Page Data?

[Knightmare]

I just bought a new game: STALKER, Shadow of Chernobyl. The install went fine, but when it came time to actually start the game, I got an error message in German.
Well, I babeled it and it says something to the effect of not having 2GB for page data.

I went into my system and changed my Virtual Memory to the max of 1512, and that did nothing. Then I changed it to 2600, which is 2.6GB (right?). Anyway, this game still won't launch.

What do I need to do? Do I need to buy more memory? I have 512 installed, and my video card has 256.

Please help!

Thanks in advance.

[volatile]

Just by looking up the recommended requirements it says that you need 1 GB of system memory. So yes, not having enough memory may be the culprit.

[Knightmare]

The box says Minimum of 512MB, 1GB recommended.

Guess it's time to go out and buy that memory I've wanted.

[Shabo]

Just for a recommendation to anyone looking to buy computer games:

Do yourself a favor, and get at least a gig of ram before you try to play anything. If you are running Vista, get at least two. Once you play the game with extra ram, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it before.

A friend of mine was telling me about a study that was done saying that the best lower end machines for gaming had a mediocre processor, a decent amount of ram, and a high end video card. The video card will take care of excessive video rendering, and the ram will allow the CPU to perform better.

Ok, and a quick explanation of Virtual Memory. The way it works is that it sets aside a portion of your HDD to use as ram in case your actual ram gets overloaded. There is a maximum amount you should increase that to, but I can't remember what that is off the top of my head. I want to say 1.5 times what your actual memory is? Regardless, changing the virtual memory amount will not change the actual memory amount, so unless you are getting a "Windows is low on virtual memory" error, then changing the page file size isn't really going to help much. Of course, if you are getting that error message, you might want to find out why you are before you try to increase the page file size.

*Edit* Apparently, some articles say that as long as you do a multiple of your actual ram, it won't really matter. I don't know about this as I've never really had to deal with it.

[LostMyMind]

Page data is a old way of memory management. Is used for computers that don't have 32bit memory access (older computers). Most don't bother doing that any more because Windows handle that nowdays. But some companies don't like leaving things up to Windows, by doing the memory management themselves they get a little more speed out of the computer. I find this to be an issue with german made software. I'm not putting it down, I love gothic. Just in my experience I tend to run into things like that with german software.

That being said, check to see if they have a patch. Most likely there is a patch that solves that issue. There might be a setting or 2 for the game that can be "tweak" to fix the issue.

However, memory paging issues isn't only for CPU memory. If the video card doesn't have the minimum memory or isn't supported by the game. That might be firing a memory error even through is not really CPU memory issue.

[Knightmare]

I ordered 2GB of memory from Tiger Direct. I hope this fixes it.

[Knightmare]

That 2GB of memory did the trick! Holy cow, is this thing fast now.

I think I may have to order another 2GB.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

[Shabo]

Just make sure your mobo can handle it. All mobos have a limit to the amount of ram they can handle. Although if your computer is fairly new, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Der Cute]

2GB should be enough for your tasks currently.

More than 2GB I'm thinking a server or such.

cutenoob

[JustADude]

2GB should be enough for your tasks currently.

More than 2GB I'm thinking a server or such.

cutenoob

I've got 3GB on my current rig. MoBo has 3 slots, with a 1GB stick of Corsair DDR in each. :D I have Virtual Memory shut off completely and I've got zilch in the way of problems except for programs that bitch about it without checking to see if you have enough physical memory first.