Does Preload radius setting do anything?

Perhaps you are on a different version of Afterburner . My graph is clearly marked "pagefile" .

I'm running 4.6.0 Beta 12 and I don't have any pagefile monitor. What version are you on and where do you enable the pagefile counter?

I use MSI Afterburner also... and it DOES NOT show you your pagefile usage. I assume you're talking about the "Commit charge" counter. That just shows the same thing as "Commited" memory in Windows Task Manager. It has nothing to do with your pagefile.

 

Those counters go up to 20-30+ GB on my system also, with the pagefile DISABLED. This is why there is so much debate/confusion over pagefiles in DCS. People aren't monitoring the usage of it correctly. If you really want to see how much your pagefile is using you have to use windows Performance Monitor.

 

1.) Launch Performance Monitor>Select "Performance Monitor" in the left pane

2.) Click the + sign at the top, then find "Paging File" on the list of counters and select it.

3.) Add both Usage counters for your pagefile and click Add, then click OK.

4.) Change the graph type to "report" by selecting the graph icon at the top

 

Now launch DCS and run some missions and tell me how much your page file is being used.

Thanks for explaining that, much appreciated.

The Performance monitor is basically showing that I'm using naff all Pagefile at the moment, though if I look at my stats from earlier, and based upon the definition of Commit Charge, if I'd been using upto 31GB of "commit charge" and have 24GB of RAM, then that infers that windows is setting aside 7GB of pagefile "just incase".

In which case, makes me wonder why, when I have supposedly 12GB free.

So it appears the "pagefile usage" counter is no longer available in current versions of MSI Afterburner. I think they changed the name of it to "commit charge" since that's what it was actually reporting. The pagefile usage counter seems to have caused a lot of confusion with people thinking their pagefile was being heavily used with it was actually just the commit charge.

There's plenty of threads around discussing this. Here's a couple...

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1009966-pagefile-usage-during-gaming/

Does Preload radius setting do anything?

after reading some of these posts, it dawned on me that many of you assume the page file is ONLY used when all your ram is used up.

that is not correct.

an operating system may or may not place committed memory pages in ram or on disk. it depends on the vm algorithm and what else is happening on the machine at any given time. and it’s dynamic.

let windows worry about the pagefile since you can’t do anything about it anyway.

instead, spend your time playing the sim.

after reading some of these posts, it dawned on me that many of you assume the page file is ONLY used when all your ram is used up.

 

that is not correct.

 

an operating system may or may not place committed memory pages in ram or on disk. it depends on the vm algorithm and what else is happening on the machine at any given time. and it’s dynamic.

 

let windows worry about the pagefile since you can’t do anything about it anyway.

 

instead, spend your time playing the sim.

Actually it is correct. Windows doesn't just use the pagefile for no reason when physical memory is available. The primary function of the pagefile is for system crash dumps. If you have sufficient physical memory in your system it's totally fine to turn it off. If you don't believe it I suggest you monitor your pagefile usage CORRECTLY and then see for yourself.

For anyone who would like to learn about pagefile usage on Modern versions of Windows I suggest you read this...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2860880/how-to-determine-the-appropriate-page-file-size-for-64-bit-versions-of

?

if that is true, why does this happen?

run software with a enough ram to hold it all in memory.

if i turn the pagefile off it doesn’t use it.

but if i turn it on, it uses it.

if it doesn’t need it in the first scenario (see above) then why does it use the pagefile in the second scenario (since we know it doesn’t need it)?

?

if that is true, why does this happen?

 

run software with a enough ram to hold it all in memory.

 

if i turn the pagefile off it doesn’t use it.

 

but if i turn it on, it uses it.

 

if it doesn’t need it in the first scenario (see above) then why does it use the pagefile in the second scenario (since we know it doesn’t need it)?

The first question I would ask is how are you tracking your pagefile usage that makes you so sure it's being used. Many people on here confuse the commit charge with pagefile usage.

Secondly, I can reproduce your exact scenario with DCS. Pagefile on, and DCS doesn't use it. Pagefile off and DCS doesn't use it. (w/32GB RAM)

If I force off preload radius in options.lua, and run a heavy mission... THEN DCS uses all 32 GB I have and starts using the pagefile.

i have 8gigs of ram and seem to get similar ram usage with low and high preload settings, however with lower preload radius i get much faster loading times and less "HDD crunching / stutter" when cycling through units.

could it be, that dcs unpacks more data with higher preload settings, but stores the unpacked data in it's own cache on the drive it is installed on?

so that when you have dcs installed on an HDD, it is faster to unpack data on the fly to ram (streaming) instead of using prebuilt data, which needs less processing (cpu) but puts more strain on the HDD?

