If you have 16GB (or less), you’re basically running the bare minimum required to have a properly functioning Windows 10 machine in 2021 and should really be considering an upgrade to 32GB if you use your computer for anything other than basic web browsing, productivity and media consumption.
As for paging file and MSFS, I’d be surprised if it has anything at all to do with this issues introduced in SU3. Perhaps adjusting paging options is helping a bit because you’re short of physical RAM and this tweak is helping out the computer overall, but I would be outright shocked if MSFS directly benefitted from it. Windows manages and writes to paging, not individual software. And to those not seeing a difference, likely the change in paging settings has no effect because you were already at optimal settings prior or have 32+ GB of RAM already.
I have to admit - I’ve had 64gb ram for many years and after my latest built and fresh OS install, I forgot to disable the paging file as I normally have. This latest sim update, if I went from a non Photogrammetry area to one (IE: Eastern LI towards NYC), the entire sim would freeze for at least 5 seconds to the point while in VR I thought the sim crashed. I just ran a test with the paging file disabled and the difference is night and day. I have no more freezing transitioning this area. As others have said - RAM is key. In 2021 the bare minimum IMO is 32GB. 16 just doesn’t cut it not only in FS, but most modern titles. For instance, with no paging file, and sitting here with just outlook, chrome, teams, Discord and the WMR portal, Im at 12GB ram being utilized.
I started the sim this morning after killing iCue/SS software. Started the usual flight in a 152, right before sunrise fps counter telling me 25fps, Okay thats doable, take off run the obstacle course between the bldgs in downtown Cleve. heading east, trim out settle in check fps again, its now showing 30fps woohoo its fixed? 10 mins later (I90/Rt2 spur)7fps stop motion animation. Get ■■■■■■ quit the game go out and have a smoke.
2nd attempt about an hour later, same as above to spawn. Now fps on runway is telling me 42fps, launch obstacle course etc heading east trim and hmmmm 41fps cool, coming up on the spur waiting for the caca to hit the fan … nope still a steady 41fps no stutters at all continue flying, 10 min later still an amazing 41fps and all looks good…get to Ashatabula Harbor time to start thing about setting up the landing, head out along the lake shore (wow there are tracers comming off the blades of the wind turbine … the colors ha!) but fps is still 38fps and no stutters, there it is Presque Isle in the wind screen, cool I made it … AND THEN … stutter stutter stutter 7 fps…
Oh well at least I almost got a whole flight in, and it did run well up until the stutters…
And that is why I recommend getting rid of the paging file completely. For some incomprehensible region, MS has always preferred to use some paging file, even if you have 10s of GB of free ram.
Yeah, I’m tempted to try that. After a solid 4 hours of flying today I noticed I had 34GB used in RAM. That’s the most I have seen to date.
I didn’t really have many issues on my flight today. Until, that is, I went for a Bush flight out of Croatia. Oh my word. Dropped to 10 FPS at one point. Something called CoherentGTDraw was limiting my CPU this time. Make a change from the main thread.
I’m starting to enjoy the lottery of which measure will take down my FPS. It’s like a game of bingo!
Yes, CPU caches are tiny compared to RAM but considerably faster. CPU caches continue to grow in size with each new generation.
HDD drives are slower than SSDs. SSDs are slower than RAM. RAM is slower than CPU caches.
HDDs cost less than SSDs. SSDs cost less than RAM. RAM costs less than CPU caches.
Performance, cost, application size, and ability to upgrade are all limitations and trade-off considerations. There is no “one size fits all” especially because of the rapid increasing technology changes.
There are operating systems that combine RAM and the computer’s file system onto the same memory chip. There is no paging and no virtual storage. This architecture may become ubiquitous in a few years.
Ah, that would mean another couple of hours away from the wife today while I test this out.
Sounds great. Better make it 3 hours though, just to be thorough!
In all seriousness, yes, I’m going to try this later. The problem is trying to account for the variables. As a relative newbie I don’t have many places cached (potentially in the rolling cache on disk). Yesterday I toured the UK landmarks. Didn’t really notice too much stuttering, aside from when I approached an area with photogrammetry.
There was an obvious and large pause/stutter but that was when clicking ‘Reset’ in the drone view. This obviously then accelerates the drone back to your plane so I wouldn’t expect that to be smooth.
After my UK tour I exited out to the main menu and then went into the Croatia Bush flight option. That’s where my frames dropped to 10-12 FPS. The strange thing is that it wasn’t really main thread that was limiting me. It was the CoherentGTDraw part. Absolutely no idea what that meant.
As a result, I think what I’m going to do is to fly from northern to southern France, via Paris, in the same Cessna Caravan that I used yesterday. That means a lot of geography that I’m encountering for the first time. This time without paging.
If I don’t have any significant issues on the French flight, which I doubt I will, I will then exit out and try the Croatia bush flight again.
That’s as close as I can come to yesterday’s test.
The results of my first test are in and it didn’t make a difference in my case.
I flew from Northern France, via Paris and then South. Crucially this was a new route and new Geography that it had no way of retrieving from my rolling cache. Had my paging file turned off (followed by a restart of the PC). I maintained c.35-40 FPS before Paris, probably around 30FPS as I flew over and around Paris and then, bizarrely, it dropped to 12-15 as I flew around Orly airport! Not a photogrammetry airport as far as I know.
Truly baffling why it would go slow at that point.
With no paging on, and with 48GB RAM, the most RAM that was used was c.18GB and that was way after I had visited Paris. So RAM consumption doesn’t seem to be an issue. When the pagefile is on, I know it still used it even though there is plenty of RAM left so turning off paging might help some. Not me however. It made no difference. I still have that sudden drop in frames which leads to the serious stutters.
I may well try again tonight but I can’t really see the point. If the game simply doesn’t request up to my available RAM, I see no point in trying the test of the pagefile again.
