I need to disable the shared GPU ram because it eats my RAM

[Baris]

Hi,

 

I have 2667 mhz 8 GB RAM and I am playing Apex Legends, it is the only game I play now. Graphics settings are set to low, because all I want is fluent gameplay with high FPS. But because my ram is shared, RAM usage becomes about 7.8 GB when playing, and because of that gameplay becomes laggy, and not stable/fluent. 1050ti with my 8750H CPU normally should handle that very easily, and it was running fine but on latest updates Apex Legends started to use more memory. Anyway, my problem is as seen above in my captures, In use memory shows as 5.4 GB (it is nonsense and it should be under 3 gb) I am not running anything other than Opera and spotify (these are using very low memory). It is because the windows reserves and eats my ram, and Apex Legends struggles because there is no free RAM avaliable. On the GPU 1 tab, it says GPU memory is 7.9 GB. Which explains the situation very well. It is not needed because I have 4 GB dedicated GPU, but windows still reserves my ram as shared. I am sure the problem arises from this.

 

Is there any way to fix it ? I do not have money to buy another 8 gb pair of 2667 mhz ram, and it is expensive where I live because of currency. I checked the BIOS thorougly, under Video tab I could not find any option other than changing the brightness. Maybe if I disable the iGPU, it will start to only use dedicated GPU memory and there won't be any "shared ram" anymore. But I do not know how to do that. I do not care about iGPU anyway, because I always use this system plugged in.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Turtle Rig]

11 minutes ago, Baris said:

Hi,

 

I have 2667 mhz 8 GB RAM and I am playing Apex Legends, it is the only game I play now. Graphics settings are set to low, because all I want is fluent gameplay with high FPS. But because my ram is shared, RAM usage becomes about 7.8 GB when playing, and because of that gameplay becomes laggy, and not stable/fluent. 1050ti with my 8750H CPU normally should handle that very easily, and it was running fine but on latest updates Apex Legends started to use more memory. Anyway, my problem is as seen above in my captures, In use memory shows as 5.4 GB (it is nonsense and it should be under 3 gb) I am not running anything other than Opera and spotify (these are using very low memory). It is because the windows reserves and eats my ram, and Apex Legends struggles because there is no free RAM avaliable. On the GPU 1 tab, it says GPU memory is 7.9 GB. Which explains the situation very well. It is not needed because I have 4 GB dedicated GPU, but windows still reserves my ram as shared. I am sure the problem arises from this.

 

Is there any way to fix it ? I do not have money to buy another 8 gb pair of 2667 mhz ram, and it is expensive where I live because of currency. I checked the BIOS thorougly, under Video tab I could not find any option other than changing the brightness. Maybe if I disable the iGPU, it will start to only use dedicated GPU memory and there won't be any "shared ram" anymore. But I do not know how to do that. I do not care about iGPU anyway, because I always use this system plugged in.

 

Thanks in advance.

Once the GPU runs out of VRAM it will use RAM as VRAM, which it wont be and it will be much slower then VRAM when using RAM.  It will share and there is nothing you can do about it, unless Im missing something.  A 8GB stick is @ 2666Mhz is like 30 bucks.  You must shell ilt out, and also I hope you have a SSD as a regular hard drive will take longer to load and cause hickups during game play and loading of new areas and map and what not.

[mariushm]

You have some misconceptions here.

 

Every component reserves an amount of memory for its use : the sata controller reserves a small amount, the network card driver reserves some amount, the usb controller reserves a small amount, the network card driver reserves some amount... everything reserves a small amount. 

Besides this minimum reserve, some components like video cards can use a portion of the computer RAM to store there stuff the video card needs, but can't fit in those 4 GB of memory already on the video card.  It's like a pagefile (swap file) for the video card.

If software on your computer needs that memory, the operating system can move that unused stuff into page file and make the memory available to programs.

 

The video card has to reserve  a minimum amount of memory, like let's say 64 MB or 256 MB in order to work with games. For example, when a game loads a map, it reads the map files from your SSD or hard drive, it decompresses them in memory, maybe it converts the textures to a format your video card can work with, and then these textures are put in that portion of memory.

Once an amount of stuff is in that portion of memory, the game tells the video card driver "OK, upload those files into the video card's 4 GB of ram" and the video card driver transfers that data from the RAM to the video card through the PCI-e bus.  I'm making everything super simplified but that's basically it.

A tiny bit of RAM always has to be available for the video card, to transfer stuff into the video card or from the video card... the driver needs it.

