1.82 Insane Map RAM question

I play on insane all the time and have no issues. I have 16g in my system. One thing I did do was change my vid card out. My old one had 2 gig ram on it and it lagged and stuttered (sometimes) and when I upgraded to the 970 with 3.5 gigs it was noticeably smoother. 

1. I believe you are correct about version 1.8 introducing some lag. I thought that problem had been fixed.

2. RAM is assigned by the OS to all tasks running, including the OS itself. The Swap file is used for more than backing up the virtual storage of all of the tasks currently in operation. You shouldn't expect there to be a correlation between the amount of RAM in use and the amount of swap file allocated. The OS may be allocating more swap file space at OS startup based on what you have used in the past, to improve general performance when page swapping occurs.

I have been playing the Insane map size for some time and have found the OS typically allocates 6-7GB (for all operating tasks on the PC) while I am doing so. The OS (64 bit addressing) seems to need about 2-3GB RAM just for itself.

I've been playing insane lately, i7 4790k, with 32GB ram and I definitely notice a difference. When I first started playing I only had 16Gb ram and it killed my machine, so I upgraded and it runs much better now, still see lag hit on larger maps though. When looking at my performance - GC3 client often takes about 25GB of ram, with the remaining ram being used (or on standby).

My Original post of similar note:

https://forums.galciv3.com/479313/page/1/#3648073

Thanks for the replies.

Might try some more RAM

Current game, turn 200, about to go out with a tech victory.  Insane map, 24 opponents, about 20-30 planets each until I started conquering and absorbing my nearest neighbor. So, it should be a busy enough example.  GalCiv takes up 5.8 Gig out of the total 8.3 used.  I have 32 Gig total, but GalCiv doesn't seem to be grabbing any particularly large chunk of it.  Late game lag in ship movement and turn processing is very noticeable, but not completely terrible, although it could become problematic if the game dragged on any later.  I cannot be authoritative if that lag is related to total memory use or not, but what I see doesn't seem to support that.

Here is screen shot of resource monitor while running the game.

50 Civs on Insane map.

Duueling Screenshots!

24 opponents on an Insane map.

I can't explain the difference.  I suggest submitting a ticket to Stardock and see if they have any clues.

I was watching my RAM last night.

I have 8GB that is used for standby by windows etc..

Galciv 3 will use up all the free RAM and then start using swap.

It never makes a dent in the amount of RAM used for standby.

So it seems windows is not releasing the standby amount to galciv and that is causing my large swap usage.

If this is linked to the general lag is another question.

But it is possible.

Will post some images later today of my RAM usage and also contact stardock support to see if have some suggestions

Well these are some things I read on the forums in the past. Disable steam overlay. 16-32 gigs is the recommended ram for insane maps. Do a disk cleanup. I would recommend piritform ccleaner. You will find, so do the experts. Personally I wouldn't change the options that messed up a phone of mine. I used to use my paging files 3 0r 4 times your ram. That is what is recommended until someone posted for Galactic civilizations it is better to let windows to decide. I know everyone, but Stardock always gives you an option between appearance, and performance, not Stardock I recommend low performance it will free up resources for gaming not appearance. This means it won't look as good for performance.

Now a couple of things you could set windows for performance. It is pretty well set for mostly appearance. Also if you haven't done it set your power options for high performance, so as not to waste what you pay for in resources. This is always set for balance; even on the desktops. If you are not worried about power why not use what you pay for in computer resources.

I had the same problem they suggest using less races. I can't seem to use more than forty.

Do remember that the size of the swap is determined by several factors, not all of which have to do with the amount of RAM allocated:

1. Amount of Kernel Memory in-use and reserved for the kernel.

2. Amount of memory reserved by processes, but not actually allocated for use yet

3. Amount of video RAM (including any main memory RAM allocated for graphics purposes)

4. All sorts of Deep Magic stuff related to the exact pattern of memory allocation, release, and lifetime.

Particularly in modern systems, #2 tends to be the big culprit, since many, many applications will decide they want to "reserve" vast quantities of memory, but seldom actually allocate it for use.  Reserved memory has to set aside in the Virtual Memory space, and swap is generally where modern kernels will put this memory reservation, since it's just a "marker" and not actually doing anything other than taking up address space.

Here's an example:

4GB RAM, 8GB Swap means you have 12GB of Virtual Memory Address Space available.

Now, along comes App X, and it tells the system it wants to reserve 6GB of Address Space. It then immediately allocates 1GB.  So, what does the kernel do?  It puts the 1GB of allocated space into RAM, and then marks 5GB of the 8GB swap as "reserved" for App X.  If App X wants more than 1GB in the future, the kernel will reduce the reservation amount in swap, and allocate from RAM.

I've never had more than 14 GB of memory used with max AI on an insane map, seems odd that you have  26 GB memory used.