Anyone having performance issues, ensure your virtual memory is correctly configured

[Nosedive 10]

Hey guys, just thought i'd post a little something i found out earlier. Someone in a game mentioned it, and i checked and was shocked. Ever since i reinstalled my OS a little while ago, i had forgotten to set-up my virtual memory once more. I had been wondering for months why my system was sluggish to do stuff it used to do in a breeze, and it turns out it's due to the v-memory.

It was initially set up windows-managed, which apparently doesn't do a lot of good. I followed advice online and set it to 1.5 times my existing RAM, which is four sticks of 1Gig each, totalling approximately 4 gigs. So of course 1.5 times 4 is 6, which is what i set my virtual memory as. I set both perameters to be the same, as well, as this apparently is the most efficient setting to use.

The performance enhancement in Arma2 now is unbelievable, i couldn't believe i was playing the same game. If you have not done so already and are experiencing slow performance, i highly recommend checking this out :).

[vasmkd 12]

I prefer to run it under 32-bit xp slightly better than win 7 64-bit

i have 4 gig memory but since i'm in XP 32-bit most the time do i make it 3.25G (xp recognises this) times 1.5 which should be roughly 5 for virtual memory

It's at 2046 inital size and 4092 max for c:drive (blank on other drives)

Do i just change the max to 5000 (4875 to be exact) and leave initial at 2046?

Edited September 11, 2009 by vasmkd

[James22 10]

Change your initial to 1.5 times your ram

Change your max to 3.0 times your ram

In my case - 3gb of ram = 3072mb

3072mb x 1.5 = 4608 initial size

3072mb x 3.0 = 9216 max size

[waterinthefuel 10]

What in the heck are you guys talking about and how would I go about adjusting it? I run WinXP 32bit.

[vasmkd 12]

thanks James

changing it now

Change your initial to 1.5 times your ram

Change your max to 3.0 times your ram

In my case - 3gb of ram = 3072mb

3072mb x 1.5 = 4608 initial size

3072mb x 3.0 = 9216 max size

waterinthefuel:

right click my computer

go to properties

go to advanced

select performance settings

click advanced tab

then change for virtual memory

What in the heck are you guys talking about and how would I go about adjusting it? I run WinXP 32bit.

[James22 10]

No problem. Let us know if it makes any perfromance difference for ya. This game isn't following the usual rule book lol (bunch of tricks)

[sn0b0ard 10]

Unfortunately, this probably won't help everyone with ArmA II performance issues. I just adjusted my virtual memory, and it didn't do anything to help the FPS in ArmA II campaign. The beginning of Harvest Red still is giving me like 20 FPS average :(

[Barso 10]

Do I need to change it for both drives or just my C drive?

[maddogx 13]

Unfortunately, this probably won't help everyone with ArmA II performance issues.

Not necessarily true, as it depends on where your performance bottleneck is.

[evilfury 0]

So for 4GB of ram that would be:

4096 x 1.5 = 6144 initial

4096 x 3.0 = 12288 max

Am I right?

[milucom 10]

Hey folks,

unfortunately I have to say that the key to success is to have both values match each others. So do NOT have different values for initial and max. The issue here is quite clear: Windows sucks in management RAM as we all now. So does it with the vRAM. If you have different settings (initial and max) it tries to free up some space (or reserves it) while you are playing. This will fragment your hdd more and more.

But for the calculation. 1.5 or 2.0 of the maximum addressable and available RAM is the key to success.

It depends on your OS. If you have 4GB RAM in your computer and using a 32bit OS you will most likely have something about 3-3.27GB addressable RAM. You can check it in your task manager and open the performance tab. Next check your the available value in the physical ram field. Divide this number with 1024 and you have it.

In my case it would be 3275884 / 1024 -> 3199,10546875 MB. Rounded ~3200MB.

now multply this with 1.5 and you will have a good number about what to set your inital and maximum vRAM.

And ofc, MaxDogX's comment is absolutely right. If your performance Issue is with graphics card, CPU, too slow HDD or whatever, this might not help you. If your RAM is low as well, this should help you. Whatever - guess most of the peeps here have RAM issues as ArmA2 sucks your ram out of ur computer without any reason. However - hope this helped you abit.

And for the Shortcut lovers: Press+Hold Windows-Button (the one with the flag on ur keyboard / Windows Logo) and press PAUSE (mostly on the upper side of your keyboard, next to print screen and stuff) and you'll go immediately to the System Properties Tab.

Just my 2 cents. Now feel free to flame me. :D

[Nosedive 10]

I was just about the say the same thing Milaucom, as stated in my first post, both initial and max should match. Sorry i should have made that clearer.

Very informative addition to my thread, thanks!

Also, i totally love that combo, never knew that one, i'll remember that.

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

From previous experience, I'd recommend putting the paging file on a seperate partition to aviod fragmentation. I'd also recommend setting min and max to the same value to avoid having file expansion during gaming.

