RAM and Pagefile usage in BF4 very high

Discussion in 'Games, Gaming & Game-demos' started by shimyns, Mar 31, 2014.

  1. shimyns

    shimyns Guest

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    Hey guys,

    I just installed BF4 and am getting decent FPS, even with most settings on ULTRA. Both GPU cores are engaged at above 80-90% but never maxing out. 7 out of 8 CPU threads are in use but not maxing out either (not over 50-60% each). Temps are all good etc.

    However, the problem is that it is very choppy and therefore not reasonably playable. Lower graphic settings did not solve the issue at all.

    Using rivatuner, I can see that physical RAM usage is at around 5.1Gb and pagefile (system managed) is at about 8.3Gb usage. So, I think this is the issue here. I don't think I recall playing a game that sucks out so much memory usage.

    Is this a known issue? Do you think it's a memory leak? Can memory leaks be at all related to GPU drivers? Is there any suggestion for overcoming this? Is there a particular graphic setting in the game that is most likely the culprit for extremely high RAM usage that I could lower?

    (drivers are 12.11's, my card is obviously quite out-dated and ATI is horrible at legacy driver upkeep. Furthermore, my current drivers are excellent with all of the games I've played with them, so I think they are the best I can get for my system.)

    Thank you!
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2014
  2. antonyfrn

    antonyfrn Maha Guru

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    could be due to paging is the swap file on the same drive as the BF4 install but you only have 6Gb ram (tri channel?) I would try get more ram. I cant comment on the vid cards as I don't use AMD for gpus.
     
  3. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    6GB isn't really enough for BF4 especially with multi GPU, it seems to allocate system memory based on the amount of vram present.

    Sounds crazy but I'd suggest 12GB for Tri-channel and disabling the pagefile.
     
  4. Cubemonkey

    Cubemonkey Member Guru

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    Agreed, 6gb isn't enough for this game.

    And man, come on with that GPU, OP. You can do substantially better for $200.
     

  5. stat1cx

    stat1cx Guest

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    You need atleast 8 GB's preferable more.
     
  6. Luluzinha

    Luluzinha Guest

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    im having the same problem as the OP, i was playing the game with 6gb and gts 250 and i didnt have any leak problem and it was perfect playable, the fps would be around 32-50, resolution was set to 1080, all low.

    And right now with hd 6950 2gb + 8gb ram, i cant play, huge leaking problems, it start to eat my entire ram and when it get close to 7.5gb the game start to move slow and then it crash.

    ps. ppl with similar rig + 16gb ram have the same problem...
     
  7. Luluzinha

    Luluzinha Guest

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    i was able to fixed the problem, i guess one of those 3 things could work:

    1 - turn off NDU service
    Open up "regedit" and go this key.
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ndu
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ndu
    Change the "Start" value to 4 (to disable it).

    2 - backup your x64 exe to folder, then copy x86 exe to main game directory and name it as x64 (bf4.exe)

    3 - go to your game directory and adjust the 32 bit and "64 bit" BF4.exe to startup in windows 7 compatability mode and select run as administrator.
     
  8. shimyns

    shimyns Guest

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    Hey guys, thanks so much for taking the time to reply!

    @antonyfrn, yes, I have an SSD and the pagefile is on this drive (and is system-managed) and so is the game. Is it generally better to have the pagefile on a drive other than the one the game is installed on, even if this means putting the pagefile on a slower HHD?

    As for purchasing more RAM, I'm not going to do that just for this game...

    @Pill Monster, thanks for your suggestion. If indeed this is not a memory leak, this game does use an enormous amount of RAM; more than any game I've ecnountered. I would disable pagefile if I had more RAM but do not intend on buying any more RAM.

    @Cubemonkey, I know my card is rather old. I was planning on upgrading to a r9 290x before the prices sky-rocketed due to mining. I like going from flagship cards to flagship cards w/o any $200 stops in between, even if that means taking a few years to upgrade.
    Also, I will say that my 4870x2 still kicks ass. It runs any DX9 or 10 game at the highest settings (for most) with absolutely playable frames per second, including the most recent and demanding ones.