I have no idea, if this makes sense in practice, but atm it's the only explanation, why lower preload radius gets shorter loading times AND more robust performance when cycling through units.

(on my system, which has 8 gigs of ram, dcs on hdd, system on ssd)

The first question I would ask is how are you tracking your pagefile usage that makes you so sure it's being used. Many people on here confuse the commit charge with pagefile usage.

 

Secondly, I can reproduce your exact scenario with DCS. Pagefile on, and DCS doesn't use it. Pagefile off and DCS doesn't use it. (w/32GB RAM)

 

If I force off preload radius in options.lua, and run a heavy mission... THEN DCS uses all 32 GB I have and starts using the pagefile.

it depends how close you are to your ram limit. my page file on/off test was too simplistic. and yes i agree the page file is not used unless it's needed... but the key item is "needed". i don't think the algorithm is as simple as it sounds.

windows will start using the page file way before ram all your ram is used up. in fact, it will not let you use all your ram. decisions on when to write out are based a variety of factors, including the frequency of a processes vm memory page access (workload type) along with what the other processes on the machine are doing and the resources they need.

i'm sure you know this, but for others here, take a look at the free and standby memory counters in addition the page file usage. the page file starts getting used long before the free/standby memory runs low.

i have 8gigs of ram and seem to get similar ram usage with low and high preload settings, however with lower preload radius i get much faster loading times and less "HDD crunching / stutter" when cycling through units.

 

could it be, that dcs unpacks more data with higher preload settings, but stores the unpacked data in it's own cache on the drive it is installed on?

so that when you have dcs installed on an HDD, it is faster to unpack data on the fly to ram (streaming) instead of using prebuilt data, which needs less processing (cpu) but puts more strain on the HDD?

 

I have no idea, if this makes sense in practice, but atm it's the only explanation, why lower preload radius gets shorter loading times AND more robust performance when cycling through units.

(on my system, which has 8 gigs of ram, dcs on hdd, system on ssd)

I've heard some say that the purpose of preload radius is to shorten load times for multiplayer. For me there is little difference in load time with DCS installed on an NVME drive. With min preload the PG map took 22 seconds and at max it took 29 seconds.

I still think preload radius is doing something with memory management though. That's how it's described in the manual. If I force it off in options.lua then it effectively disables memory management and DCS uses all available until it runs out and then uses the pagefile.

it depends how close you are to your ram limit. my page file on/off test was too simplistic. and yes i agree the page file is not used unless it's needed... but the key item is "needed". i don't think the algorithm is as simple as it sounds.

 

windows will start using the page file way before ram all your ram is used up. in fact, it will not let you use all your ram. decisions on when to write out are based a variety of factors, including the frequency of a processes vm memory page access (workload type) along with what the other processes on the machine are doing and the resources they need.

 

i'm sure you know this, but for others here, take a look at the free and standby memory counters in addition the page file usage. the page file starts getting used long before the free/standby memory runs low.

Yep, you are absolutely right. I just did a test with DCS to see how this would go down on my system with 32 GB of ram. In general, DCS does not use the pagefile at all. Even when running a test mission I setup with over 400 units it didn't touch my pagefile. Memory usage peaked around 23 GB on the PG map. One thing to note is mem usage on PG is much higher than Caucasus map.

Now, if I disable memory management in DCS by setting preloadRadius = 0 in the options.lua we can see what happens. I setup perfmon with pagefile, committed bytes and available mbytes counters. Then I loaded up a mission with around 100 units on the PG map and watched what happened.

Shortly after starting the mission available memory started getting consumed until I reached 4 GB available. At that point the pagefile kicked in. So with 32 GB it appears the pagefile starts getting used when memory usage reaches 28 GB. At its peak it used 20% of my pagefile which was set to a system configured 4 GB. So, even under these EXTREME conditions the system only used 800 MB of pagefile.

When it comes to pagefile advice I think people should just leave it as system managed/default. Windows used to match the pagefile to the size of physical ram but it doesn't do that anymore. On my system it's 4 GB. I've seen some people talking about dedicating 30 GB of SSD space for the pagefile when that is completely unnecessary for DCS or for any other reason really.

