2.0 12 vs 16gb of memory

I saw in recommended requirements 16gb of ram is preferred . I have 12 now and was thinking about upgrading to 16 , playing a quick mission with task manager on I seem to top out at 8 used . Would upgrading to 16 make a difference ?

Spend some time building mission in full editor, that will already eat a lot of RAM. Play the edited mission immediately afterwards and you'll get to 10+ in no time, especially if there are many air and ground units around doing lots of stuff. Online flying is supposedly even worse in this regard.

I was fine with 8 gigs but only when I restarted the 2.0 after every full mission editor usage, and when the missions were simple with only a handful units on the map. Upgraded to 16 and the comfort is much higher now.

So it all depends on how You spend time in DCS. Your 12 might be fine in some scenarios and insufficient in others.

Given that RAM is pretty cheap, I went overboard with 32. Unless you're saving for something else, I'd just go for 16. Otherwise, do a worse case scenario and see if your machine handles it.

Spend some time building mission in full editor, that will already eat a lot of RAM. Play the edited mission immediately afterwards and you'll get to 10+ in no time, especially if there are many air and ground units around doing lots of stuff. Online flying is supposedly even worse in this regard.

 

I was fine with 8 gigs but only when I restarted the 2.0 after every full mission editor usage, and when the missions were simple with only a handful units on the map. Upgraded to 16 and the comfort is much higher now.

 

So it all depends on how You spend time in DCS. Your 12 might be fine in some scenarios and insufficient in others.

Did you find the extra RAM to decrease loading times? Does it prevent texture pop in? I've never had a game require more than 8GB. I am on DDR3 and don't want to do an expensive platform upgrade for DDR4 right now, so I am in a not so great position.

Remember that if you are still running Windows 7 it has to be the "Pro" version for Windows to recognize more than 16 GB of RAM. I don't know about 8 or 10 but M$ seldom misses an opportunity to make more money. The move to Windows 7 Pro was easy. I bought a serial number for the Pro version and followed the upgrade instructions. Nothing is changed in the system. The upgrade only unlocks features already installed. I did find an observable difference using the additional 16 GB.

Did you find the extra RAM to decrease loading times? Does it prevent texture pop in? I've never had a game require more than 8GB. I am on DDR3 and don't want to do an expensive platform upgrade for DDR4 right now, so I am in a not so great position.

Loading times? You mean reloading stuff which has already been cached during previous playback of missions? Not really, as I bought modules from the same series, with the same speed and latencies as before, just twice bigger. All aspects strictly CPU and GPU related are not going to be affected much just by system RAM. So yes, stuttering and texture pop in are still very much here.

Simply put, as long as the sim doesn't have to use swap file, nothing's going tho change performance-wise, but that's the point - I upgraded to 16, because previously in 2.0 I was stumbling upon swap file all the time - a big problem for me, as I don't have and SSD - when the game was swapping textures, the heavy stuttering was getting on my nerves, not to mention the crawling pace of menus, system etc. after exiting the mission.

I agree the decision about the upgrade might not be simple, as the 2.0+NTTR is the only game I've ever played that requires more than 8 GB and it's still in alpha stage. Can we expect further optimization and lower memory usage? Nobody knows. Are You willing to upgrade only for this single map? It's up to You to decide.

Art-J, getting an SSD will be wonderful for your simming experience. I highly recommend anyone that plays DCS to use an SSD. (probably stating the obvious)

I saw in recommended requirements 16gb of ram is preferred . I have 12 now and was thinking about upgrading to 16 , playing a quick mission with task manager on I seem to top out at 8 used . Would upgrading to 16 make a difference ?

Loading times? You mean reloading stuff which has already been cached during previous playback of missions? Not really, as I bought modules from the same series, with the same speed and latencies as before, just twice bigger. All aspects strictly CPU and GPU related are not going to be affected much just by system RAM. So yes, stuttering and texture pop in are still very much here.

 

Simply put, as long as the sim doesn't have to use swap file, nothing's going tho change performance-wise, but that's the point - I upgraded to 16, because previously in 2.0 I was stumbling upon swap file all the time - a big problem for me, as I don't have and SSD - when the game was swapping textures, the heavy stuttering was getting on my nerves, not to mention the crawling pace of menus, system etc. after exiting the mission.

 

I agree the decision about the upgrade might not be simple, as the 2.0+NTTR is the only game I've ever played that requires more than 8 GB and it's still in alpha stage. Can we expect further optimization and lower memory usage? Nobody knows. Are You willing to upgrade only for this single map? It's up to You to decide.

From what I've been told, a setup similar to mine (SSD, 8GB RAM, GTX 970, 4670) has bad texture pop in. Any time you press F10 and then switch back to the cockpit/external views, or switch between viewing different units. This is only on the NTTR.

