If you receive an out of memory error, you may need to increase your page file size for Windows on the fastest drive on your system with available space. The page file instructs the drive to set a minimum and maximum amount for providing memory to that specific drive and any applications run on it. Like Star Citizen!
These instructions walk through updating your page file. Any changes you make can be easily undone. If you are new to editing these settings, don't panic! We will walk you through it.
I received a memory usage message!
We have added memory checks and messaging to help notify when you are experiencing memory issues. What does this message mean? Your system is using close to your maximum available memory. This may be occurring due to a Star Citizen memory leak, or other applications consuming memory with Star Citizen.
(The amounts of RAM will differ according to your system.)
Why do I get out of memory errors?
Even if you have 16GB RAM (minimum recommended for Star Citizen), you have other processes running that consume RAM with the game running. All of these programs or actions will consume memory: streaming a video or music, running a web browser, services running in the background like battle.net or Steam, running other programs to capture your video or stream online, etc.
We are also investigating memory leaks in the game that increase memory consumption the longer you play, or when you near certain locations.
How do I fix it?
- Check how much memory you have available. You can check via DXDiag and your system information.
- Track where these memory issues occur in game. They may be due to a memory leak in Star Citizen. We are investigating and working to resolve these leaks throughout the game and server locations in current PTU builds and internal development.
- Check for and close additional applications running and eating memory. For example, turn off all streaming, close other programs, while playing Star Citizen.
- Make sure your graphic card is being used by Star Citizen. You can check in your Nvidia or AMD control panel.
- Make sure you have enough harddrive space. Your pagefile will need 10GB more space on an SSD drive.
Modifying Pagefile for Memory
These instructions walk through updating your pagefile. Any changes you make can be easily undone. If you are new to editing these settings, don't panic. We will walk you through it. If you have already made these changes, you don't need to do them again.
Using automatic Pagefile settings
The easiest option is to make sure it is set to automatic.
- Go to the Start Menu and click on Settings.
- Type performance.
- Choose Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.
- In the new window, go to the Advanced tab and under the Virtual memory section, click on Change.
- Make sure you have enabled/selected Automatically manage paging file size for all drives box at the top.
- If you changed a setting, click OK to save the new settings.
Set a Specific Pagefile Amount
Optionally, to provide more memory to the drive with Star Citizen installed, you may want to set a custom size. We recommend this for players with 16GB of memory.
- Go to the Start Menu and click on Settings.
- Type performance.
- Choose Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.
- In the new window, go to the Advanced tab and under the Virtual memory section, click on Change.
- Deselect the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives box at the top.
- Select the drive with Star Citizen installed.
- Click Custom and enter a size range. For example with 16GB, you may want to enter Initial Size of 8000 MB and Maximum size of 12000 MB. Remember this is in MB, so you need to increase the numbers by 1000 for GB.
- Click Set then Ok.
Tried everything here with no change?
If none of the previous steps showed any results, gather your game and system information files and then place a support ticket.