Question Siege Is Using an Insane Amount of RAM

[PabloSanchez]

So about 10 days ago, I was having problems with Rainbow 6 Siege crashing on me every time I played for more than half an hour. Before it would crash, I would get FPS drops every so often, and the game would even freeze sometimes for a few seconds. After the second time I crashed, I started monitoring more than my temps. I noticed my RAM usage by Siege was over 20 GB. My settings are mostly medium to high (nothing very high). Even on all highest settings, it should use less than 16 GB of RAM. I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostics, which found nothing. No other game is having this issue. I wiped my PC a week ago; that didn't help. Someone suggested I move the game from my M.2 to another drive. It was fine the first time I went to play; I played for almost 2 hours and had no performance problems. But, it continued the next time I played. I hit about 25 GB of RAM for Siege. I just got a 2080 Super, the day it came out. I was having problems before when I still was using a 1070, but a couple days after I installed the 2080 Super, I started having bigger issues. Is it the graphics card? I've looked up how to set my Virtual Memory, but I found it rather confusing. Would it help if I did that? I don't understand what's up with Siege...or my PC.

System Specs:
CPU: i7 9700K
GPU: RTX 2080 Super (before was a GTX 1070)
RAM: 32 GB (2x16) Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro
Motherboard: MSI Z390M Gaming Edge AC
CPU Cooler: Corsair H150i
PSU: Rosewill Hive 750W Bronze
Boot Drive: 240 GB SSD
M.2: Western Digital Blue 3D NAND 500 GB

 

[gn842a]

Well....looks like a nice build to me....but solving issues like this requires starting from the bottom up. I suggest:

1. Review your build using the techniques and tests suggested here
https://www.pcgamer.com/best-gpu-2016/

2. I learned recently that the RAM allocated to the GPU is done by Windows, which apparently just allocates 50% of what it sees to the GPU. Now, you are over 50%. I would be inclined to call support for your GPU and see what gives--if there is a way that it would be using over 50%.

3. You've made no mention of thermals. If you're getting close to TJ Max the chip is going to throttle back to cool down and you would get freezing and crashing. This is in fact the prime suspect IMO. So install a temp monitor like CPUID and see what it tells you. You can run a nasty benchmark like Unigine Superposition at "Extreme" to see how your temps go. If you're using a standard AIO you will actually be running hotter than if you get a good air cpu cooler like Noctua. At 90 degrees the cpu is going to start throttling down and at 100 degrees it will shut down altogether.

The thermal paste between the the heat sink and cpu can sometimes be too thick poorly applied leading to overheating.

Regarding your question about whether it could be the card: I think that's a distinct possibility. I think a lot of them are very unreliable and I haven't a clue what to do about it.

Greg N

 

[PabloSanchez]

3. You've made no mention of thermals.

My temps are all below 90. The 1070 hit a max of around 80, but it usually never went above around 75. My CPU maxed around 70 but barely goes beyond low 60s. The 2080 will never go beyond low 60s. My temps don't seem to be an issue, which is why I only very briefly mentioned them.

2. I learned recently that the RAM allocated to the GPU is done by Windows, which apparently just allocates 50% of what it sees to the GPU. Now, you are over 50%. I would be inclined to call support for your GPU and see what gives--if there is a way that it would be using over 50%.

I'm not fully understanding what you are saying here...I'm talking about my regular RAM. I never mentioned the use of my VRAM unless I'm missing what you're trying to get at.

 

[gn842a]

I'm not fully understanding what you are saying here...I'm talking about my regular RAM. I never mentioned the use of my VRAM unless I'm missing what you're trying to get at.

Actually I was talking about RAM. I'm trying to remember what test I ran which showed I had 50% of my RAM allocated for the gpu - not the VRAM. I'll go rummage around and see what I can find. That's when someone mentioned the RAM allocation as controlled by Win 10.

 

[gn842a]

Yes OK I re-learned how to do this. Hit windows - X, select run, type dxdiag.exe and wait for it to load. On the second tab DISPLAY it will show the VRAM and the RAM allocation. On my current build I'm showing VRAM at 2023 MB which is 2 gigs and RAM allocation at 16342 which is 16 gigs out of the 32 installed.

That allocation is controlled by Win 10 and unless you've intervened to change it I think it is probably a fixed default value. I don't see how it could be running more than what you see in dxdiag.exe in terms of pure RAM that thing is looking at your OS.

I'm not sure what you're measuring or how you're doing it but it seems to me that you might be measuring using an app that adds the VRAM and available RAM. So the 16 gigs of RAM plus the 8 gigs VRAM on your card add up very close to 25 gigs is what I'm thinking, meaning nothing is wrong with the RAM usage. Otherwise it's a very strange coincidence.

Notice that in the dxdiag.exe it shows in the upper right the installed drivers so this is a chance to verify that you have the latest and greatest.

As a final thought it may be that your system is outrunning your MONITOR which could be the choke point of your system. With a high powered card like that you might be at default settings that a run of the mill monitor can't keep up with. If you have to dial down the gpu's outputs to keep it to levels your monitor can handle you may have paid for capability that you can't fully use. That's a discussion you might want to raise in the monitor forum.

Greg N

 

[PabloSanchez]

Direct X Diagnostic Tool is telling me my VRAM is 8010 MB, and Shared Memory is 16351 MB (on all 3 of my displays). I was looking at Task Manager to monitor my RAM usage; it said over 25000 MB of RAM was being used by Siege. I unplugged one of my monitors from my PC while playing to see if that would settle things; it didn't. Also, I have a 1080p 240 Hz Alienware monitor set to max refresh rate as my gaming monitor.

 

[PabloSanchez]

This is what my Task Manager looked like after launching the game and just sitting in the main menu for 10 minutes.

 

[gn842a]

This is what my Task Manager looked like after launching the game and just sitting in the main menu for 10 minutes.

Well you got me stumped you might want to consider the gaming forum. I note that "problems running rainbow six" autocompletes in google and they have a page up. Maybe there's something there for you:

https://support.ubi.com/en-GB/faqs/36033/Performance-Issues-in-Rainbow-Six-Siege-R6S/

Greg N

p.s. Maybe they were just in a mood to create a game that no systems out there could run.....