Frequent big memory issues during games, requiring a swap of over 30 GB of RAM.
Frequent big memory issues during games, requiring a swap of over 30 GB of RAM.
I felt a sudden scare when Windows warned me my SSD was nearly full during a game. After reviewing the space, I found only 430 MB left instead of the usual 35 GB. Using WinDirStat revealed a large 35 GB file named pagefile.sys, which manages swap memory for Windows 10. I deleted it to prevent more issues. How did such a massive file end up there? With 16 gigabytes of RAM and only 6 GB used at full speed, did removing it cause trouble? I tried setting the swap limit to the recommended 2937 MB but faced frequent crashes, so I switched back to automatic. I ran a checkdisk and SSD health test and plan to run Memtest ASAP. Is there a problem with my hardware or software?
The swapfile size refers to how much disk space is used for swapping. You can check if another drive is available by looking at the system's storage layout. Moving more of the swapfile to a larger drive can help utilize that space and improve performance.
I chose only one drive for a complete SSD setup after moving most of my large files to a NAS. SSDs remain costly, but I believe having extra free space wouldn't matter much since the swap would likely adjust to use whatever available space existed then. I reviewed the task manager and recalled that Opera was the most memory-heavy app—about 0.5GB with 15 tabs open, yet the PC was already handling three times its usual load. Lightroom (0.2GB), Affinity Designer (40MB), Skype, Discord... Together they used under 20% of the available RAM. I suspect Final Fantasy XIV might have caused a memory overload, but with 32GB available, that's more than the game itself! I’d check the task manager again if the issue repeats.
The swapfile size is increased when Windows wants to, and it doesn't shrink again afterwards. On earlier research, the swapfile is also used to hold memory dumps when things crash, so I wonder if that is a contributor. I think there is a setting somewhere on how much is dumped, and it may or may not help to reduce or disable this.
The game didn’t crash when it started; you just closed it and cleared the pagefile.sys afterward. Cleaning or reducing the swap space usually requires a reboot. Currently, the pagefile.sys is about 2.9 GB. The system has been running for roughly an hour since boot, and you’ve been watching YouTube videos. You also have a 6.4 GB hiberfil.sys file, which seems unused—possibly not activated. There’s a swapfile.sys of 16 MB, but it’s not relevant to your situation.
You can turn off hibernation if you rarely use it, and it will remove that file afterward. The command likely looks like powercfg /h off, but verify it. I’m unsure about any additional effects, so do some research before proceeding. This approach works for systems running continuously, which is why it doesn’t affect me.
Je m'est écrasé sur Overwatch récemment. J'avais reçu un avertissement il y a 5 minutes me demandant de fermer les programmes en raison d'un manque de mémoire (Runtime broker). J'ai ignoré l'alerte, suis revenu à mon jeu, mais 5 minutes plus tard le jeu s'est arrêté avec une autre alerte indiquant que ma carte graphique manquait de mémoire. Les captures d'écran sont jointes ; elles montrent la mémoire disponible en jeu avant le crash. Désolé, les images sont en français mais assez claires pour comprendre. Je ne hésite pas à demander une traduction si besoin. Je joue en QHD avec les paramètres Ultra, même si je les ai utilisés pendant 5 mois maintenant (et des jeux plus gourmands comme BF4 et Witcher 3...). Est-ce lié à la mémoire graphique ? Ma carte Asus GTX 670 Strix est assez ancienne, que j'ai achetée l'année dernière sur le marché de détail (sortie en 2012), mais fonctionnait parfaitement jusqu'à ce moment. J'ai fait un test Memtest et tout va bien.