to have 8GB on hand. It sounds like you running 64bit and that uses about 2GB(the 1.6gb you saw). Leaving only 2GB for games is really cutting it close. Heavy pagefile usage on a regular basis will also cause some add wear on the HDD.

 

[Wite with problems]

The stuttering/freezing is likely being caused by page file swapping. Unless the page file is disabled(and you shouldn't with only 4gb) Windows will write excess ram info to the pagefile on the hard drive. For gaming, this will cause the effect your witnessing. Its usually more unnoticeable but slower when non-visual apps cause this but games like GTA V are more demanding. 4GB is really the bare minimum. That is also why you saw the change from 1.8 to 600MB, it shifted to the pagefile at that moment.

You can adjust the pagefile size and tinker to try and gain a few fps but really you need to have 8GB on hand. It sounds like you running 64bit and that uses about 2GB(the 1.6gb you saw). Leaving only 2GB for games is really cutting it close. Heavy pagefile usage on a regular basis will also cause some add wear on the HDD.

So what do I have to do? Reduce Page file size or increase it? If reduce, then reduce to what? Please help

 

[Wite with problems]

The stuttering/freezing is likely being caused by page file swapping. Unless the page file is disabled(and you shouldn't with only 4gb) Windows will write excess ram info to the pagefile on the hard drive. For gaming, this will cause the effect your witnessing. Its usually more unnoticeable but slower when non-visual apps cause this but games like GTA V are more demanding. 4GB is really the bare minimum. That is also why you saw the change from 1.8 to 600MB, it shifted to the pagefile at that moment.

You can adjust the pagefile size and tinker to try and gain a few fps but really you need to have 8GB on hand. It sounds like you running 64bit and that uses about 2GB(the 1.6gb you saw). Leaving only 2GB for games is really cutting it close. Heavy pagefile usage on a regular basis will also cause some add wear on the HDD.

Also I've set pagefile to about 10000 MB or KB whichever the default unit is. I have got a bit better performance but still not good. How can I make Windows 10 to stop doing whatever it was doing?

 

[ledhead11]

Honestly I don't believe you can 'stop' it. The game is trying to use more memory than you have and Windows is trying to compensate with the pagefile(also called virtual memory). This actually isn't just a Windows 10 thing, AFAIK Windows has had this feature since at least 98/XP days and probably before. It was always intended to help those who didn't have enough RAM installed for what they were doing.

The only thing I could recommend is dialing back you AA settings and maybe a few others. I have GTA V but I can't remember all the settings. What I recommend for what might be a reasonable compromise is to leave your texture settings as is but start dialing back everything else like shadows/reflections/population density etc. I know these kinds of things mainly affect VRAM and not system RAM but it might help.

You didn't mention you're graphics card but if it has less than 4GB and you're gaming at 1080p or higher its possible the game is trying to compensate with system RAM. I don't know exactly how it works but I know that with NVIDIA cards(and possibly AMD too) you can see how much VRAM a card has and it will also show you 'shared system RAM'. If your game settings are too high its possible the GPU is trying to allocate more of your system RAM to compensate and thus forcing pagefile issues.

A lot of people argue over what's actually needed for modern gaming when it comes to VRAM or RAM but the solid truth is the higher the settings the more they will need or want to use. Its because of this that many game reviews now include VRAM usage and very few are done on a system with less than 8GB RAM.

 

[Wite with problems]

Honestly I don't believe you can 'stop' it. The game is trying to use more memory than you have and Windows is trying to compensate with the pagefile(also called virtual memory). This actually isn't just a Windows 10 thing, AFAIK Windows has had this feature since at least 98/XP days and probably before. It was always intended to help those who didn't have enough RAM installed for what they were doing.

The only thing I could recommend is dialing back you AA settings and maybe a few others. I have GTA V but I can't remember all the settings. What I recommend for what might be a reasonable compromise is to leave your texture settings as is but start dialing back everything else like shadows/reflections/population density etc. I know these kinds of things mainly affect VRAM and not system RAM but it might help.

You didn't mention you're graphics card but if it has less than 4GB and you're gaming at 1080p or higher its possible the game is trying to compensate with system RAM. I don't know exactly how it works but I know that with NVIDIA cards(and possibly AMD too) you can see how much VRAM a card has and it will also show you 'shared system RAM'. If your game settings are too high its possible the GPU is trying to allocate more of your system RAM to compensate and thus forcing pagefile issues.

