Should I spend $400 to upgrade from 16gig RAM to 32gig RAM?

[Gus]

Should I spend $400 to upgrade from 16gig RAM to 32gig RAM?

You can see my hardware below.
I'm using ArchiCAD 19.

I do get lagging that often crashes ArchiCAD after lagging for a long time. I also have to Cntrl+Alt+Del most times after "Reserving All" on a large 900mb project.

Any thoughts on this?

[Laszlo Nagy]

I think you should check your Windows Task Manager to see how much memory is being used.
If it is not approaching the 16 GB limit then memory shortage is not the reason for the slowdown and the crash.
Let me know the numbers from the Task Manager.

[Gus]

Here are screen shots of my numbers right now.
I'm running Blubeam, ArchiCAD 19, and Chrome.

[Gus]

Here is a screen shot of windows explorer, showing the file and file size that I am having trouble with. Is a 277,123 KB file a big file?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Your system is using only 45% of the available 16 GB memory.
So I don't think it is shortage of memory that is causing your problems.

I am more concerned about the size of your ARCHICAD project. At 300 MBs an ARCHICAD Project can become quite large/complex so there might be things in the file itself that are causing the performance issues.
You could check these article to see if they give you any good advice:

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/troubleshooting/performance/archicad-19-performance-troubleshooting...

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/troubleshooting/performance/archicad-18-performance-troubleshooting...

If the situation does not improve, I would show the file to your local support.

[Gus]

Thanks Laszlo,
Super helpful.
You just saved me a lot of money too, now that I don't have to get more RAM!
Since I am only using 45% of my RAM can I tell ArchiCAD somehow that it's OK for it to use a lot more RAM if it wants to? Or is ArchiCAD already using the max amount of RAM that it can handle?

I will read all those links you sent me now as well.

Thanks again.
-Gus

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, as long as there is available RAM, ARCHICAD will use as much as it needs. ARCHICAD 19 is 64-bit only so there is no 4 GB limitation to the amount of RAM it can use, like 32-bit applications have.

As a side note, I have 16 GBs of RAM and there was only one time, when I was testing the limits of ARCHICAD when I ran out of RAM. So in normal practice I never reached this limit. However, next summer when I buy a new laptop I will have 32 GBs of RAM in it so it will be enough even in 2020.
RAM for me is the single most important component of a CAD workstation.