How to Set Up your Pagefile for DCS World

[Pikey]

ehhh.

Don't like this advice. Setting specific swapfilesis fruitless and I challenge anyone to find any data that DCS runs better with a specifically set pagefile.

Why would read/write IO to a file not on the system or DCS disk actually delay anything that DCS was going to use anyway? Why would a specific size help if it doesnt change the fact that IO is happening anyway and you just need to remove the contention point?

My own advice is based off common sense and a simple fact:
Windows expects a pagefile wether we like it or not, that is the way the code is written. It uses as much or as little as it likes according to code that you will never understand, so go with it. Stick your page file on an NVMe, remove any disk IO from the NVMe and leave it be to self inflate and deflate as it likes. It's not a SQL index that requires pre allocation, its a swap file.

If you want a windows setting that actually does something try the monitor preallocation or something you can measure in gain visibly. Most of these are placebo.

[Flappie]

7 hours ago, Pikey said:

Don't like this advice. Setting specific swapfilesis fruitless and I challenge anyone to find any data that DCS runs better with a specifically set pagefile.

 

Hold my beer.

 

 

I agree with you on this: when it's not broken, don't fix it.

 

But sometimes, Windows doesn't seem to automatically grow its pagefile, and it can be a problem for DCS (E_OUTOFMEMORY crashes are most likely when pagefile is stuck below 6 GB).

 

I advise to set a manual pagefile whenever the E_OUTOFMEMORY keeps showing up.

[ags]

It's not about the swap file per se - if DCS runs stable with X of RAM and Y of swap, it should run fine with (X + Y) of RAM, and swap disabled.

DCS, especially with Syria, actually requires a system with 64GB of RAM.

 

[Gryzor]

With 32GB RAM and 3090 (24 GB VIDEORAM) runs perfect. 64GB is not required.

Syria affects to VRAM, not system RAM.

[BIGNEWY]

Gryzor is correct,

 

I have not increased my pagefile as there is no need to with 32GB RAM.

 

Pagefile increase will help users on 16GB or less.

 

thanks

[Convexrook]

Crashing constantly after new update and full re-install

dcs.20210321-001054.crash dcs.20210414-162150.crash dcs.20210414-175853.crash dcs.20210414-185615.crash

[Flappie]

@ConvexrookTry disabling all your mods if you have any.

No joy? Then try renaming your "Saved Games\DCS.openbeta" folder (call it DCS.openbeta_backup for instance), then run a DCS repair.

[Convexrook]

10 hours ago, Flappie said:

@ConvexrookTry disabling all your mods if you have any.

No joy? Then try renaming your "Saved Games\DCS.openbeta" folder (call it DCS.openbeta_backup for instance), then run a DCS repair.

Steam version here

[Crayfish]

Well, this worked for me even with my rustic system. I also changed my DCS.exe and UPDATER.exe to "RUN AS ADMINISTARATOR" in their respective properties.

I defer to those who have the knowing and the doing of these things.

S!

 

System:

CPU : Intel Core i7-3770K, 3.50Ghz 4 Core

Motherboard: Z77 Extreme6

RAM: 32 GB DDR

DCS Drive: 465.76 Gb SSD

C: Drive: 222.08 Gb SSD

Storage Drive: 1.82TB SCSI

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8Gb DDR

 

 

[Flappie]

@ConvexrookPlease open a new thread and attach the most recent ZIP file you can find in "C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS...\Logs". Please also attach your dcs.log file (may appear as "dcs").

[Pikey]

I'm not convinced that people with any problem will just come to these threads and try it out of desperation which is why i don't think these settings guides are good, people apply them without understanding the underlying issue in an attempt to fix a problem best solved  by adding 16GB RAM. That's my stance on this. Solve some pronblems? Maybe. Create problems, yes, I've seen people mess about with settings and misconfigure them as they didnt understand them.

[crousti]

well, i've 3 disk
C (system)ssd (90go free space)
D (back up/docs) hdd
E (DCS install) ssd (240go free space)

i've 16gb ram and i've set 16384 min&max allocate on C drive only , in page file system.

question ; do i need to set same things to the E drive ? 'DCS

[Flappie]

39 minutes ago, crousti said:

question ; do i need to set same things to the E drive ? 'DCS

One pagefile is enough. It's better to store your pagefile on your fastest disk, as long as it has enough free space. If yor E:\ drive is faster than your C:\ drive, you can move it. Otherwise, keep it on the C:\ drive.

[crousti]

2 minutes ago, Flappie said:

One pagefile is enough.

 thanks ! all C & E are SSD ( with enough free space) , but about speed ? LoL ! anyway.  i'll keep the C(system) to manage the RAM. thanks again to reply.

[heliocentric_]

I read on another article that VRAM is best set to 1.5-3 times the RAM

 

[silverdevil]

3 hours ago, heliocentric_ said:

I read on another article that VRAM is best set to 1.5-3 times the RAM

 

@heliocentric_ funny enough it used to be that logic for servers. if the server took a dump, the dump file could saved. then arduous reading and deciphering. this was like windows nt 3.5 days

[r24]

For me, DCS was frequently crashing on mission exit. As per advice in this thread I set the Windows 10 page file to 32768 (32GB of ram) and the crashing has stopped.

[Roosterfeet]

I have 32 gigs of RAM and keep textures at medium and terrain textures at low. I watch my RAM usage with the performance metrics built into the Radeon software and never exceed about 23 GB of system RAM usage while DCS is running. My dcs log files report a 4 GB page file size (managed by windows). Would there be any benefit to forcing a larger page file when DCS is only using bout 2/3 of my RAM?

[Flappie]

3 hours ago, Roosterfeet said:

I have 32 gigs of RAM and keep textures at medium and terrain textures at low. I watch my RAM usage with the performance metrics built into the Radeon software and never exceed about 23 GB of system RAM usage while DCS is running. My dcs log files report a 4 GB page file size (managed by windows). Would there be any benefit to forcing a larger page file when DCS is only using bout 2/3 of my RAM?

None.

Unless you want to use a higher texture setting for instance, there's no need to use a bigger pagefile in your case.

[Nealius]

Does it matter which drive the pagefile is on? I have my OS on one drive and DCS on the other, but I don't know which drive should have the allocated pagefile.

[Flappie]

You want your pagefile on the fastest drive. Also, ensure there is sufficient free space on that drive.

[iRocco]

I have 64GB what should I set it to?

[silverdevil]

5 minutes ago, iRocco said:

I have 64GB what should I set it to?

You have lots of RAM. This would not be as important. But you can let Windows manage for you and the if problems do 32 GB min / max.

[Sh4rk]

On 12/9/2022 at 11:43 AM, iRocco said:

I have 64GB what should I set it to?

I think you can safely set it to a minimum. Like 8 GB, 4 GB, maybe even just 1024 MB.

I also have 64 GB and if I let Windows manage it, it'll set it to 64 GB. I'm hardly ever near using the 64 GB though, let alone needing the whole 128 (64+64)... 

Don't set it to disabled though, unexpected things can happen when Windows internally expects even a few kB of virtual memory being available. I used to run without without much issue, but a few apps would inexplicably crash without a paging file even with all the memory available.

[Kiwi_Viper]

well i got 64gb too, and ive set it to 35gb and its stopped the game crashing , last few days its done nothing but big crash every single time and page files is only thing thats making it fairly stable for now