[Dr. Zhivago]

Hey All.

This is my first post here.

I have noticed some interesting things concerning games, their memory usage and Windows use of the page file with certain games. On my main rig, I have 2GB of RAM and you'd think that Windows wouldn't need the page file that much. However, it does get used quite a bit when gaming, with the exception of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (VTMB). What's interesting about this game is that it has the highest memory usage of any game that I have (1.2GB), yet Windows does not dump loads of data to the page file. All other games that use a lot of memory, like Doom 3, HL2, Far Cry, Painkiller, etc. all cause Windows to dip heavily into the page file, yet none of them exceed 880MB of memory usage.

When running Doom 3 for example, the page file load will be around 160-230MB during a typical session. Yet, as mentioned, the Peak Commit Charge as shown in Task Manager will not be any greater than 880MB. With VTMB, the page file load will not exceed 5-6MB, which is the peak of usage during a session where NO gaming takes place at all. But, the Peak Commit Charge for VTMB is 1.2GB. Quite a difference.

I'm using a program called XP Page File Monitor by Bill James to monitor Page File Usage on my machine. I'm using Task Manager to track memory load and peak allocation. I will not turn off Virtual Memory as certain programs will not run. I am also not complaining about performance problems as there are none.

I am simply bringing this up because I find it intriguing that a game with a huge memory load causes no page file activity, yet games with far less memory usage cause large amounts of page file activity.

Anyone care to share their theories?

By the way, I am using Windows XP Pro SP2.

[mkk]

An interesting find. I love these little conundrums. Perhaps the answer could be as simple as VtM:Bloodlines being better coded to take advantage of a system with lots of RAM. Although it does seem kind of like a too simple answer when so many other new games does not behave the same. Some of the games like Doom 3 and HalfLife 2 did have a very long development phase though, so they could have ran with a programming model assuming 1GB RAM to be top of the line. I can't seem to get XP Page File Monitor running properly on my own system right now though, its settings page coming up when it should not.

[Dr. Zhivago]

When that happens with the program, just hit Cancel and it should stop prompting you for the settings page. Lemme know if that works.

Regarding your statements, I thought about that as well. It does seem silly that as buggy and performance-challanged as VTMB is, it would be surprising that it's better coded for large amounts of memory than HL2 which shares the same game engine...

However, one of the REQUIREMENTS for VTMB is a 1400MB swapfile. Hmmm...

Curiouser and curiouser.