    @stat1cx, thanks but not buying any more RAM...

    @Luluzinha, that sounds really interesting. I don't know what NDU service is. I'll look it up. If I simply rename the x86 exe to x64 as you suggest, wouldn't it just play the game as x86? That would probably limit physical RAM usage to 3.2G, wouldn't it? Did this actually solve your problem?



    EDIT: I am running win7, not win8. It seems that from your 3rd suggestion about running the game in win7 compatibility mode you didn't know that. Also, isn't NDU just a win8 problem?
    Thank you!
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2014
  9. shimyns

    shimyns Guest

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    [​IMG]

    As you can see, pagefile starts low and quickly increases to absurd levels....
    I've marked 3 points- 1) before launching game 2) about a minute or two into gameplay 3) where levels have peaked.

    Seems to me like a memory leak....

    @Luluzinha I've tried the suggested file renaming to no avail.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2014
  10. dsbig

    dsbig Ancient Guru

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    like other said...

    6gb isnt enough for this games.

    Minimum requirements is 4gb

    recommend is 8gb

    you system idle memory was at 2gb and then add bf4 on top of that is around 6gb


    also windows 7 starts to use pagefile before it hits the max physical memory.

    I found this out with stress test.


    and windows 7 loves to use up memory.

    when I use chrome. Im at about 4gb usage.

    windows 8 isnt has bad as its about 2.7gb


    I miss windows xp sometimes with its low memory..
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2014

  11. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    That's not PF usage it's actually the system Commit Charge which has been mislabeled ever since XP.

    What you're seeing is not so much a memory leak but data caching and the reason it doesn't show as used RAM is because Windows treats all cached data as virtual memory even if the PF is disabled.
     
  12. gamerk2

    gamerk2 Ancient Guru

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    64-bit games are free from the old 4GB memory barrier. Its really that simple. Expect games to start CHUGGING RAM in the next few years as a result.
     
  13. shimyns

    shimyns Guest

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    On one hand, that makes sense to me. On the other, it doesn't make sense that game developers would restrict themselves only to users with an obnoxiously large amount of RAM. I mean, if you have a subpar CPU or GPU, turning down the graphics settings will usually allow you to play a game, even if that means playing it at low visual settings. However, if the game is designed to "need" a huge amount of RAM, lowering the graphic settings will not help.


    In my case, apparently 6 GB of RAM is not enough even though my GPU and CPU are not close to maxed out. And to me, it's an absurd scenario wherein lowering graphic settings doesn't make the game playable.
     
  14. Luluzinha

    Luluzinha Guest

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    bs, like i said, i was playing rock solid(1080p, all low, 30-50fps) with 6gb and gts 250, now i believe its amd/dice problem, its not about how much memory u got, its a memory leaking problem, there are ppl with 16gb of ram and cant play the game for more than 10 minutes.


    right now im playing on I7 860 + 8gb + hd 6970(same settings, most of the time 90-110fps), before the changes i couldnt play for 10 minutes, now i can play for a few hours, i will try the latest driver and see what happens, i also disable CCC, now i will install just the driver.


    @shimyns your ram is not the proble, there are a bunch of ppl playing with 4gb without any problems...
     
  15. shimyns

    shimyns Guest

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    Thanks for your input.
     

  16. shimyns

    shimyns Guest

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    I thought I'd share here something strange that I've just discovered:

    I installed a new PSU yesterday after my previous one died. Today, I fired up BF4 and was surprised to find that it ran significantly better than before. I mean, it's completely playable, and I'm averaging close to 30 fps.

    There is still some stutter but not nearly as crippling as before. I hadn't even really intended on playing it. But now, it looks like I can.

    To me, it clearly was something to do with either the GPU or CPU not getting enough power from the failing PSU, which then finally died. And upon switching to a new PSU, there's now ample power.

    Does that make sense?
     

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