A lot of people argue over what's actually needed for modern gaming when it comes to VRAM or RAM but the solid truth is the higher the settings the more they will need or want to use. Its because of this that many game reviews now include VRAM usage and very few are done on a system with less than 8GB RAM.

When I reduce settings, it freezes for longer and more frequently
At high settings, I'm pretty fine if not for some small freezes
And no my graphics card is a 2GB one, and I play the game at 1280x720 screen resolution
I do not exceed the 2GB mark, it stays at 1.7GB with pretty much everything at high, no population density, variety or distance scaling, and AA off

 

[ledhead11]

It really sounds like your getting as much as your system can provide. Other than maybe driver reinstalls(I doubt would help here but might) hardware upgrades are the only thing you can do. GTA V is well known at being a demanding resource title and it seems like your close to the bare minimum specs for it. A point of confusion with most games, referenced min specs listed for a game by no means will give an optimal experience and even the recommended specs are often a few notches below the best experience. I don't know of anything else to offer to help you at this point.

 

[Wite with problems]

It really sounds like your getting as much as your system can provide. Other than maybe driver reinstalls(I doubt would help here but might) hardware upgrades are the only thing you can do. GTA V is well known at being a demanding resource title and it seems like your close to the bare minimum specs for it. A point of confusion with most games, referenced min specs listed for a game by no means will give an optimal experience and even the recommended specs are often a few notches below the best experience. I don't know of anything else to offer to help you at this point.

Ok thanks, but I have definitely seen other people play this game on 4GB RAM even 3GB without this stutter....

 

[ledhead11]

No problem, I understand.

It might be possible that the RAM usage isn't really the issue. Even though I doubt its a driver issue, many would recommend making sure you have the latest. The only caveat is that if this GPU is old enough, sometimes newer drivers make things worse.

Here's a small list of other things I would look at and I apologize if it starts to feel like a snipe hunt and you'll want to have some utilities on hand to check even if your bios are telling different. CPUz, CrystaldiskInfo, GPUz. Both CPU and GPU z will show a lot of same info but there's a couple of minor differences. These aren't the end all be all of monitoring but they'll work for these purposes.

1. Check your memory settings are they at the right speed for what you know you have. RAM is listed sometimes in the pre-DDR rate(i.e. 1333mhz will show as 667mhz)
2. Disk speeds. Are they matching what they're supposed to be. You really want at least SATA II/300Gb/s or SATA III/600Gb/s
3. GPU PCIe speeds. It would only matter if for some reason its running in PCIe 1.0 x1. PCIe 2.0 x8 or x16 or 3.0 x8 x16 are fine.
4. If any of the above isn't correctly matching what it should then you might need to adjust your BIOS. Be careful if you do.

When you say that others have run better with same or less, please do an exact comparison let me know what the differences are(CPU,RAM,GPU).

Even if you have the same basic equipment, cooling and power can cause issues. If your PSU is even slightly lesser than what those others are using that can cause issues for the GPU. If things are getting too hot the GPU could be throttling.

Is this an NVIDIA card? If so and you've customized things in CP then try resetting everything back to default. I've had issues were maxing the wrong thing fought with the game engine. As much as possible let app's control the settings.

For 'stutters' or even micro-stutters(usually SLI related) there really can be a lot of different causes.

 

[Wite with problems]

No problem, I understand.

It might be possible that the RAM usage isn't really the issue. Even though I doubt its a driver issue, many would recommend making sure you have the latest. The only caveat is that if this GPU is old enough, sometimes newer drivers make things worse.

Here's a small list of other things I would look at and I apologize if it starts to feel like a snipe hunt and you'll want to have some utilities on hand to check even if your bios are telling different. CPUz, CrystaldiskInfo, GPUz. Both CPU and GPU z will show a lot of same info but there's a couple of minor differences. These aren't the end all be all of monitoring but they'll work for these purposes.