From microsoft support KB:

When you set up a 32-bit version or a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP, a page file is created that is one and a half times the amount of RAM that is installed in the computer provided there is sufficient free space on the system hard disk. However, as more RAM is added to a computer, the need for a page file decreases. If you have enough RAM installed in your computer, you may not require a page file at all, unless one is required by a specific application.

I suggest doing some more research on this topic before making big changes.

http://support.micosoft.com

[milucom 10]

From previous experience, I'd recommend putting the paging file on a seperate partition to aviod fragmentation. I'd also recommend setting min and max to the same value to avoid having file expansion during gaming.

From microsoft support KB:

I suggest doing some more research on this topic before making big changes.

http://support.micosoft.com

Aparently you're right with that when it comes to software which has quite 'normal' use of RAM but ArmaII uses the ram like it's nothing. It needs more Ram actually then you could ever have. No Idea why. So the last part doesn't really suit here very well. Of course, windows is that stupid, it uses vRAM and RAM at the same time. Means, it's not like linux, which uses his swapdrive when the ram is quite filled, windows uses its pagefile.sys (which is the actual vRAM assoc file) right from the beginning.

If you think that you might have enough RAM, try deactivating the whole crap and see if it brings you performance. But we awared, that If the game needs more RAM and you don't have a vRAM it will mess up your performance.

There are also a couple of free tools available, so called RAM BOOSTERS, which will free up the Ram from unused files. This is quite a good thing as windows is absolutely unable to manage the ram. Maybe this works out for some of you.

A tool like this is Ram Booster @Cnet for example

[Barso 10]

So would I be better ticking the "Automatically manage paging files for all drives" box?

[UbiquitousUK 11]

Another point to note: if you have more that one physical HDD, you can benefit from locating your vRAM on a separate (physical) drive to your games/applications. The SATA interface allows simultaneous read/write from multiple drives so this will allow your computer to read game data and access the swap file contemporaneously.

[milucom 10]

So would I be better ticking the "Automatically manage paging files for all drives" box?

Absolutely not. As I mentioned in other posts in this thread, Windows is absolutely incapable of managing RAM and vRAM. Therefore you HAVE to either set the initial and maximum Ram to the same value (1.5x addressable ram - look for an earlier post of me on how to calculate it) or deactivate it.

But read carefully what I wrote about deactivating the vRam as it might cause some troubles.

Edited September 11, 2009 by milucom

[Barso 10]

I have a problem.

When I look at how much is free in the task manager, it goes from 4000 free and keeps lowering while the cached climbs.

I am using 6GB.

[evilfury 0]

So whats the right settings for 4GB of ram. Initial and maximum?

[milucom 10]

So whats the right settings for 4GB of ram. Initial and maximum?

I'd advise you to read my previous Post which is here. There's your answer.

---------- Post added at 02:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 PM ----------

I have a problem.

When I look at how much is free in the task manager, it goes from 4000 free and keeps lowering while the cached climbs.

I am using 6GB.

Dunno where the problem should be. If windows starts to cache stuff, it's absolutely okay when the free space lowers. How should it cache files when it doesn't use the free space? Guess I'm not getting your point. Maybe you can give some more information.

[Barso 10]

I ma running vista 64 with 6GB RAM.

And when I open task manager it says under physical memory, total: 6134, Cached: 4857 and Free: 57.

It's stable now but I have changed the initial and maximum to 9201MB.

It states minimum 16MB and recommened 9201MB.

Is this okay?

Thanks for the help much appreciated.

I have already noticed a difference it ARMA 2 especially the wooded areas.

[milucom 10]

I ma running vista 64 with 6GB RAM.

And when I open task manager it says under physical memory, total: 6134, Cached: 4857 and Free: 57.

It's stable now but I have changed the initial and maximum to 9201MB.

It states minimum 16MB and recommened 9201MB.

Is this okay?

Thanks for the help much appreciated.

I have already noticed a difference it ARMA 2 especially the wooded areas.

Sounds good so far. What Windows recommend doesn't really count. ;) Good job. Seems like it's fine for you now.

[Barso 10]

Thanks for help.

[vasmkd 12]

I didn't notice any change at all in performance

Also changed and set initial and max the same to 4989 after reading this but no improvement

The game runs well already but if i can get an increase i can up settings, thats why i tried it

[milucom 10]

I didn't notice any change at all in performance

Also changed and set initial and max the same to 4989 after reading this but no improvement

The game runs well already but if i can get an increase i can up settings, thats why i tried it

Like some of us already mentioned before. If you're performance issues doesn't have to do with ram, you'll mostly not have any performance increasements. ;)#

Try tinkle around with different graphics settings. Maybe this will give you some more FPS. There are a couple of Threads already in here so I suggest you'd use the search function. :)