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Comment on Games on my PC start stuttering pretty badly when they aren't the active window for a while. Have to close the game and restart to resolve the stuttering issue. What exactly is causing this?

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NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

This is the correct answer and the function is called Virtual Memory in Windows but is commonly known as the pagefile or swap. Adding more RAM won’t save you from this, as Windows will automatically move memory files into virtual memory if they’re idle for awhile, regardless of how much RAM is currently in use. In fact adding more RAM will probably increase the size of the virtual memory which may make the problem worse for you.

Here is a more complete explanation: Swap file in Windows 10 & Windows 11: How to use it to optimize PC performance (increase, adjust, deactivate swap)?

The pagefile is configurable. You can change which hard drive it gets stored on, how big it can be, and even turn it off completely. Turning it off has risks though, and may lead to system crashes (see the warnings in the article).

You could add an SSD specifically to serve as a pagefile location and nothing else, in which case you could just get a small cheap one (a 32GB SSD would be more than enough for 16GB of RAM) - assuming that you have a place to plug it in to your motherboard, and then turn off the pagefile storage on all other drives in your system. That would be an easy change as you wouldn’t have to reinstall Windows onto a new hard drive.

Ultimately though, the easiest and cheapest fix is to just change your behavior - close the game if you’re not using it for awhile and relaunch it when you want to play again.

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WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
virtual memory is related, but that’s a broader system that also gets used when no swap file was set up.

I agree that adding more RAM won’t necessarily make the problem go away as windows might still swap the game out if it deems it more important to cache more files in RAM, but I don’t see why that would make it worse.

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- NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  that also gets used when no swap file was set up.
  
  The swap file or pagefile is automatically set up in Windows 10/11. You have to do something manually to prevent it.
  
  I agree that adding more RAM won’t necessarily make the problem go away as windows might still swap the game out if it deems it more important to cache more files in RAM, but I don’t see why that would make it worse.
  
  By making the swap file larger, which may be an issue if the hard drive doesn’t have enough space left, and if not it will still increase the amount of time needed to recover data from the swap, because it’s larger.
  
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  - WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    The swap file or pagefile is automatically set up in Windows 10/11. You have to do something manually to prevent it.
    
    yes. but it still is different from virtual memory. that’s a broader thing.
    
    By making the swap file larger, which may be an issue if the hard drive doesn’t have enough space left, and if not it will still increase the amount of time needed to recover data from the swap, because it’s larger.
    
    then open the control panel and fix the swap setup. and then enjoy your more ram. the solution to this problem does not seem to be not upgrading to have more ram.
    
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    NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    but it still is different from virtual memory. that’s a broader thing.
    
    Of course, that’s why I said…
    
    the function is called Virtual Memory in Windows
    
    because that’s how it’s labeled in the Windows Settings menu.
    
    then open the control panel and fix the swap setup. and then enjoy your more ram. the solution to this problem does not seem to be not upgrading to have more ram.
    
    Adding more RAM is not a solution to OP’s described problem in any way. In the context of moving data from active memory to the pagefile, Windows doesn’t care how much RAM you have, only how long the data in active memory has been idle (which is not configurable). Adding more RAM to the system will do nothing to change that behavior.
    
    However, adding more RAM might make retrieving data from the pagefile slower. Yes you could adjust the pagefile settings to address this, as you said, but it still doesn’t do anything to address OP’s problem.
    
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SolOrion@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

You could add an SSD specifically to serve as a pagefile location and nothing else, in which case you could just get a small cheap one (a 32GB SSD would be more than enough for 16GB of RAM)

Honestly, assuming OP isn’t somewhere that the market for PC parts is extremely wonky compared to the US, if you’re going to get an SSD you might as well go ahead and get one big enough to serve as a boot drive. A 256gb SATA SSD is ~$20, and should be fine for that purpose. It probably won’t have DRAM at that price point, but realistically it’s not really necessary and still going to be a night and day upgrade over an HDD.

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- NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Sure but this still requires going through the reinstallation process, compared to just plugging an NVMe drive into a PCIe adapter and sticking it into an unused slot - done in 5 minutes.
  
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  - SolOrion@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Reinstalling windows is hardly a laborious task, but even then my main point was that buying a 32GB SSD is pointless when you can get much larger ones for extremely cheap. Even if you don’t use it as a boot drive, more fast storage is never going to be a downside.
    
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