How to safely expand SWAP?

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Hi, a new Fedora user here! :wave: I’m trying to play Star Citizen, but I’ve noticed that my system runs out of RAM (I have 16 GB) and SWAP when I play, thus crashing the game. I’ve played the game on Manjaro earlier, and then I just made a large SWAP partition when I installed the system.

I want to expand the current SWAP (8 GB), but I’m not sure how to do it without breaking anything on my system. I’ll provide any info needed, just not sure what is needed (if any).

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Since Fedora 33, Fedora uses zswap now by default, so you shouldn’t need to create a swap partition. Once your memory fills up, zswap should start compressing your existing memory and using a little storage as it goes.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SwapOnZRAM

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Well I don’t know what to say, when it reaches the base 8 GB the game crashes instantly, and I don’t see the Swp expanding beyond 8 GB through HTOP :thinking: I did see it expand beyond when I had other apps open, but that was only like 700 MB. Is there no way to expand the default to beyond 8 GB?

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Hi bloodaxe,

Fedora contains a service called systemd-oomd, which kills processes which are misbehaving according to this service. Type as superuser : systemctl stop “systemd-oomd” and try again. With the risk of needing hard reset because there is no protection anymore.

You can always create a swapfile of any size, and add this to the zswap. You will find descriptions on the internet how to do this. A separate swap partition is slightly better, but a swap file can be created without any partitioning.

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If you are using btrfs file systems, you should be able to use gparted to reduce the size of the btrfs file system, and create a new swap partition in the new free space.

The zram swap space may be fine, but it does use ram space by itself and there is a limit to what compression can do. So for heave use of swap space, a real swap partition would be needed.

Also, check the usage of the /tmp file system. Big files there will eat away of your ram and swap space.

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I was able to use one of the answers above to help me out :smile: I like the systemd-oomd that kills the process, I’ve gotten a distaste for system freezes after using Manjaro :upside_down_face:

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