1. Check your memory settings are they at the right speed for what you know you have. RAM is listed sometimes in the pre-DDR rate(i.e. 1333mhz will show as 667mhz)
2. Disk speeds. Are they matching what they're supposed to be. You really want at least SATA II/300Gb/s or SATA III/600Gb/s
3. GPU PCIe speeds. It would only matter if for some reason its running in PCIe 1.0 x1. PCIe 2.0 x8 or x16 or 3.0 x8 x16 are fine.
4. If any of the above isn't correctly matching what it should then you might need to adjust your BIOS. Be careful if you do.

When you say that others have run better with same or less, please do an exact comparison let me know what the differences are(CPU,RAM,GPU).

Even if you have the same basic equipment, cooling and power can cause issues. If your PSU is even slightly lesser than what those others are using that can cause issues for the GPU. If things are getting too hot the GPU could be throttling.

Is this an NVIDIA card? If so and you've customized things in CP then try resetting everything back to default. I've had issues were maxing the wrong thing fought with the game engine. As much as possible let app's control the settings.

For 'stutters' or even micro-stutters(usually SLI related) there really can be a lot of different causes.

Others have played the game on my same GPU and a weaker CPU and on 4GB or 3GB RAM and got better performance

 

[ledhead11]

No problem, I understand.

It might be possible that the RAM usage isn't really the issue. Even though I doubt its a driver issue, many would recommend making sure you have the latest. The only caveat is that if this GPU is old enough, sometimes newer drivers make things worse.

Here's a small list of other things I would look at and I apologize if it starts to feel like a snipe hunt and you'll want to have some utilities on hand to check even if your bios are telling different. CPUz, CrystaldiskInfo, GPUz. Both CPU and GPU z will show a lot of same info but there's a couple of minor differences. These aren't the end all be all of monitoring but they'll work for these purposes.

1. Check your memory settings are they at the right speed for what you know you have. RAM is listed sometimes in the pre-DDR rate(i.e. 1333mhz will show as 667mhz)
2. Disk speeds. Are they matching what they're supposed to be. You really want at least SATA II/300Gb/s or SATA III/600Gb/s
3. GPU PCIe speeds. It would only matter if for some reason its running in PCIe 1.0 x1. PCIe 2.0 x8 or x16 or 3.0 x8 x16 are fine.
4. If any of the above isn't correctly matching what it should then you might need to adjust your BIOS. Be careful if you do.

When you say that others have run better with same or less, please do an exact comparison let me know what the differences are(CPU,RAM,GPU).

Even if you have the same basic equipment, cooling and power can cause issues. If your PSU is even slightly lesser than what those others are using that can cause issues for the GPU. If things are getting too hot the GPU could be throttling.

Is this an NVIDIA card? If so and you've customized things in CP then try resetting everything back to default. I've had issues were maxing the wrong thing fought with the game engine. As much as possible let app's control the settings.

For 'stutters' or even micro-stutters(usually SLI related) there really can be a lot of different causes.

Others have played the game on my same GPU and a weaker CPU and on 4GB or 3GB RAM and got better performance

I understand and that's also why I said it might not really be a RAM issue but as I stated above there's a lot more to it than that. If you're trying to re-create what they did you need to identify exactly what different settings or parts might be on your system vs. theirs. You also need to list all the specs of your system vs the ones you're comparing yourself too.

At this point there's only be a vague reference of what you have and others but nothing truly detailed. Most people who post questions on sites like this will generally list their MOBO(sometimes BIOS version), CPU, GPU(exact model), RAM(size & speed), drive(s), PSU, sometimes cooling and case, OS(type and bit version), sometimes GPU driver version installed, display(type, sometimes connection method, resolution/refresh settings). Gather that info for you along with someone you're trying to compare with and the detail may reveal itself then.

PC gaming is more than just parts, there are a lot of settings that need to be properly calibrated. On, that note, did you try setting a frame cap-say either 30 or 60fps, are you using V-sync or anything similar? Those are also settings that can drastically affect performance. As I also mentioned above, in the GPU settings software(NV CP or AMD Catalystor whatever its called now) set as many things to default/app controlled and only tweak the things in GTA V. This will minimize the amount of conflicts between the two.

 

[Wite with problems]

No problem, I understand.

It might be possible that the RAM usage isn't really the issue. Even though I doubt its a driver issue, many would recommend making sure you have the latest. The only caveat is that if this GPU is old enough, sometimes newer drivers make things worse.

