2 GB of memory feasible and easy?

[Tripod]MajorPayne

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jun 15, 2004
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Hi, I was playing the BF2 demo and was getting horrible, horrible lag and stuttering. I have 1 GB of memory running at 225mhz in dual channel, and I'm looking at buying another 1GB set, so I'll have 4x512. Will I still be able to run them at, say 3-3-3-7 1T? Or should I drop the money on 2x1 GB sticks? Or, should I buy 4x512 of the same type/speed of memory and sell my current Gig?

My motherboard, for non-sig-reading people is a P4-S800D, I have a 3.2E @ ~3.6 Ghz, my motherboard has 4 DIMM slots and supports up to 4GB of RAM. Of course, I only want 2. Will having 2 gigs force me to cut back on my overclock (oh noes!!!)? I'm only running 225mhz FSB, so I should just be able to relax the timings and run 2GB at that speed.

Since RAM is pretty cheap still, and I have enough money to get some REALLY good RAM, what woud you recommend? I'd like a TCCD or variant, not BH or CH-5, since my mobo doesn't supply but 2.85vdimm (no I dont' want a booster, thanks anyway). Should I get Corsair XMS pro, some Patriot TCCD (I have 1 GB of patriot non-TCCD at the moment), or should I get some G-Skill, or some OCZ TCCD stuff? What would you recommend for 2GB of memory (4x512) that will do 225 Mhz at 1T and be happy?

Thanks in advance!
 
If I were you, and if you want best performance, sell your current gig and go for 4 sticks of 512. If you decide however just to buy more, then go with the 512 sticks. I think you got it a little mixed up. The gig sticks are the ones you would have to run at say 3337 or something high like that. If you get the smaller 512 sticks you have a better chance of getting them to run at what ever you want weather lower like 2326 or something like that. However, the low latencies dont affect intel proc. as much as amd, so just get the stuff that even if it runs at higher latencies but is faster mhz wise, if your overclocking, go with that. From what I hear, go with the corsair stuff. Either buy another gig of that or buy 2 gigs and sell the one you got now.
 
Actually, my understanding of the matter is that even though 1gb sticks will by necessity have higher timings, the memory controllers in the latest CPUs (at least for A64s... not 100% positive about P4s) aren't capable of handling 4 sticks at 1t. I've never heard of anyone getting 1t with 4 sticks on an A64, but who knows, maybe it's possible with Intel.

As for buying high quality ram... well, you can get really high quality 512 sticks (TCCD is best for you, as I think your MB doesn't support high vdimm voltage settings), but as for 1gig sticks, just go with a good manufacturer (OCZ, Mushkin, whatever), as no one has made 1gb sticks yet that do super-low timings and can thus be defined as "high quality" -despite that, though, you will be able to get 1t & dual channel with two sticks no matter the size, and those settings are more important than getting the timings super-tight.

As for the overclocking... yea, 1gig sticks will probably force you to push your cpu OC down a bit. So would 4 512s, though. Best CPU overclocks are usually a result of really high quality 256mb sticks, from what I've seen :p

Personally, in the comp I'm building now, I went with 512x2 of high voltage ram (for better OCs), as I am under the impression that 1 gig will be well enough for the next gen or two of gaming and that the limiting factor will be CPU/Vid card before ram. I could be wrong, of course, but eh, do what you feel is best :)
 
Hey, I'm not too in-depth into all this tech. lingo and such, but maybe the problem isn't the RAM at all. Maybe you just need to update your video drivers or something like that. I have 1gig of RAM and it seems to work just fine with all the newest games. Also, maybe just checking out the sys. requirements for the demo and making sure everything is up to snuff before going out and buying new RAM. And one last final note, I specificaly remember the BF1942 Demo not running good on my old system untill they came out with that patch for it, then it ran fine, so maybe by some fluke this demo is doing the same to you (although this is kinda far-fetched, I thought it was worth mentioning).
Good Luck!
 
Well, the demo came with the newest Nvidia drivers and I cleaned out the old ones very thoroughly and installed the new ones, so I know that's not it. My processor is at 3.6Ghz, I have a 6800GT, so neither of those should be an issue at all. The game itself is just eating up a LOT of RAM, and getting more will just help me with smoothness in everyday stuff, even though I don't REALLY need it.

