Recommended RAM speed for Fallout 4. How fast should by RAM ideally be?

[GenkiM]

As per title (although it should read: How fast should *my* RAM ideally be (typo :confused: ))

 

I currently have 8GB of SDDR3 running at 1600 MHz.

 

I have a feeling this is bottlenecking my system, since neither my CPU or my GPU seem to be getting to 100% load and I'm experiencing frame rate drops, in resource-intensive areas of the game.

 

Found this: https://wccftech.com/fallout-4-performance-heavily-influenced-by-ram-speed-according-to-report/

 

Think my RAM might be the culprit.

Edited August 25, 2018 by GenkiM

[bbiller]

I can tell you my system on low video settings works well and I'm dealing with Ripjaws X series 1866MHz memory (had to set the timings manually from the XMP information for my Sabertooth motherboard, but it's not overclocked and has been working just fine). I would say see what going up to 16Gb does for you even if at 1600MHz for memory speed, keep reading as there is info here that should help you.

 

Specs:

AMD FX Black Edition 8150 processor

Asus Sabertooth motherboard

32Gb (4x8GB, two pairs to a bank) Ripjaws X series 1866MHz memory

MSI Lightning 2 3Gb Radeon 6970 video card

Three hard drives (1Tb for the OS, 2x2Tb drives for Steam game storage in RAID 1 setup (read fast, write slow, as has to duplicate entries, though I am dealing with full SATA3 6Gb/s speed and 7200RPM hard drives)

 

This system can be overclocked, but I haven't done so and am not planning to. 1866MHz is as fast as DDR3 is going to go barring overclocking. With my system the graphics card is the main issue, but the motherboard is an original V1 Sabertooth, so I also have the limitation from the fourth slot being in use (video card, RAID card, Sound Blaster Xfi Platinum or Titainium card (whichever is the PCI Express variant, other is older PCI). I had no choice about that, the front of two video card fans would have been rubbing against the back of the sound card otherwise. That slot in use sets PCI Express to x4 on all slots, so I'm not getting the full x16 speed on the video card slot either (limitation of the older Sabertooth version in part and even newer systems are still trying to get around it, just now to get all your lanes you are needing the higher CPU to gain access to them and even then options on the motherboard will affect what's left for video even if running PCI Express 3.1 or so).

 

This system is over five years old but will still run a lot quite well (Batman Arkham Origins, Wartech Fighters, Mechwarrior Online, the recent Doom that came out just two years ago (Doom Eternal looks like they're going into the old Doom 2 territory, should be great from what I've seen), along with quite a few other titles (I will be running Crysis 3 and F.E.A.R. 3 eventually and even today those are still used as a benchmark for a lot and still can bring systems to a crawl).

 

As to how my video is set up, 1080, on low settings with a few extras thrown in above that low default, using HD texture pack and some mods with 2k textures for their weapons. I think I kept godrays off, shadows I think are on low, there are a lot of settings that can be tweaked even from the main Fallout 4 launcher (use that to adjust video, then run F4SE through NMM as normal).

 

The reason for RAID is due to what Microsoft thinks of spinning disks, though I am using Windows 7 Ultimate. That array will let the game load a little quicker and should help with cell transitions. Mine run under a minute after the game has my save loaded, though bigger areas will take a bit longer and new areas can take longer yet, but the game is dealing with a new spot, so not a big surprise there. I think worst case was a little over two minutes, but that was a new section I hadn't been in before. I'm still in early game at about level 44, with a lot of the main quest to do.

 

Hope that helps.

[SKKmods]

Run the Fallout Performance Monitor mod to see where your bottlneck may be. RAM speed is unlikely as the Fallout platform is not super optimised in its use of resources.

[JizzJackrabbit]

CAS 9 1600 Mhz is probably the best bet on DDR3 systems. You're probably running *out* of RAM rather than having an issue with the speed of it. You can use the Windows Task Manager to see how much RAM Fallout 4 is using vs other things you have running. Keep in mind the Firefox and Chrome can easily use more than 1GB by themselves even with a few tabs. Windows 10 generally takes around 1.5 to 2 if it can get away with it.

 

FO4 also dynamically loads assets as you approach areas so disk speed can also be an issue. It's an absolute dumpster fire of an engine with horrendous load times in spinning drives. Running the game from an SSD is a huge improvement.

[GenkiM]

I can tell you my system on low video settings works well...

 

Thanks I don't have that depth of knowledge re. the the PCI-E lanes etc. although I'm pretty sure mine are free for my graphics card. The only PCI dependent add on I have apart from my GPU is a sound card.

 

Run the Fallout Performance Monitor mod to see where your bottlneck may be. RAM speed is unlikely as the Fallout platform is not super optimised in its use of resources.

 

Brilliant, thanks. I had no idea such a thing existed. :smile:

 

CAS 9 1600 Mhz is probably the best bet on DDR3 systems...

 

Really? Because my motherboard will support DDR3-1866. You don't think that would be better? Is that because of the latency?

 

But yeah, I guess one thing I've learned is not to trust Task Manager to monitor my hardware performance.

 

Here are the results that Fallout Performance monitor and CPU-Z are showing me (this is north of Goodneighbor where the frame-rate tanks, with NAC & NAC Enhancer running)...

 

...it looks like I need more RAM? ...although the CPU is boosting to its 4400 MHz maximum (I'm told the CPU won't read 100% because FO4 doesn't use all four cores)...

