Solved Ram performance after size increase

staalza

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Hi,

I was wondering how RAM is utilized by the system.

I recently upgraded my DDR3 4GB Crucial Tactical Tracer 1866Mhz to 8GB.

When Running Battlefield 4 (64bit) I kept the performance tab open in task manager and noticed that the Ram usage went up to about 3.2GB of the 8GB total, and constantly hovered around that area.

The load speed only increased slightly overall as well.

I am curious how extra RAM effects PC performance, as it would appear that I am barely utilising half of my current capacity. Would there be advantages adding more RAM at all?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1 Enterprise
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    custom
    CPU
    i7-4790 Processor - Quad Core, 8MB L3 Cache, 3.6GHz (4.0GHz TURBO)
    Motherboard
    MSI Z87-G43 GAMING LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX High Performance Intel Motherboard
    Memory
    Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 8GB 1866MHz (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 Desktop Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    Powercolor 7950 3GB OC
    Sound Card
    Sound Blaster Cinema
    Monitor(s) Displays
    23 inch SAmsung
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    2 TB seagate SATA
    PSU
    Corsair GS 800
    Case
    Coolermaster Elite
    Cooling
    Air
    Keyboard
    Acer standard
    Mouse
    Zalman
    Internet Speed
    10Mbps LTE
    Browser
    Chrome
My opinion is that the RAM performance reporting is bogus. I have 6 GB, and my usage hovers around 2.5 GB all the time. I have tried starting every program I have and the RAM usage does not seem to change at all.

Maybe someone here knows of a working RAM analyzer, perhaps third party...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 consumer 64 bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire M5 481PT-6644
    CPU
    Intel Core I5
    Memory
    6 GB
    Hard Drives
    Spinning/SSD hybrid 500GB/20GB
    Mouse
    ELAN Trackpad
    Internet Speed
    18mbs/5mbs
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Hi,

I was wondering how RAM is utilized by the system.

I recently upgraded my DDR3 4GB Crucial Tactical Tracer 1866Mhz to 8GB.

When Running Battlefield 4 (64bit) I kept the performance tab open in task manager and noticed that the Ram usage went up to about 3.2GB of the 8GB total, and constantly hovered around that area.

The load speed only increased slightly overall as well.

I am curious how extra RAM effects PC performance, as it would appear that I am barely utilising half of my current capacity. Would there be advantages adding more RAM at all?
Most probably BF4 doesn't need so much memory. If you were to use multiple programs at same time RAM usage would go up.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
First things first...

RAM doesn't really improve performance so much as it helps maintain consistent performance. Maybe before the upgrade if you had a web browser open with several tabs and a couple of other things, you would start to notice some delays switching between programs where it took 2-3 seconds for the GUI of a program to show up. After the upgrade that switching is very smooth and responsive, happening instantly. It's one of those things that's difficult to describe, but as soon as you experience it you'll know exactly what it is I'm talking about.

Also, something of a little known fact is that 32-bit Windows programs can use a maximum of 2GB of RAM by default. There's a way, if the program is compiled to take advantage of it, to up that value to 3GB, but probably over 99.99% of 32-bit programs are 2GB. Doesn't really pertain to your question specifically, but odds are it will be useful to someone who reads this post now or in the future.

Now, you say you're using a 64-bit client for the game, so if that's true odds are what it's doing is loading a lot of additional data. Where before the game might have used some kind of demand loading when you started moving towards some area of the map, now the whole map is kept in memory at all times. So you'll rarely see any kind of increase if you're just measuring FPS or even subjective performance, because RAM is rarely the limiting factor in performance. What you should notice is that things seem more fluid. Maybe before there were places where the game might stutter ever so slightly while it was loading in data from some unexpected chain of events, but after the RAM upgrade that same sequence is smooth. Not faster, smoother.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1
The memory usage graph does not show full usage of RAM. It was never intended that it would.

Specifically, memory on the standby list is not shown as being used but it is by no means unused. This memory serves a dual purpose. It is fully available to any application that needs it, just like free memory. But until needed it acts as a kind of cache. Having this memory is always beneficial, but how much so depends on many factors. All memory except that labeled as"free" is being put to some useful purpose.

On my system standby memory is typically over 50% of the total. If the graph showed all usage it would be 100% or very close in many systems most of the time. This would be neither interesting or useful.

Within reasonable limits adding memory will always benefit performance. But there will always be a point of diminishing returns beyond which very little benefit will be noticed. That point depends very much on your workload. In your case I suspect you are already past that point most of the time.

Memory management in a modern operating system is far more complex than you imagine.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
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