Is there any way to free up RAM on 2.5.5?

Singleplayer is fine, but multiplayer is a nightmare. I tried Hoggit's Persian Gulf at War server with only 3 other people on it tonight, and my memory was maxed out in the performance manager. Frames were 35-40 on average, but loading anything (like turning my head in TrackIR to look behind me) caused huge freezes and stutters.

To help with stutters, I've tried setting up a page file on my SSD for 32000 MB. I've also set the autoexec.cfg affinity_mask to use cores 2 and 3 (out of 0,1,2,3) to free up windows based on this thread (https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1959076&postcount=1).

I've also turned Hyperthreading off in my BIOS.

I'm running DCS on a single screen using fullscreen, with these settings:

I don't know what else to do. The freezes and stutters are so bad it makes my MP experience just plain unenjoyable.

Any other ideas?

P.S.

I had DCS alt-tabbed out at the main menu while writing this whole post. When I finished, I checked my resource manager again and the memory was still at 99%. Does DCS really need all 16GB of my RAM just sitting at the main menu? That doesn't seem right.

Is there any way to free up RAM on 2.5.5?

I suspect that there is still a latent memory leak bug. My dcs crashed out of an MP session recently with memory at 99%..... and I have 32GB RAM with a 49GB page file.

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Any other ideas?

I would try lowering the preload radius to half, that should lower the ram usage.

Set your page file as custom 16384-16384 as shown in this post

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=230471

My latest findings show DCS does use more than two threads at once at certain circumstances and does happen all the time during gameplay, so you better up the afinity mask to use 3 cores.

And if you have SMT/HTT disabled then you might not need afinity mask, unless as you said for another reason like keeping recording software at bay, for example when I did some tests I put DCS to cores 0 1 2 and OBS to core 3.

maybe not much help, but do you delete all of your tracks in your saved games? i would find that my ssd would max out along w/ memory if there was not enough space. that was one way of freeing up space.

Thanks all for the input. I'm going to try each of these and see if it improves the memory usage or stutters any.

Edit:

Tried all of the suggestions, stutters still remain on the Persian Gulf map. Starting to think no amount of tweaking can help on that map for a multiplayer server with scripts and triggers running.

Is there any way to free up RAM on 2.5.5?

Set your page file as custom 16384-16384 as shown in this post

i don’t think changing the size of the page file is going to make any difference with this.

the problem is elsewhere.

I think the reason is, that on most or many, of the servers, their missions have all DCS modules as late activation units, so they get loaded into memory when you load in. This is to avoid the massive load hits, when someone joins in a module that hasnt been loaded in yet.

The downside of this is that system and video memory is filled up fast, especially on servers that support all or most modules and have a big variation of ground units. Can limit this memory consumption by lowering your texture quality to medium (1/4 memory consumption) or low (1/16). Not total, but on every AI and player unit that is being loaded into memory. Downside of this is that cockpits become unreadable, especially the older modules. F-18 and F-14 dont suffer so much, and medium works fine on those for example.

Lowering pre-load radius can help on this too, but at the cost of potential bigger load stutters. Not sure units/players are counting here, think its only terrain/map related?

I do wish we could set cockpit texture quality separate from the other texture quality option. Then Id just run that low, and cockpit high for online. If I would do screenshots, videos, or just enjoy the visuals on a offline freelight or singleplayer mission, then run high/high etc. Oh well, maybe one day.

Thanks all for the input. I'm going to try each of these and see if it improves the memory usage or stutters any.

 

Edit:

Tried all of the suggestions, stutters still remain on the Persian Gulf map.

But the memory use did come down (even if it didnt took away the stutters)?

Question is, how many more modules and assets does it take to make 32GB the lower end choice ?

If I was building a new rig now, I'd seriously go bigger than 32GB, no kidding. The price has come down considerably and you can get a decent 64GB kit for less than 300€.

Maybe not what many wanted to hear.

I had load problems in MP

I'd say you have not set up you swap file properly when I look at your pics.

For 32000 it has to say "custom size"

Initial size : 32000

Maximum size : 32000

then push 'set'

prob reboot

and check your drive if an actual swap file is there.

For what its worth i can run caucuses map with 8gb of ram and only 5gb of page file is used. Preload radius is low but it all looks good. Maybe its just the caucuses i dont have pg.

I am not sure what really changed over the last 6 months or so, but since around that time a go DCS has become an incredible memory hog. And i am talking SP here. I feel before fall 2018, 16gb of RAM were plenty and there was simply no need to close background things like my browser etc. No, i just have to kill pretty much everything sin DCS is fairly quickly eating up my RAM, with an overall physical memory system wide use of 15ish gb. On very light instant action mission on NTTR it's slightly less, sitting at 12.5-14 gb, still requiring me close all other programs.

My main problem is; why is DCS filling memory to the brim, pretty much freezing the entire system? Other games or programs sledom behave this way. I'd rather have DCS leave some memory spare. Filling memory to the last drop won't make it run better, but often can freeze the whole system.

So, do you guys have any idea what might have changed withing the last 6-9 months? If i recall correctly, the initial early 2018 2.5 release was not that bad by far!