I did a lot of tests last year and for me disabling pagefile from windows cause DCS to crash (I also have 32go ram). Also, pagefile reduce ssd life by write and erase non stop on it's why I put a cheaper ssd drive only for it. I use my computer with 5 differents windows os (licensed), all use the pagefile drive for swap. This is why I put 32gb. Anyway DCS work great like this. I you have a classic hdd, you also want to fix a value to pagefile to prevent fast fragmentation of the drive. But i am agree 32gb of swap for DCS is unnecessary.

i think the old “pagefile size should be 1.5x of your ram size” is a recommendation from the 1990’s.

back when programs were small, and the amount of ram, even smaller. :)

Yes, true but it seems some softs still try to use it

It must be one of those things the devs put in to look at us mere mortal squeel and shriek in disbelief!

As my observation, the preload radius is related with the pagefile size but not the physical RAM usage. The larger you set, the more pagefile caches and more loading time needed.

Oh no, not at all, sorry.

I have seen the same effect in afterburner-heavy pagefile usage and low ram load .

Perhaps you are on a different version of Afterburner . My graph is clearly marked "pagefile" .

I use MSI Afterburner also... and it DOES NOT show you your pagefile usage. I assume you're talking about the "Commit charge" counter. That just shows the same thing as "Commited" memory in Windows Task Manager. It has nothing to do with your pagefile.

 

Those counters go up to 20-30+ GB on my system also, with the pagefile DISABLED. This is why there is so much debate/confusion over pagefiles in DCS. People aren't monitoring the usage of it correctly. If you really want to see how much your pagefile is using you have to use windows Performance Monitor.

 

1.) Launch Performance Monitor>Select "Performance Monitor" in the left pane

2.) Click the + sign at the top, then find "Paging File" on the list of counters and select it.

3.) Add both Usage counters for your pagefile and click Add, then click OK.

4.) Change the graph type to "report" by selecting the graph icon at the top

 

Now launch DCS and run some missions and tell me how much your page file is being used.

Actually it is correct. Windows doesn't just use the pagefile for no reason when physical memory is available. The primary function of the pagefile is for system crash dumps. If you have sufficient physical memory in your system it's totally fine to turn it off. If you don't believe it I suggest you monitor your pagefile usage CORRECTLY and then see for yourself.

 

For anyone who would like to learn about pagefile usage on Modern versions of Windows I suggest you read this...

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2860880/how-to-determine-the-appropriate-page-file-size-for-64-bit-versions-of

Yep, you are absolutely right. I just did a test with DCS to see how this would go down on my system with 32 GB of ram. In general, DCS does not use the pagefile at all. Even when running a test mission I setup with over 400 units it didn't touch my pagefile. Memory usage peaked around 23 GB on the PG map. One thing to note is mem usage on PG is much higher than Caucasus map.

 

Now, if I disable memory management in DCS by setting preloadRadius = 0 in the options.lua we can see what happens. I setup perfmon with pagefile, committed bytes and available mbytes counters. Then I loaded up a mission with around 100 units on the PG map and watched what happened.

 

Shortly after starting the mission available memory started getting consumed until I reached 4 GB available. At that point the pagefile kicked in. So with 32 GB it appears the pagefile starts getting used when memory usage reaches 28 GB. At its peak it used 20% of my pagefile which was set to a system configured 4 GB. So, even under these EXTREME conditions the system only used 800 MB of pagefile.

 

When it comes to pagefile advice I think people should just leave it as system managed/default. Windows used to match the pagefile to the size of physical ram but it doesn't do that anymore. On my system it's 4 GB. I've seen some people talking about dedicating 30 GB of SSD space for the pagefile when that is completely unnecessary for DCS or for any other reason really.

"Page file" is the term used instead of "Commit Charge" in the DIGDIAG window, MSI Afterburner could simply be getting the same number from the API and text from there, and maybe corrected it later, Microsoft never fixed this and it's still here on Win10 1607. The terminology MS uses for the memory management is extremely subjective and specific and you can't just understand without going through all the SDKs and docs.

You have Pagefile % usage in Resource Manager.

Pagefile isn't only for crash dump, it is actively used but hopefully only for offloading dummy commited memory (stuff that application reserve but not actually use)

Commited is another thing, it's a reservation and I've seen sometimes Working Set memory go over that (when doing a dump) so it's complicated, or taskmanager is again not reliable.

And DCS does probably not directly use the pagefile, that's all decided/managed by the OS. Your pagefile gets more use because DCS is very resource hungry, most likely.

thanks Worrazen....;-)