Here's a small list of other things I would look at and I apologize if it starts to feel like a snipe hunt and you'll want to have some utilities on hand to check even if your bios are telling different. CPUz, CrystaldiskInfo, GPUz. Both CPU and GPU z will show a lot of same info but there's a couple of minor differences. These aren't the end all be all of monitoring but they'll work for these purposes.

1. Check your memory settings are they at the right speed for what you know you have. RAM is listed sometimes in the pre-DDR rate(i.e. 1333mhz will show as 667mhz)
2. Disk speeds. Are they matching what they're supposed to be. You really want at least SATA II/300Gb/s or SATA III/600Gb/s
3. GPU PCIe speeds. It would only matter if for some reason its running in PCIe 1.0 x1. PCIe 2.0 x8 or x16 or 3.0 x8 x16 are fine.
4. If any of the above isn't correctly matching what it should then you might need to adjust your BIOS. Be careful if you do.

When you say that others have run better with same or less, please do an exact comparison let me know what the differences are(CPU,RAM,GPU).

Even if you have the same basic equipment, cooling and power can cause issues. If your PSU is even slightly lesser than what those others are using that can cause issues for the GPU. If things are getting too hot the GPU could be throttling.

Is this an NVIDIA card? If so and you've customized things in CP then try resetting everything back to default. I've had issues were maxing the wrong thing fought with the game engine. As much as possible let app's control the settings.

For 'stutters' or even micro-stutters(usually SLI related) there really can be a lot of different causes.

Others have played the game on my same GPU and a weaker CPU and on 4GB or 3GB RAM and got better performance

I understand and that's also why I said it might not really be a RAM issue but as I stated above there's a lot more to it than that. If you're trying to re-create what they did you need to identify exactly what different settings or parts might be on your system vs. theirs. You also need to list all the specs of your system vs the ones you're comparing yourself too.

At this point there's only be a vague reference of what you have and others but nothing truly detailed. Most people who post questions on sites like this will generally list their MOBO(sometimes BIOS version), CPU, GPU(exact model), RAM(size & speed), drive(s), PSU, sometimes cooling and case, OS(type and bit version), sometimes GPU driver version installed, display(type, sometimes connection method, resolution/refresh settings). Gather that info for you along with someone you're trying to compare with and the detail may reveal itself then.

PC gaming is more than just parts, there are a lot of settings that need to be properly calibrated. On, that note, did you try setting a frame cap-say either 30 or 60fps, are you using V-sync or anything similar? Those are also settings that can drastically affect performance. As I also mentioned above, in the GPU settings software(NV CP or AMD Catalystor whatever its called now) set as many things to default/app controlled and only tweak the things in GTA V. This will minimize the amount of conflicts between the two.

You may be right, just today I was at my friend's house playing GTA V on a 8GB RAM system. I had task manager running and the game just used 1GB of RAM and usage stayed at a consistent 50% so... Could be my game, is that possible that the game fails to manage resources properly and uses excess RAM? Because for me, the game uses 1.8GB/90% of total RAM used first, then drops to 600MB/still 90% of total RAM used.

And yes, I do use a half V-sync on a 60Hz display. Power and cooling is definitely not an issue...

 

[ledhead11]

I'd say that totally sounds spot on. From the game to the OS they will try to work with each other but with limited resources it could look more like a battle which seems like what you saw on your system.

I've been in some threads with people discussing what's really needed 4/8/16 GB and most agree that 4GB is just too little for most things these days. I personally favor a minimum of 16gb but its true that 8GB will suffice for most gaming. I sometimes do video/photo projects and that's when 16gb starts to get tight.

 

[ledhead11]

I just wanted to add that if you decide to increase your ram you'd probably be better off just getting a 8gb single card instead of adding a 2nd 4gb. The reason is that even though you can mix/match even same type cards its not uncommon for there to be issues. I've done it but I also have read of many who encountered issues. Even if you buy the same company/type they often will change something as time passes and it can cause issues.

If you go for a 2x4gb kit there's probably no real FPS(maybe 1 or 2 but hard to say) vs. a single 8gb other than price. I used to see older computers benefit(Pentium 4 and before) from multiple cards but I haven't noticed much difference with i5/i7's when it come to gaming.