 

As for your actual RAM usage :

 

 

This tells you this something like this (again I'm simplifying things so it's not 100% correct what I say, but it's good enough):

 

The hardware reserved bit tells you 211 MB of your RAM is reserved by hardware (video card, sata controller, usb, network card etc etc).. .that's still used to speed things up around your computer, move data faster, help transfer content into your video card faster and so on...

 

You have 5.4 GB of your memory ( RAM STICK) used, and 2.3 GB of your RAM stick is free for use by any programs (the available bit) .

In total, there's 7.9 GB of information stored in the memory stick AND in the page file (your swap file which is on your hard drive/ssd). If  you do 7.9 GB - 5.4 GB = 2.5 GB of information is stored in your page file, on your hard drive or SSD, it's not in your RAM.

The 16.8 GB is the maximum amount of memory programs can request and it's "guaranteed". Basically, the RAM stick PLUS the page file size on hard drive/ssd is this big. If programs on your computer request more than 16.8 GB of memory, the operating system will have to enlarge the page file on your hard drive/ssd (take away a portion of the drive to write there the contents of memory) if you allow the operating system to do so. If you set the page file to a fixed value, then you'll simply get popups saying "Hey dude, you've used up all the memory possible to create, if you continue without closing some programs, then current programs may crash because they can't get more memory for their use"

 

The cached 2.3 GB tells you that the operating system used 2.3 GB out of your available 2.3 GB to cache there in RAM files and stuff you previously accessed, or you're using. For example, let's say you're listening to a song from your hard drive ... instead of reading a chunk of the data from the file that contains the song on your SSD/hard drive every few seconds, the operating system could simply copy the whole file in RAM in that unused space and serve the chunks of data from ram instead of reading them from SSD/hard drive. If you have a long song, for example an audio book that could be 1h long, your computer could even turn off the SSD or hard drive and save power by serving the file to your audio player completely from RAM.

 

The operating system treats this portion as "can be gone at any point" - if an application needs room in ram, the operating system simply throws out a portion of this cached stuff and makes room - in the example above, the operating system could simply remove the song or audio book from ram and turn on the hard drive/ssd and resume reading from hard drive/ssd, giving the previously chunk of memory to the program that needs it.

 

If the game needs lots of memory, you don't have 7.8 GB, you have at least 16.8 GB available.

As the game requests memory for itself, the operating system can simply take memory used by other applications (already in those 5GB of memory used) and move it to your hard drive/ssd into the page file.

 

This way, the game gets more actual RAM... so the 100-200 MB locked by the video card are really peanuts, and should not affect the performance of your computer and your game.

 

PS. Really the best for you would be to BUY A SECOND STICK, as that would configure your memory in DUAL CHANNEL mode, which may increase the performance of your computer/laptop by up to 10-15% just by the fact your memory is faster this way.

 

 

[porina]

5.5GB seems excessive for low load. I'd go to the 1st page of task manager, sort by memory usage and see what is taking it and attacking that as first step.

[Baris]

35 minutes ago, porina said:

5.5GB seems excessive for low load. I'd go to the 1st page of task manager, sort by memory usage and see what is taking it and attacking that as first step.

I thought the same. Maybe it reserves it constantly for intel GPU and that is why I do not have free ram avaliable.

 

Here is the list, In use ram: 4.5gb. But it is still excessive. Should be under 3gb easily with this list.

 

[unsungheroist]

you can set the shared memory amount in the bios of the motherboard

[Baris]

40 minutes ago, unsungheroist said:

you can set the shared memory amount in the bios of the motherboard

I know it is about BIOS but I have the latest BIOS firmware updated, and there is no option to set it. As I've said before there is no option other than changin the brightness under VIDEO tab. My laptop is Dell G5.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Baris said:

Here is the list, In use ram: 4.5gb. But it is still excessive. Should be under 3gb easily with this list.

No clues in the screenshots so far... can you do the same for task manager "details" tab?

[Baris]

13 minutes ago, porina said:

No clues in the screenshots so far... can you do the same for task manager "details" tab?

 

[porina]

I'm outta ideas. At this point I'd probably give up and look at upgrading the ram.

[mariushm]

You have a shitload of services that are running in background and you may not need.

 

For example, try to disable Windows Update service or pause it , anti malware , desktop search (SearchIndexer.exe)  / cortana , adobe creative cloud, canon image transfer utility, SupportAssistEngine.exe ( probably some stupid "contact support" service from some app you installed)  ... do you need origin launcher running in background all the time?

 

 

[Baris]

47 minutes ago, mariushm said:

You have a shitload of services that are running in background and you may not need.

