Do I need more RAM or better RAM?

[FaTaLMercenery]

So yesterday I was working on a group project for my software engineering class in which we are making a game using Unreal Engine 4(UE4). I noticed after a while that the editor was becoming laggy and so I decided to see if something was running in the background and using my cpu or gpu. I didn't expect to see that my memory was at 92% usage with UE4 using over 10GB. My pc specs are as follows:

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600

CPU Cooler: NZXT X72 Kraken

MOBO: MSI X570-A PRO

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB OC

RAM: 32GB(4x8GB) G.Skill TridentZ RGB 3200MHz CL16

Storage: 2TB Samsung 660p M.2 NVMe SSD and 2TB Seagate Barracuda 3.5" HDD

PSU: Corsair RMx 850W

Case: NZXT H710i

 

Does this just mean that I don't have enough RAM to run UE4 or is it maybe too slow? Or could the lag not even be a product of the high RAM usage?

[The_Askinator]

Click on performance and hit memory. Than show us what pops up, just want to make sure all your ram is showing up properly.

[Jurrunio]

maybe half of it is in hardware reserved? Go to performance tab and check the memory section

[xentropa]

"Better Ram" wouldn't affect usage amount.  The program decides how much RAM is used.  I dont know much about UE4editor but is it possible you have too many objects, polygon models or something else software related?

 

Full RAM usage can definitely lag down performance as other programs won't have any memory headroom to make ur PC run smoothly.

[FaTaLMercenery]

Just opened my project in UE4 and sat here watching the amount of RAM increase from around 2GB to around 14GB

[FaTaLMercenery]

3 minutes ago, xentropa said:

"Better Ram" wouldn't affect usage amount.  The program decides how much RAM is used.  I dont know much about UE4editor but is it possible you have too many objects, polygon models or something else software related?

By better I meant faster. My RAM is 3200 MHz, didn't know if having faster RAM would make any difference with the lag at least. Also, this project really doesn't have much in it at the moment. It is basically just a grid.

[MrBrightSyde]

The Performance tab is saying your RAM is running at 2133mhz and not 3200mhz. You aren't using your RAM's rated speed. Go into the BIOS and change the settings so that your RAM is running at 3200mhz and not 2133mhz

[svmlegacy]

Looks to me like you have some sort of issue in your project, creating a memory leak. I don't think your RAM is faulty here at all.

[FaTaLMercenery]

15 hours ago, MrBrightSyde said:

The Performance tab is saying your RAM is running at 2133mhz and not 3200mhz. You aren't using your RAM's rated speed. Go into the BIOS and change the settings so that your RAM is running at 3200mhz and not 2133mhz

Thank you, I did not notice this.

13 hours ago, svmlegacy said:

Looks to me like you have some sort of issue in your project, creating a memory leak. I don't think your RAM is faulty here at all.

This could be an option. I've been following a tutorial on YouTube for creating a grid and using A* path-finding but he speaks all in French so I can't understand him and don't really know if he addressed this issue. I did notice that in the latest video I watched his game did seem to get laggy, so hopefully within the next video or two he does something to fix this error if this actually is the cause.

[steelo]

15 minutes ago, FaTaLMercenery said:

Thank you, I did not notice this.

This could be an option. I've been following a tutorial on YouTube for creating a grid and using A* path-finding but he speaks all in French so I can't understand him and don't really know if he addressed this issue. I did notice that in the latest video I watched his game did seem to get laggy, so hopefully within the next video or two he does something to fix this error if this actually is the cause.

I have 8 gb of 3200mhz RAM but my performance tab is saying its running at 1600mhz...I think this (in my case) is because it is dual channel RAM. I've verified in UEFI that it is, in fact running at 3200mhz.

 

Windows gives out weird memory speed readings I don't quite understand...It probably has to do with running 4 sticks of dual channel memory. I'd refer to UEFI, not what Windows tells you...

[MrBrightSyde]

2 hours ago, steelo said:

I have 8 gb of 3200mhz RAM but my performance tab is saying its running at 1600mhz...I think this (in my case) is because it is dual channel RAM. I've verified in UEFI that it is, in fact running at 3200mhz.

 

Windows gives out weird memory speed readings I don't quite understand...It probably has to do with running 4 sticks of dual channel memory. I'd refer to UEFI, not what Windows tells you...

Really? I'm using 4 sticks and I'm running at 3200mhz.

 

2 hours ago, FaTaLMercenery said:

Thank you, I did not notice this.

 

You might want to use CPU-Z to double-check. If it's running at 1066mhz on CPU-Z, your RAM is running at 2133mhz also know at the stock speed for DDR4. If your RAM is running at 1600mhz on CPU-Z, then it might just be a complete memory leak issue that happens in certain programs, like the problems I've had with the game "Empire: Total War"

[steelo]

2 hours ago, MrBrightSyde said:

Really? I'm using 4 sticks and I'm running at 3200mhz.

 

You might want to use CPU-Z to double-check. If it's running at 1066mhz on CPU-Z, your RAM is running at 2133mhz also know at the stock speed for DDR4. If your RAM is running at 1600mhz on CPU-Z, then it might just be a complete memory leak issue that happens in certain programs, like the problems I've had with the game "Empire: Total War"

Not really sure, I've verified in UEFI and CPU-Z that they are running at 3200mhz. Probably a Windows fluke...

[svmlegacy]

5 minutes ago, steelo said:

Not really sure, I've verified in UEFI and CPU-Z that they are running at 3200mhz. Probably a Windows fluke...

Windows Task Manager is fairly unreliable for these kinds of specs. It seems to think my 3770K does 6 GHz... CPU-Z and the BIOS are trustworthy.

[FaTaLMercenery]

On 3/30/2020 at 8:36 PM, MrBrightSyde said:

The Performance tab is saying your RAM is running at 2133mhz and not 3200mhz. You aren't using your RAM's rated speed. Go into the BIOS and change the settings so that your RAM is running at 3200mhz and not 2133mhz

My RAM was actually running at 2133 MHz and a low voltage, I think it was around 1.23V so I changed it to the rated 3200 MHz and 1.35V.

23 hours ago, svmlegacy said:

Looks to me like you have some sort of issue in your project, creating a memory leak. I don't think your RAM is faulty here at all.

I noticed that in my project, if I am working on the blueprints my RAM usage doesn't increase, at least not drastically. Same for when I actually press play for the game. It starts increasing rapidly when I am just looking at the level. I don't have to do anything, simply looking at the level seems to cause my RAM usage to soar. The RAM usage by UE4 also does not change at all when I am focused on another application. Here are some numbers for RAM usage as I "work" with the percent total usage and how much UE4 is using:

 

Launch: 31%   700MB

Level:  38%   3,200MB (approx. 10 seconds

Blueprint: 39%   3,400MB (after switching from level view)

Level: 44% 4,800MB (approx. 20 seconds)

 

Just for fun: 97% 20,000MB (approx. 10 minutes and was still increasing)

 

 

You can see UE4 RAM usage not changing until I tab into it at which point it rises around 800MB by the end of the short video. 

[svmlegacy]

Interestingly enough this site seems to list 8 GB of RAM to be recommended for dev work. So to be filling 32 GB with it seems to be an indication of something else being wrong, or some sort of overly aggressive cache setting in the program itself.