Whole Lotta RAM

[Bunchy 227]

I just ordered another 16GB of DDR4 3200 ram to compliment my 16GB of existing ram.

60 quid in th UK, nearly half of what I paid 3 years ago for the exact same ram!

Cheap as chips........ so to speak.

 

Stu

 

 

[hanhamreds 592]

16GB will bottleneck your system and cause stutters in certain situations - as I've mentioned a few times now I've seen 27GB being used on my rig.

and that wasn't even in an airliner - drone Cam - JFK on a clear-ish day (real weather) - multiplayer and real live traffic enabled.

also flying around the UK I regularly see over 16GB used.

[Colonel X 1,430]

Putting in another 16GB has the same effect as having a double shot Bourbon preflight, it all goes down a little smoother.

[Bunchy 227]

I think that this maybe the true cause of my bad stutters.

I've been playing with settings until I'm blue in the face. Performance as regards FPS is good, just can't get rid of the bad stutters, no matter how low I went with overall settings. Ambient occlusion on low, however, makes a big difference as to the severity of the stutters for me. Not sure why. 

Hopefully I'll have the extra ram installed in a couple of days and see how much difference that makes. 

I use my system for much more than flightsim, so the extra ram will be useful, whatever.

 

Stu

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Bunchy

[Colonel X 1,430]

23 minutes ago, Bunchy said:

I think that this maybe the true cause of my bad stutters.

I've been playing with settings until I'm blue in the face. Performance as regards FPS is good, just can't get rid of the bad stutters, no matter how low I went with overall settings. Ambient occlusion on low, however, makes a big difference as to the severity of the stutters for me. Not sure why. 

Hopefully I'll have the extra ram installed in a couple of days and see how much difference that makes. 

I use my system for much more than flightsim, so the extra ram will be useful, whatever.

 

Stu

 

Ambient Occlusion is a GPU feature, it shouldn't affect stutters as these are caused by the CPU. Don't expect wonders with the additional RAM. I think the main cure for those intermittent performance breakdowns is using  Process Lasso.

Here's a very good rundown how settings affect CPU/GPU. Make sure your CPU doesn't lose it's breath.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-graphics-settings-and-performance-guide-8-18-2020/132407

[Bunchy 227]

2 hours ago, Colonel X said:

Ambient Occlusion is a GPU feature, it shouldn't affect stutters as these are caused by the CPU. Don't expect wonders with the additional RAM. I think the main cure for those intermittent performance breakdowns is using  Process Lasso.

Here's a very good rundown how settings affect CPU/GPU. Make sure your CPU doesn't lose it's breath.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-graphics-settings-and-performance-guide-8-18-2020/132407

That's interesting to know. Thanks.

I'll take a look at the link and cogitate.

 

Stu

[wthomas33065 994]

Due to my non-hyperthreaded i5 7400, My bottleneck is definitely the CPU.  But having upped my RAM to 32GB I have noticed something.  My GPU is using that extra RAM when I turn up my Graphical settings.  I only have 4GB of VRAM, and FS easily eats that up.  But as I increase my graphical settings, more and more physical RAM gets used.

Now under normal circumstances this would be a problem since 2400Mhz DDR4 is much slower than the VRAM on my card.  But, since I am limiting my card to 30FPS using the AMD Adrenaline tool, the card is only working half as hard, so it can cope with the memory delay and still deliver consistent frame rates between 29.8 and 30.0 FPS most of the time.

The only time things get ugly is during scenery area loads where I am limited by main thread.  This always happens before I start a flight and while I'm entering into dense areas.

The "start of flight" problem is easy to work around.  I simply just hold off on doing anything until I can POV around the cockpit with no issues.  The other one is harder to deal with.  I try to keep my POV settings really low, but even at 10, some areas just kill my i5.

Hopefully my i7 with hyperthreading will help with that.

[EmaRacing 302]

While time compressing I got to 90% of 32GB 

[March Hare 720]

1 hour ago, wthomas33065 said:

Due to my non-hyperthreaded i5 7400, My bottleneck is definitely the CPU.  But having upped my RAM to 32GB I have noticed something.  My GPU is using that extra RAM when I turn up my Graphical settings.  I only have 4GB of VRAM, and FS easily eats that up.  But as I increase my graphical settings, more and more physical RAM gets used.

 

Yes, the GPU is allocated main RAM to compliment its VRAM. I have a GTX 1070 with 8GB VRAM, and it is apportioned 8GB of main RAM, giving an effective 16GB of video memory.

[Slides 1,552]

RAM usage is often misunderstood. Windows and apps are risk averse to not using up all your RAM. But if you give the system more RAM, they will use more of it. That's why avg fps and memory utilizations are not good metrics for RAM.

[March Hare 720]

1 minute ago, Slides said:

RAM usage is often misunderstood. Windows and apps are risk averse to not using up all your RAM. But if you give the system more RAM, they will use more of it. That's why avg fps and memory utilizations are not good metrics for RAM.

Exactly, room must be left to prevent your system from locking up, etc. So provide more RAM and your software (or, your CPU and GPU instructions) can use more RAM for better performance, while still leaving headroom for stability of the system.

[March Hare 720]

1 hour ago, March Hare said:

Yes, the GPU is allocated main RAM to compliment its VRAM. I have a GTX 1070 with 8GB VRAM, and it is apportioned 8GB of main RAM, giving an effective 16GB of video memory.

Sorry, amendment to this. Since upgrading to 32GB RAM, the OS has assigned a further 8GB to video memory for the GPU, so I have effectively 24GB of video memory, using half my main RAM as shared memory.

[G550flyer 1,013]

11 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

For those wanting video proof:

Video:

Spoiler:

You can have the same AVERAGE fps but totally different frametime consistency, which make the sim stutter.

Can someone tell me what performance monitor is used in this video?

Edited September 1, 2020 by G550flyer

[captain chris 1]

I recently upgraded to 32 GB of RAM.  Before I had 16 GB and when trying to load KJFK or KLGA, the sim would crash.  Once I upgraded to 32 GB, I didn't have any issues.

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

7 hours ago, G550flyer said:

Can someone tell me what performance monitor is used in this video?

MSI Afterburner