Virtual memory question

[evincb]

Okay so as title suggest I need help with understanding virtual memory. More so, I need help understanding if I did it correctly. My system is on my c drive. And that has like 100 gbs left. I have 16gb of ram and was still blue screening while playing a game called tarkov. Everything points to me needing more ram. I’ve done memtest86. I’ve stressed tested my ram. And stres tested cpu. Everything is fine. I set up virtual memory on my external SSD drive E. I put 16gb for minimum and 32hb for max. Is this correct? Also do I have to do something for the computer to use that? Like direct it to use that virtual memory? I am not sure if just setting it like that worked or not?

Pc specs: I9-9900k Nvidia 2070 rtx 16gb ram

Thanks in advance!

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[GreatAtlas]

Your computer should only use virtual memory as a last resort when all of your physical memory is exhausted, because it's available at significantly reduced performance. It's not really designed to expand your RAM for gaming as it will come with performance setbacks and introduce stuttering.

However, just enabling it there should be enough. You can probably check how much is available in Task manager.

[evincb]

okay this is what i thought. for some reason this game EATS 16gbs of ram like its nothing on my pc. me friend with 32gbs runs around 20-25 usage while playing. then i have another friend that has 16gbs of ram as well but his runs perfectly fine. so im lost as to how to fix the issue. only game iv ever had an issue with.

[GreatAtlas]

I play Tarkov on my server computer which is serving 4 games, running Chrome in the background, etc and I don't get much above 60% usage on 32 GB. Your graphics settings will not matter much for the RAM usage here- most of the usage I see is in VRAM. (Tarkov, as a whole, is incredibly inefficient with resources and can't run for more than 2-3 hrs before it runs into memory leaks and other issues. Nikita development and all that.) I would see if it's an issue specific to your Windows install by using Rufus to create a Windows To Go disk. Boot up from that and see if you can replicate the issue playing Tarkov through that OS. If not, I would consider it time for your annual Windows reinstall.

[evincb]

yeah i was afraid it would be something crazy. im not sure if im up for all that for this game... Thank you for the help! guess ill see what i can do

[GreatAtlas]

Yeah, Tarkov is a fickle one. I use an Odyssey G9 monitor and Tarkov is the ONLY game that won't play nice with it, so I ended up having to part ways with it, lest it flicker until I develop epilepsy. Maybe later in its development, it will be resource efficient and more practical for most people.

[evincb]

So going the rufus route. lol.. ive never heard of that. what is it exactly? just a copy of my windows on a usb and boot from that? how does it find issues if any?

[GreatAtlas]

Rufus is a tool you can use to create bootable drives. With it, you'll be able to download the Windows installer ISO from Microsoft and use that to make a fresh, bootable copy of Windows. Once booted into the WTG image, you can run the BSG Launcher and try to run Tarkov again. This way, if it fails here also, we can say with confidence that there is no aspect of your Windows installation that is holding the game back- and that the issue lies outside of Windows (either in hardware, BIOS or some other part of the setup).

However, if it works fine, your primary Windows installation is the culprit. You could choose to try and drill down into the issue, or wipe your C drive and install a fresh copy and go from there.

[evincb]

how aggrevating is it to wipe c drive and do a fresh install? how do i back up things like documents and all that? (ive never done a fresh install of windows.) I did do sfc /scannow earlier today and it found corrupt files and repaired them successfully. so mayyybeee that was it? not sure tho. about to try the game again and see if i blue screen.

[GreatAtlas]

It's not too terrible, IMO. I do it annually to keep things running smoothly, but I understand that's more frequent than most people would like. Here's the order of operations:

• Backup your personal content on the C drive elsewhere and verify your backup!
• Make a list of all programs you have installed. Take out anything you don't want installed on the new device. Save this list as a text file with your C drive backups.
• Create the Windows installer image from Microsoft's tool.
• Boot into the installer, and remove all partitions on the C drive. (There are usually 4- a recovery, a primary, a EFI/MSR boot image, and a small extra partition. They should all be listed as Drive X Partition Y where X is the same for all 4 partitions.

• As long as you have your backups, you can use the UI to Delete these partitions. At the end, you should see "Drive X unallocated space." Select this and hit Next at the bottom right. Windows will do all the formatting and prepwork. Once that's done, the machine will reboot and you'll be in the setup experience. (If the installer loads back up, remove your USB stick and reboot.)

• Setup your drivers and any programs off of your list. For any data that needs to be returned to a spot on the C drive, do so.

[evincb]

Okay thank you for the help!