 

[akseli]

If a game (or any other program) uses memory mapped files, it will use RAM, but it won't actually show up as memory reserved/used spesifically by that program. It sounds like GTA 5 uses that.

Try restarting your computer and then try playing, restarting will flush any possible mapped files. You will still be always limited by your low amount of RAM.

 

[Wite with problems]

I just wanted to add that if you decide to increase your ram you'd probably be better off just getting a 8gb single card instead of adding a 2nd 4gb. The reason is that even though you can mix/match even same type cards its not uncommon for there to be issues. I've done it but I also have read of many who encountered issues. Even if you buy the same company/type they often will change something as time passes and it can cause issues.

If you go for a 2x4gb kit there's probably no real FPS(maybe 1 or 2 but hard to say) vs. a single 8gb other than price. I used to see older computers benefit(Pentium 4 and before) from multiple cards but I haven't noticed much difference with i5/i7's when it come to gaming.

Hey I have a 5400RPM hard disk, could that be causing this issue?

 

[ledhead11]

I won't say its impossible but unlikely. If everything is running off this single drive it could cost maybe a couple of frames. I always use 2 drives, no matter what types. One for the OS and one for games. In that scenario I can say I've used 5400rpm drives with no problem other than load times. If this is your only drive then it might cause a few frames. Regardless, always stay on top of defragging when it comes to platters.

If this is on a SATA I or SATA II then it could be a cause but SATA III is usually plenty fast. If for some reason this a USB drive then that can definitely be a problem. USB 2.0 wouldn't have a chance and USB 3.0 might barely be able to. USB/SATA speeds, regardless of version, heavily depend on chipsets, cpu, ram speeds. I've seen SATA III, 5400rpm drives hold 100MB/s on a fast computer and then the same only 50-60MB/s on much slower.

 

[Wite with problems]

I won't say its impossible but unlikely. If everything is running off this single drive it could cost maybe a couple of frames. I always use 2 drives, no matter what types. One for the OS and one for games. In that scenario I can say I've used 5400rpm drives with no problem other than load times. If this is your only drive then it might cause a few frames. Regardless, always stay on top of defragging when it comes to platters.

If this is on a SATA I or SATA II then it could be a cause but SATA III is usually plenty fast. If for some reason this a USB drive then that can definitely be a problem. USB 2.0 wouldn't have a chance and USB 3.0 might barely be able to. USB/SATA speeds, regardless of version, heavily depend on chipsets, cpu, ram speeds. I've seen SATA III, 5400rpm drives hold 100MB/s on a fast computer and then the same only 50-60MB/s on much slower.

My hard disk speeds are about 50MB/s, while playing, the disk usage light is on without any blinking... Its not framerates, its just the game takes time to load some objects and it freezes...
I've heard some people saying that the Hard disk matters in an open world game like GTA...

 

[Wite with problems]

I won't say its impossible but unlikely. If everything is running off this single drive it could cost maybe a couple of frames. I always use 2 drives, no matter what types. One for the OS and one for games. In that scenario I can say I've used 5400rpm drives with no problem other than load times. If this is your only drive then it might cause a few frames. Regardless, always stay on top of defragging when it comes to platters.

If this is on a SATA I or SATA II then it could be a cause but SATA III is usually plenty fast. If for some reason this a USB drive then that can definitely be a problem. USB 2.0 wouldn't have a chance and USB 3.0 might barely be able to. USB/SATA speeds, regardless of version, heavily depend on chipsets, cpu, ram speeds. I've seen SATA III, 5400rpm drives hold 100MB/s on a fast computer and then the same only 50-60MB/s on much slower.

I've noticed another unusual thing, the hard disk has a transfer speed of 20MB/s at the start, when the stutter begins, the transfer speeds go to 2-3 MB/s and the usage gets stuck at 100 %. Could this be causing the problem?

 

[ledhead11]

When drives start up there's a cache that's used and it will often register at a higher speed then drop.

That 2-3MB/s is a bit low depending on the type of drive and port you're using. Since there's likely a lot of writing and reading going on with the page file I would expect it to be low but even then this is a little more so.

