GTA V uses only 2GB of RAM

[RalphEnder]

I have GTA V in Epic Games Store. And I have really uncomfortable fps drops and freezes. I launched MSI Afterburner and saw that the game uses only 2500-2600MB of RAM (8GB available). Can I patch it somehow? I tried to change graphics settings but there's no result. Freezes and drops are the same on max and lowest settings.

PC specs:

1060 3GB

i5 4570

8GB RAM 

Screenshot with MSI Afterburner: https://imgur.com/4j728zB

Screenshot from other game with MSI Afterburner which shows that RAM usage is normal: https://imgur.com/j3nB7bK

[AirWolf359]

What are your in-game graphics settings on that screenshot? The game is using almost all of your CPU there, but only half of your GPU.

You should at least keep Extended DIstance Scaling off (in advanced graphics), that setting uses a lot of CPU power.

As for the Ram, Did you set MSI afterburner to show your total Ram usage, or only the Ram usage for GTA V? (Ram usage / process)

I set mine to show total Ram and process.

Do you have other programs open in the background? Stuff like Discord and web browser.

And do you have Page File enabled in Windows?

Edited September 25, 2021 by AirWolf359

[RalphEnder]

Like I said, I tried to change graphics settings. Even on lowest settings I have these freezes and drops. RAM usage is still very low.

Here's another screenshot with total RAM usage in MSI Afterburner (if i'm right) : https://imgur.com/WNmBsmn

I think that RAM usage is the only thing that causes drops. My GPU can handle highest settings, but 2.5-2.6GB of RAM usage seems to be not enough for game

 

[tentonnes]

I would say your problem is almost certainly that you do not have enough RAM in your system. 8GB is very low for a computer today. Especially when running games like GTA. If it has more RAM to use, it will use it. But in your case as was shown in the last photo, the total system RAM usage is 7.5GB, GTA using about 2.7GB. There is no more RAM to give. Plus, you are online which is more heavy on RAM, in a full lobby I've seen GTA using between 4 and 5GB of memory. Single player, the game happily sits along using about 2.5GB, but online naturally, will use lots more RAM. 

 

You can try closing other programmes but it wouldn't help too much, not with 8GB and the fact the operating system will be using a good chunk of that. 

 

It has all the tell tale signs that your PC is having to push data to page file which is not good as far as gaming is concerned, but this is essential so that the computer does not crash. 

 

Looks like your CPU is starving the GPU as it is only running at half usage, this is more than likely because you have no free RAM and the CPU is having to manage the page file ontop of the game. 

 

The other possibility but I think much less likely, is you might have put your PC into power save mode? As your CPU is higher in usage in GTA than the other game, yet the CPU temps are way lower, this could happen if the clock speed had dropped due to power settings. Would also explain the GPU. But same behaviour could also happen for the RAM issue. 

 

Long story short, buy more RAM. Is there a way to make GTA use more RAM? Yes. By installing more. You've ran out when playing GTA..

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by tentonnes

[AirWolf359]

On 9/26/2021 at 8:27 AM, RalphEnder said:

Like I said, I tried to change graphics settings. Even on lowest settings I have these freezes and drops. RAM usage is still very low.

Here's another screenshot with total RAM usage in MSI Afterburner (if i'm right) : https://imgur.com/WNmBsmn

I think that RAM usage is the only thing that causes drops. My GPU can handle highest settings, but 2.5-2.6GB of RAM usage seems to be not enough for game

 

It is both Ram and CPU usage. GTA V loves to use a lot of both, even more so in Online.

How many programs do you have open in the background?

There is another 4.5GB of Ram in use that is not from GTA V.

 

19 hours ago, tentonnes said:

I would say your problem is almost certainly that you do not have enough RAM in your system. 8GB is very low for a computer today. Especially when running games like GTA. If it has more RAM to use, it will use it. But in your case as was shown in the last photo, the total system RAM usage is 7.5GB, GTA using about 2.7GB. There is no more RAM to give. Plus, you are online which is more heavy on RAM, in a full lobby I've seen GTA using between 4 and 5GB of memory. Single player, the game happily sits along using about 2.5GB, but online naturally, will use lots more RAM. 

 

You can try closing other programmes but it wouldn't help too much, not with 8GB and the fact the operating system will be using a good chunk of that. 

 

It has all the tell tale signs that your PC is having to push data to page file which is not good as far as gaming is concerned, but this is essential so that the computer does not crash. 

 

Looks like your CPU is starving the GPU as it is only running at half usage, this is more than likely because you have no free RAM and the CPU is having to manage the page file ontop of the game. 

 

The other possibility but I think much less likely, is you might have put your PC into power save mode? As your CPU is higher in usage in GTA than the other game, yet the CPU temps are way lower, this could happen if the clock speed had dropped due to power settings. Would also explain the GPU. But same behaviour could also happen for the RAM issue. 

 

Long story short, buy more RAM. Is there a way to make GTA use more RAM? Yes. By installing more. You've ran out when playing GTA..

 

 

His relatively low GPU usage also comes from running the game at lower settings. His framerate is limited by the CPU (and the Ram).

An nVidia GTX1060 is plenty fast for an Intel i5 4570 (non-K so it runs at 3.6 GHz max)

 

I would like to see the results of the single player graphics benchmark with current settings. Probably has a higher framerate with higher GPU usage and same CPU usage.

Edited September 27, 2021 by AirWolf359

[tentonnes]

16 hours ago, AirWolf359 said:

It is both Ram and CPU usage. GTA V loves to use a lot of both, even more so in Online.

How many programs do you have open in the background?

There is another 4.5GB of Ram in use that is not from GTA V.

 

It not uncommon for Windows and it's services to use around 4.5 GB of RAM. Infact, if it was only using 4.5GB, I would say that is pretty good.

 

Secondly you mention high CPU usage, GTA will use a fair bit of CPU and if hes running out of RAM (which is looks like he is with a 7.5GB total) the page file will be activated. Reading and writing to the page file eats up a fair bit of CPU power, so that would explain that. Unlike normal RAM, virtual memory has no controller to handle IO..passing that onto the CPU instead. 

 

In a game like GTA which relies on lots of data streaming, you are going to be reading and writing lots to the page file, meaning your going to be using up alot of extra processing power just to manage that, something you wouldnt have to deal with, if you had more RAM. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by tentonnes