Hello i have a question about RAM. Im having awful load times while playing path of exile on windows 11 even though POE is using less than 8gbs (i think it was only using 6gbs).

The big question I have is people on poe reddit said i could allocate more virtual memory than physical (1.5x to 3x), another post said to change initial size to 1024 or 1361 and maximum to half the total ram(16×1024)/2=8,192. Could anyone explain what this does so i can understand the upsides and downsides over using auto? Alt tabing will probably get really slow/buggy if i make the virtual memory too big(maybe even crash)? But the game will run better? Gpu has 16gbs of memory itself so that isnt the issue.

Other things i saw is disabling SysMain, what are your guys thoughts on this? Is my intel 9700k going to benefit from this since my GPU is able to push my cpu to 100%?


I really dont want to take it off auto/disable too much without knowing what im doing.

(Going to try other fixes too like freeing up my SSD space, run corruption scans on memory and system files, delete shader files and swap off of DX12 if those dont work).

I would upgrade to 32gbs but im om small form factor (so less ram slots or laptop ram) and ram is stupid expensive right now.

This post was edited by lamens on Mar 17 2026 11:23pm

There are Many Factors that will cause your game to have issues, not just the RAM itself,

What kind of Graphics Card do you have? and is your Hard Drive: SSD? HDD? or nVme?

Are you currently playing a 1080p? 2k or 4k?

It would also help to post a screenshot of your Processes while running the game (to see how much CPU/RAM) the game is consumming

Thanks

It sounds like the issue isn’t your ram, do you have an ssd or an hdd?

Loading times are rarely related to RAM. As Dubstepmammoth was asking, your game is installed on an HDD right ?

See it like this : if you have hard time loading a game, when launching or changing zone that requires to read from disk, it's speed of disk that impacts performances. If, once the files are loaded, you have difficulties with the game itself, has having lags and stuff, then it can be GPU or RAM.
Depending of your MB, it's highly possible your computer can host 1 to 2 SSD. Could be a nice option to add one (M2) if possible, to host your games. Even better would be to have 2 of them, one for your system, so your computer is starting quickly, and one for your games. Save your HDD for files, downloads, videos, or oldies that don't need SSD to be optimal.

The reason behind that is that HDD is a mechanical device, with heads reading and writing on physical disks, therefore you're limited by RPMs (rotations per minute). SSD is electrical device, it goes quicker to information.

I wouldn't suggest to change the virtual memory. Actually, it's a method to impact badly your games. It was used back in the days when you hadn't enought RAM, you then would sacrifice a part of your disk to simulate RAM, but doing it was also slowing everything, since that "simulated RAM" was using a hard drive, again limited by its mechanical parts.

Last but not least, try to use the good abreviations, "PoE is using less than 8GB". "gbs" or more often "gbps" is a rate for networks. Small b means bit, big B means Byte. 1 Byte = 8 bits. If PoE ask for 8gb, it means it requires 1GB, and it's not the case

The game had an issue with their severs that made my weak CPU really struggle is what i think. I have an intel 9700k with an amd 9070xt and i have a 2TB SSD nvme. The nvme was at 85%-90% full, that could have made things worse. Also play at 2k/1440p

During the bad servers i was okay with only one other person in the game but once i had multiple people loading took like 2 minutes or not at all and my google searched showed those other options. My CPU wouldnt load over 75% and the games cog that showed loading would just stutter so bad to the point it would hardly turn at all. The low CPU and major stuttering during loading made me think it was a memory issue, and my nVme wasn't a shitty model (when i bought it several years ago).

I was also using the RAM usuaged off of task manager not resource monitor. When im back home i'll double check the numbers but i think it said 16k in the commit memory and about 8k in the working memory. I cant remember the abbreviations resource manager used, will update when home.

I'll try to be better about my abbreviations

This post was edited by lamens on Apr 3 2026 09:37am