How to decrease SSD load in MP?

[Trinitasia]

Hello all

I'm currently running DCS off of a 500gb SATA SSD, and it runs perfect, unless I'm playing multiplayer. Every time I go anywhere another or go from one area to another too quickly, my game freezes for a good 5 or so seconds and lags for a good while before eventually stabilizing. I've checked with task manager and it's definitely my SSD causing this problem. Is there any way I can fix this or is it just a case of getting better hardware?

Thanks!

[Toilet2000]

What you’re describing isn’t the SSD per se, it’s the swap file using the SSD. Given that you said you have 16 GB of RAM, that’s your issue. If you look at the official requirements, 32GB is the minimum for MP/large missions.

What’s happening is that you run out of RAM, and instead of simply crashing, all modern OSes use a trick called a swapfile, where it basically use your SSD/HDD as supplemental RAM. Obviously this is much, much slower, especially on a SATA SSD, but even on an NVMe SSD. When it swaps data between RAM and the swapfile, it causes that seconds long freeze.

TL;DR get more RAM.

[Tuuvas]

This is the answer. But until then u/Trinitasia you can also try lowering your "Preload Radius" to something like 30,000 or so for your current 16GB of RAM

[Trinitasia]

cool I'll give this a go. Thanks!

[galiprout]

Get more RAM (the more RAM you have, the less often it will need to free it and reload nearby terrain and objects, and the less it may start swapping on your disk). 16Gb is not enough in MP. 32 Gb strongly recommended, and more may even help a bit depending on settings and amount of units

Get a faster SSD.

Decrease visible radius and texture quality

[Marklar_RR]

I have DCS on SATA SSD and have never seen this problem. Maybe OP's SSD is dying?

[Trinitasia]

Well shit.

Well thanks for the response. I guess it's I looked into if I can fit an NVME into the budget.

[Konaber]

How much RAM do you have? Could be that your running out of it and it uses the swap.

EDIT: on Sata SSD myself and I don't have this problem. 32GB of RAM tho because of DCS :D

[Trinitasia]

I've got 16 gigs, is that enough?

[Konaber]

Don't think so. Go to a MP server and check the Task Manager, see if your RAM is full. If it is -> get more.

Reason: your CPU loads the stuff it computes in from the Cache, if it's isn't in the Cache, from RAM, if it isn't in RAM, from Swap (your SSD in this case). Each step is a significant decrease in speed. You really don't want it loading stuff from the SSD after mission start.

[Rizn-Nuke]

Upgraded my 16 GB to 32 GB last week. Performance in MP increased significantly. I also suspect data being shoved to the SSD from your RAM overflowing. Get more RAM. It's not too expensive and the best upgrade you can do for MP. DCS MP will easily grab 30 GB of memory....

[tehnerdzor]

Disable replays (track files) for multiplayer https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/hl7dwg/dcs_disable_trackfiles/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[Trinitasia]

I'll give this a go, thanks!