 

For example, try to disable Windows Update service or pause it , anti malware , desktop search (SearchIndexer.exe)  / cortana , adobe creative cloud, canon image transfer utility, SupportAssistEngine.exe ( probably some stupid "contact support" service from some app you installed)  ... do you need origin launcher running in background all the time?

 

 

These are not taking enough ram for it to reach 4 GB or more with only Opera open. I can not stop adobe creative cloud and supportassist is Dell update service also needed and it takes very little ram.

[Baris]

2 hours ago, porina said:

I'm outta ideas. At this point I'd probably give up and look at upgrading the ram.

It will cost 300 bucks in my currency. That is why I am trying to find a solution and it does not make sense for it to take so much ram because there are no processes taking enough ram as seen above. My last gaming session was fine because the used RAM was about 4.5 gb. But most of the time it is 5 GB and that 1 GB makes the difference, the game uses that extra 1 GB if windows does not eat it up. Currently the used RAM is 4GB, but I still think it is very high and it does not make sense. It is clear windows does that by reserving it for iGPU.

 

https://www.trendyol.com/kingston/8gb-2666mhz-ddr4-cl19-notebook-ram-kvr26s19s8-8-p-4360748?boutiqueId=310910&gclid=CjwKCAjw_MnmBRAoEiwAPRRWW3Ral04JMqgGX1ce0lm4-eO6qjLYE5dAgUzAxoTk3OlSLUqxYjcCMxoCAVMQAvD_BwE

 

Do you guys think this ram will work together with the current installed SK hynix ram? It is the cheapest 2666mhz I could find.

[porina]

11 minutes ago, Baris said:

Do you guys think this ram will work together with the current installed SK hynix ram? It is the cheapest 2666mhz I could find.

Mismatched ram is ok even if not ideal. I'm running two different types of ram in my laptop for a similar reason. One stick is 2133, the other is 2400, and I think they were different configuration and manufacturer too. Still runs dual channel and gave a nice performance boost.

[Baris]

14 minutes ago, porina said:

Mismatched ram is ok even if not ideal. I'm running two different types of ram in my laptop for a similar reason. One stick is 2133, the other is 2400, and I think they were different configuration and manufacturer too. Still runs dual channel and gave a nice performance boost.

It means they are running at 2133 mhz dual channel, because when you match a high speed ram with slower one it will run at slow speed. I fear that my G5 motherboard will not recognize the Kingston brand ram because some users reported issues like that on internet.

[porina]

6 minutes ago, Baris said:

It means they are running at 2133 mhz dual channel, because when you match a high speed ram with slower one it will run at slow speed. I fear that my G5 motherboard will not recognize the Kingston brand ram because some users reported issues like that on internet.

In my case it isn't just the speed. My 2133 ram is dual rank, and the 2400 ram is single rank. So internally they're very different arrangement also. I actually have a pair of the 2133 but I can't access the 2nd module without taking the laptop apart.

[BleachedFur]

Disable the GPU acceleration component of Chrome. I've done this on my laptop because it drains the battery and takes up anywhere from 100mb to 6GB of RAM depending on what's loaded.

 

Chrome's GPU acceleration is leaky as hell. FireFox's is better and Opera just.needs.to.die.off.already

[Baris]

On 5/9/2019 at 2:22 AM, BleachedFur said:

Disable the GPU acceleration component of Chrome. I've done this on my laptop because it drains the battery and takes up anywhere from 100mb to 6GB of RAM depending on what's loaded.

 

Chrome's GPU acceleration is leaky as hell. FireFox's is better and Opera just.needs.to.die.off.already

I do not use Chrome. I only use Opera. And I think Opera is the best browser. It uses about 1 gb ram and it is fine if you ask me. It does not becomes laggy even with 30 opened tabs. Of course it slows down when opening but it runs like butter compared to other browsers. Also, built-in VPN is a life-saver for me. I could not find a fast free VPN service like that. It only comes built-in with Opera.

 

I know Opera is based on Chrome so I checked the settings, found Use hardware acceleration when available option. And I have disabled it.

 

 

[Baris]

On 5/9/2019 at 1:37 AM, porina said:

In my case it isn't just the speed. My 2133 ram is dual rank, and the 2400 ram is single rank. So internally they're very different arrangement also. I actually have a pair of the 2133 but I can't access the 2nd module without taking the laptop apart.

My last gaming session was lag free. Because In use RAM was showing about 4 GB so that extra 1 GB free used by Apex legends and there was no freezing at all. But sometimes it reaches to 5 GB and Apex legends struggles to find free RAM, hence the lags do occur badly. I just do not understand how it reaches more than 4 GB because in processes there is simply no application uses any RAM.