 

 

What do you guys think? I need more RAM? It looks like it's that that's bottlenecking my system, or is it CPU? (and Task Manager showed it as about 70 to 80% used while I was playing).

 

EDIT: Taking another look at it, the CPU is maxing out the cores FO4 is using at 4400MHz, and the RAM isn't quite a flat line, so maybe it's the CPU that's the bottleneck?

Edited August 30, 2018 by GenkiM

[GenkiM]

So...I thought I'd give OCing my CPU a try, to see what difference it would make to the results...

 

...I downloaded Asus's AI Suite 3 (my motherboard's a budget Asus) and followed the instructions and, don't hate me but, I got this:

 

 

I'm guessing it's lower (4.5GHz) if all four cores are needed? But I think 21% increase is pretty good.

Edited August 30, 2018 by GenkiM

[GenkiM]

Well, it seems that the more I'm learning the less I feel I understand, so...that's progress I guess.

 

I just ran Fallout with the overclock and there was a substantial difference to the feel of the game, and I was getting a much better frame rate, so, it seems it was probably the CPU that was causing the problems.

 

I optimised the settings in BIOS and it improved things, then I went a step further by downloading Asus AI suite and had it automatically overclock my CPU, which made a big difference because it raised my minimum frame rate (north of Goodneighbor) to what was previously my maximum frame rate in that same area.

 

Also, the new nVidia patch seemed to help things along a little too.

 

In short, I think the problem was my own bad optimisation of my new processor, due to confusion as to how to configure things in BIOS to actually get it functioning at an optimal rate.

 

At some point I might take a closer look at the overclock to see if I might be able to manually increase the speed a little more but for the moment at least, the automatic overclock seems to have revealed the bottleneck as being the CPU.

 

Not sure if the RAM is a problem at all at this point? What I hadn't accounted for is the graph in the Fallout Performance Monitor being dynamic, so although it looked like it was plateauing, it could have spiked a lot higher and just caused the graph image to shrink to accommodate the reading.

 

Might installing faster RAM improve things? No doubt, as it has been shown to, but with the speed limits of DDR3, would upgrading from 1600MHz DDR3 to 1866MHz DDR3 really be worthwhile?

 

I'm not sure I have the answer to that; at the moment, because it seems my RAM is less than 50% utilised, and my GPU is hovering around the 85% usage mark, it seems everything hinges on CPU speed.

Having said that, if the Fallout Performance Monitor specifically only shows Fallout 4's memory usage, and the reading doesn't include the load that background processes are utilising, then potentially it is maxed out but just doesn't show a flat line because the amount of memory Fallout 4 can grab at any one time is fluctuating...

 

...leads me to the question of how I can accurately monitor my RAM usage, given that the performance tab of Windows Task Manager has turned out to be so unreliable...

...I guess another google search is imminent.

 

P.S. Just waiting for payl0ad to post telling me I'm doing it all wrong. ;P

 

 

Strangely, as soon as I launch FO4, CPU-Z's Core Speed readout stabalises to just under 4.5GHz, which I'd imagine is the reading across all four cores.

Edited August 30, 2018 by GenkiM

[SKKmods]

Monitoring 16Gb and 32Gb systems I have never seen Fallout 4 use more than 4Gb system RAM even at the point of forced crashes running massive uGrids or hundreds of active NPCs.

 

But, no need to let inconvenient facts get in the way of upgrade spending if Mhz and DDR brings you joy.

[payl0ad]

P.S. Just waiting for payl0ad to post telling me I'm doing it all wrong. ;P

 

Nah dude, OCing your CPU giving you a decent FPS boost is precisely what I expected. You're bottlenecked on the CPU, not by core count but rather by raw clock rate.

Edited August 31, 2018 by payl0ad

[jones177]

Hi

 

You only need more ram if Windows starts to complain.

When I used 8gbs ram Fallout 4 ran fine. At the end of my playing session I would get a message from Windows that memory was low. I updated to 16gbs & the message went away.

 

Fallout 4 is not memory speed sensitive. I tested using different xmp profiles. The difference between the lowest speed to the highest is less than 1fps. Tested with DDR4 3200 & DDR3 1600.

 

Overclocking & this game is hit & mis. My overclocks can passed Cinebench & Prime95 but rarely get past my heavily modded Fallout 4. If Fallout 4 does not like your overclock it will freeze & only a system reset will get you out.

For example, Fallout 4 likes my i7 8086k with 5ghz on all cores but does not like my i7 8700k with 4.7ghz on all cores. Both computers use the same motherboard, video card & ram. It also did not like XMP when I used a i7 6700k with a Z170 ASUS motherboard.

Fallout 4, plus an overclock equals lots of heat. This heat comes in spikes that can trigger throttling. On my LGA1155 Socket motherboards it was CPU & VRM. On my LGA 1151/LGA 1151 (300 Series) it is CPU. These spike are short & are rarely picked up by Fallout Performance Monitor. I use CPUID HWMonitor to check on temps.

 

Bottlenecking is meaningless to me with this game. I play with a i7 8086k with a GTX 1080 ti. At 4k resolution I go from CPU bottlenecking to GPU bottlenecking in a few of my characters steps. When I drop the resolution to 1440 my GPU still bottlenecks, just not as much.

 

 

Later.