Causing the problem? More like a symptom. I would recommend trying to get the drive to a half empty state and then defragging or optimizing. There's a number of threads on Toms for that. That should help a little. If your drive has S.M.A.R.T I would check on its health. If you've been gaming like this for a long time(years or the drive is pushing 3-6 already) with other games then it might be possible the drive is starting to go. If that's true then the drive has probably been compensating for the lack of RAM for such a long time that its simply wearing out. That's the symptom not the cause.

 

[Wite with problems]

When drives start up there's a cache that's used and it will often register at a higher speed then drop.

That 2-3MB/s is a bit low depending on the type of drive and port you're using. Since there's likely a lot of writing and reading going on with the page file I would expect it to be low but even then this is a little more so.

Causing the problem? More like a symptom. I would recommend trying to get the drive to a half empty state and then defragging or optimizing. There's a number of threads on Toms for that. That should help a little. If your drive has S.M.A.R.T I would check on its health. If you've been gaming like this for a long time(years or the drive is pushing 3-6 already) with other games then it might be possible the drive is starting to go. If that's true then the drive has probably been compensating for the lack of RAM for such a long time that its simply wearing out. That's the symptom not the cause.

Ok, I've done my bit of research and here's what I think happened. GTA V has a memory leak issue, and it overfills my 4GB RAM making the game write to the pagefile over time. Because of this, GTA V starts to stutter as my disk isn't the fastest ever. This problem is there for people even with 8 and 16 GB RAM. Whats funny is, that my friend has the exact same copy of the game and 8 GB of RAM, but there the RAM usage doesnt even exceed 60% no matter how long he plays, so basically that means there isn't a memory leak for him... Weird, I'll try reinstalling the game and running some error tests... Do you think that this memory management issue of GTA can be true? Or is it just a bunch of people on the R* forums who think they know why this happens?
I need to know if this is the problem of my version of the game before going and buying more RAM, as I don't want this problem to occur after adding more RAM.

 

[ledhead11]

I wasn't aware of GTA V having memory leaks but I don't doubt it and when playing with the bare minimum requirements it gets difficult to predict how the program will respond or compensate. It entirely possible the program hits the ceiling and defaults to the page file thereafter.

I think that you should consider buying a ram kit(actual 8GB kit and not just adding 4gb) if you plan on playing any other future games in the next 2 years on this system.

If you think you're going to go for a new build then at least you know the real recommended minimum these days is 8GB. In about 3-4 years 16gb may be the next norm and 32 is still way overkill. It also sounds like this system is cutting it a more than a few min. requirements and either a new build or some significant upgrades will be needed.

I'll still respond if you post questions on this but I really think we've covered just about every angle.

 

[u2desire420]

I don't know if this was mentioned or not but you may want to try setting Pagefile to custom and set both min and max to 4096 MB. I use to always set Pagefile to double the ram but that was pre-windows 7 and a system that only had 2 GB so 4096 should be sufficient for you.

 

[Wite with problems]

I wasn't aware of GTA V having memory leaks but I don't doubt it and when playing with the bare minimum requirements it gets difficult to predict how the program will respond or compensate. It entirely possible the program hits the ceiling and defaults to the page file thereafter.

I think that you should consider buying a ram kit(actual 8GB kit and not just adding 4gb) if you plan on playing any other future games in the next 2 years on this system.

If you think you're going to go for a new build then at least you know the real recommended minimum these days is 8GB. In about 3-4 years 16gb may be the next norm and 32 is still way overkill. It also sounds like this system is cutting it a more than a few min. requirements and either a new build or some significant upgrades will be needed.

I'll still respond if you post questions on this but I really think we've covered just about every angle.

Yeah thanks, yes GTA V uses a ton of pagefile, the value keeps on building as I play, and I will consider getting myself an 8 GB kit. But I'm on a laptop so I can't manually upgrade the RAM, so I guess I'm stuck with this 4GB, I'll consider sticking to lower games, and yeah. Thanks for all your help.

 

[Wite with problems]

I don't know if this was mentioned or not but you may want to try setting Pagefile to custom and set both min and max to 4096 MB. I use to always set Pagefile to double the ram but that was pre-windows 7 and a system that only had 2 GB so 4096 should be sufficient for you.

Yes my pagefile range is from 2-4 GB whenever it requires it, but the pagefile is the whole issue here. If I had more memory, I could have not set a pagefile, but if I remove the pagefile now, then the game will either crash with a low memory error or it won't start.