I have the Black Sea map, and I get no texture pop ins. Everything stays loaded even if I swap between units quickly. I'd consider getting extra RAM for DCS, but it certainly isn't ideal. I hope it is just a result of NTTR being alpha.

Go for 16gb if you can, if you can afford it why not? It clearly states 16gb in the DCS recommended spec.

I can, but I don't waste money :)

I have 4 slots filled, so adding 4gb means I have to buy 16gb ($80) not a big deal , but if it won't make any difference , then why do it ?

I can, but I don't waste money :)

 

I have 4 slots filled, so adding 4gb means I have to buy 16gb ($80) not a big deal , but if it won't make any difference , then why do it ?

If you have 12GB and 4 slots filled I guess you're in a similar situation to mine: 2*2GB and 2*4GB. You could swap the 2*2GB with 2*8GB and so have 24GB or just swap with additional 2*4GB and so reach the 16GB requirement with less expense.

I figured it wouldn't make sense to start another topic just for 8 vs 16 GB.

So, here is what makes me doubt the economy of such upgrade. I mainly fly FW-190 IA missions and I intend to continue doing so. When I finish a 1 hour IA Dogfight session (Senaki region, below 5000 m) RAM usage is reported at 4 GB (of total 8 GB). Surely you can see where my doubts are coming from :)

Memory relevant settings in 1.5.3:

All textures and visibility: HIGH

Preload radius: 80 km (I haven't seen any difference between 120 and 80 km)

While we're at it:

What is the DCS policy on using pagefile? I forgot to test whether DCS allows no pagefile. This would obviously be preferable, no matter the type of drive.

 

So, here is what makes me doubt the economy of such upgrade. I mainly fly FW-190 IA missions and I intend to continue doing so. When I finish a 1 hour IA Dogfight session (Senaki region, below 5000 m) RAM usage is reported at 4 GB (of total 8 GB). Surely you can see where my doubts are coming from :)

 

8 gigs is indeed not that bad for 1.5 and singleplayer missions nowadays. It's the 2.0 with NTTR, that causes headaches, as the memory consumption for this combo is MUCH higher than in Caucasus area, at least for now. So it all depends on how much gaming time You intend to spend over Nevada.

I'm going to try some campaign mission and a MP mission with pagefile disabled. If the usage hits 6 GB, I'll buy additional RAM modules. My rig is hardly worth investing in. Works decent at 4.5 GHz though :)

In the middle of testing... But I wanted to post this info quickly before I forget.

MSIA MSI Afterburner indicated pagefile usage incorrectly (?); even if you disabled PF altogether

Guru3D.com Forums - View Single Post - Pagefile is being used but shouldn't be

I use 16 GB, it works for all my Games.

Ehhh, 12 should be fine, but 16 is better. I am running 16gb and I reserved 1.5gb of that for a ram disk where all my user and system temp files are stored, so I could free up my HDD, DCS seems to like it, less stutters now. As far as pagefile goes, I have it set to 800mb min so if i bsod, ill keep the logs, otherwise I think i have a 1.5gb limit on the page. runs fine. I would reccomend keep a page file of some sort though, some programs get unhappy without one.

I would hold off until you actually need the additional RAM, chances are when you finally can see a need for it Intel will release a new chip that is actually worth upgrading your PC for, then you just do the lot.

Hello, I have 8gb and sometimes I see DCS using, for example, 5gb of RAM, and I open the task manager and it tells me the PC is using 7 of 8, even though I have only Steam and DCS opened, why? I'm pretty sure it's about the Windows. It's normal but I just wanted to know why.

8gb in 1.5 works fine for me.

Thanks

Windows (7) usually needs 1/2 gb for the OS.

DCS requires about 5 gb with textures to medium, can reach up to 11 gb (which then becomes 13 total GB !!!) with textures to high, just tested with 16 GB RAM. I find it really crazy sometimes.

I have seen&serviced serveral machines, mainly Dell Optiplex, Win7 Professional, SP1-complete reinstall, core-i5, 8GB..and BANG

Windows service host prompts you with a "OUT OF MEMORY" error just with installing the huge pile of MS-Updates, pre-selected by the OS ( 146+ updates meanwhile on 1st run).

Stay away from 8GB if you want a system that can tow anything you hook up on it. Meanwhile I have seen numerous machiones fail just installing plain WIndows Updates on a BLANK win7 install, enterprise machines and home user desktop. I'd avoid 8GB or less if you can, just to exclude such scenarios.

My DCS usually never consumes less than 10-11GB RAM ( MP only ) and about 12-14GB Swap, with 16GB RAM and 2 x SSD ( OS + GAMES ).

Take some RAM out and it will use less...YES...put more in and it will use more RAM....windows has it's own findings of what is best and what not.

Same to pagefile...disable or enable, in the end, Win keeps control of it, regardless of your settings.