PC Stuttering when high RAM usage

[General1337]

Hello, these are my specs:
CPU: i9 9900K
GPU: 1080 TI
RAM: 32 GB DDR4 2400 mhz


I have been having this issue on multiple computers, and recently built a new PC and this issue still occurs. Whenever I fill up my PCs RAM my PC starts to stutter in games. It will be a small micro stutter that happens constantly. The way I have managed to fix the issue is to disable page combining: A bit detailed info about memory combining in Win10
and use RAMMap to empty ALL RAM, from standby to working set (Standby itself does not resolve the issue).

After I do these, my PC starts to run normally for a while until it fills up again and starts to stutter.

Does anyone know of a way to fix this issue? I'm certain it is an issue with Windows 10 at this point as I've had this problem across multiple PCs. This is the only way to fix it and it's extremely irritating.

 

[satrow]

Welcome :)

I've seen several mentions of this type of issue with recent PCs/games, probably all on W10, but I don't have anything recent enough to try to trigger it.

I suspect a lot more detail will be required, begin with collecting actual page file usage data: wmic pagefile, #34 here.

What are you running in the background that pushes the 32GB to top out?

 

[General1337]

Here's what I got from that:
AllocatedBaseSize Caption CurrentUsage Description InstallDate Name PeakUsage Status TempPageFile
9216 C:\pagefile.sys 513 C:\pagefile.sys 20181213224951.679671-420 C:\pagefile.sys 4344 FALSE


I use my PC for more than just gaming. Programming, artwork, etc. I easily use up all 32 GB when working, but when I close everything up this issue still occurs. The RAM doesn't even need to be completely used. I can go up to around 70% usage and this problem still occurs. I have to consistently empty the RAM in order to maintain any stability in games.

Any 3D applet has this issue. I haven't really seen it occur with normal desktop applications, but it might be harder to detect. The issue also occurs more frequently when my PC needs to do some form of context switching or retrieval from memory.

 

[satrow]

Okay, for reference that translates to:

AllocatedBaseSize=9216
CurrentUsage=513
Description=C:\pagefile.sys
InstallDate=2018/12/13
Name=C:\pagefile.sys
PeakUsage=4344
TempPageFile=FALSE

What's your disk layout and drive types (NVME, SSD, HDD,... )?

Is Fast Boot enabled, do you use Hibernation? Anything else connected via PCIe?

Can you test with a fixed size page file of 1024 on each drive and supply usage stats and any differences seen/heard/felt for 2-3 sessions?

 

[General1337]

I have an NVME, 3 SSDs and 4 HDDs.
I have tested using only an NVME or only an SSD (different hard drives), or just a hdd. The issue still occurs.

Is Fast Boot enabled, do you use Hibernation? Anything else connected via PCIe?

- Fast Boot is disabled
- I do put my PC to sleep mode.
- I've tried removing every single component in my PC. Leaving it to bare bones (only an NVME for storage). Formatting the PC multiple times and booting with bare bones and testing. Still occurs
- I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling drivers, custom drivers, even replacing entire PC or individual components of a PC.

I've ran a LOT of xperfs to try and see if I can narrow the issue down, but everything is running normally. No latency issues. No strange disk usage. Everything seems to be working as normal. If I run an xperf or any latency tests when the issue is not occurring compared to when it is. There is no difference.

I've had this issue occur on multiple PCs. I even replaced most of this PC and the issue is still occurring.

It's very much a problem with how memory is being handled IMO, as when I use RAMMap to clear everything. Everything seems to work as normal.

* I have tried different page file sizes and no page file. The issue still remains.



I don't know how many other people are having this issue... but I'm surprised EVERYONE isn't having this issue. I've done every test I can think of and I can only think it's something in Windows that I'm not aware of or this is a common issue.

Can you test with a fixed size page file of 1024 on each drive and supply usage stats and any differences seen/heard/felt for 2-3 sessions?

I have NOT tried 1024 page file size. I'll do that now and let you know how it goes.

 

[satrow]

Have all of the rigs exhibiting this behavior had all the Meltdown/Spectre patches and BIOS updates applied? Have you tried backing out, or disabling them during testing?

InSpectre might be useful. Test results I saw indicated that the faster the PC, the greater the impact, with the fastest drive subsystems being hit the hardest - though whether this was a 'smooth' hit or something more akin to stuttering, I don't know, I don't recall seeing any graphing/detail at that level.

 

[General1337]

Yes that's something I've tried. The issue did not go away.
Changing the pagefile also does not alter the problem in any way. Doesn't seem to have an effect.

 

[cwsink]

Have you seen this video about RAMMap? I think the possibly relevant part is 24 minutes in. My understanding is it's best to minimize the amount of high priority memory repurposing. Priority 0, 1, 2, 3 is probably okay but above that you start getting contention for CPU attention which can cause performance issues for user programs. The answer mentioned in the video is more RAM - assuming that's what you're running into.