To all who have replied so far: Thanks for your help, it's making the decision easier. I think you guys are misunderstanding me, though. I shouldn't have put the 2x1GB, that was just a curiosity. I'm going with 4x512. Now, that said, you guys seem to think I should go with 4x512 of the same make, model, speed. Then, I should be able to run them at good timings (3-3-3-6 @ 225mhz or something like that, maybe even lower, that's just a ballpark figure), and at 1T. Timings aren't as important to me, because, as you say, Intel systems aren't as affected by latencies. However, 1T is paramount. I don't want to run at 2T, and that's why I decided to not go with 2 x 1GB sticks. I still want some TCCD stuff, because as one guy said, my motherboard does not support Uber-voltage (2.85 max), and I don't want a DDR booster. I'm definitely going with 4x512, it's just a question of what manufacturer? I want really good RAM, but I want it as cheap as possible. I'm willing to spend in the neighborhood of 300 dollars, but I'm hoping to get it a lot cheaper than that.

What make should I look for? Patriot makes good cheap TCCD in their PC3200+XBL kits, and I know G-Skill is proven awesome, but still pretty cheap. What would be the BEST bet for some good TCCD that will run 4x512 dual channel, keeping in mind that I don't want to pay a $50 premium for shiny heatspreaders or a brand name (Corsair, OCZ) if I can get just as good in a cheaper manner (Patriot, G-Skill).

Thanks! Maybe this clears it up a little.
 
[Tripod]MajorPayne said:
I don't want to run at 2T, and that's why I decided to not go with 2 x 1GB sticks.

You can't run 1T with 2 x 1GB sticks on Intel? (I don't know much about intel mobos/ram combos). It usually isn't a problem on AMD setups.
 
I would seriously not make this judgement on a demo...

If all of your other games are running just fine on 1 Gig, I would wait till at least BF2 goes retail. But for the most part everyone remembers how horribly buggy the Battlefield series is at first, until they make that initial patch. Both 1942 and Vietnam were like this.
 
I have other games that need more RAM, too. LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth routinely uses 550 MB of RAM, for example. I think I've decided that if I go this route, I'll just buy another GB of what I have now, since it's fine for me and I'm not able to do super-overclocking. Here's what I have now, any other suggestions or cheap TCCD or input?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220006

That's doing 225 mhz @ 3-3-3-6 (It could be lower timings, I know, I'm just not that picky cause it's an Intel and I want to be sure that it can pass Memtest and all that...). If I get another 2x512 of this, should I be able to do 225 at those timings or a little higher (I.E. 3-3-3-7, 3-3-4-7, etc...)? Thanks!

EDIT: I DON'T want to have to run 2T. 1T is very important. If it won't run 1T, I'm willing to send it back and deal with 1GB for now.
 
I think you need to re-read my reply to your original post. You are *not* going to run 1t with 512x4. A64 memory controllers can't handle it, and I seriously doubt P4 ones will be able to either.
 
Hmm....would I have a better chance of running 1T with 3 sticks of 512? That would drop me down to single channel, though...

What about 2x1GB? I'd probably have to loosen timings and maybe lower my overclock, but if I could run 1T, it might be worth it. This IS all speculation, and I'm not sure I'm going to do anything just yet. Thanks for the input, though.

Oh, by the way, the reason I don't want to run 2T is because of the major performance hit I've heard about. How big exactly is this hit? If it's 3%, I'll live...but 15 or 20% I can't take, and I'll have to find an alternate solution.
 
I tested the demo out with 1GB for a friend to see how it would perform. I thought the swapping/stuttering was bad, about like playing the original BF1942 with 512MB. I have 2GB and it's butter smooth on the rig in the sig at 1024x768 4xAA/8xAF.
 
MemoryInAGarden said:
I tested the demo out with 1GB for a friend to see how it would perform. I thought the swapping/stuttering was bad, about like playing the original BF1942 with 512MB.

QFT...I am in the market for a memory upgrade as well.
 
MemoryInAGarden said:
I have 2GB and it's butter smooth on the rig in the sig at 1024x768 4xAA/8xAF.

I see in your sig that you have quite the substantial overclock on your Celeron D with 2 GB of RAM. Are you using 2x1GB sticks or 4x512, or some other combination, and what are your timings like? Are you forced to run 2T?
 
Corsair do:
"Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2"
which is:
"A matched pair of 1GB XMS3200C2PT memory modules - 2GB total - ideal for dual DDR motherboards. Memory timings of 2-3-3-6."

It's probably what I'll be going for when I go for the same upgrade (I have a DDR Booster occupying 2 of my 4 slots). Unfortunately I got that snippet from a UK website, so you'll need to have a look around for a local supplier.
 
Bump for help, and b/c my thread got moved. Sorry to the mod who had to move it, I forgot to put it in the right section.
 
Just buy a couple of Corsair or Crucial 1GB value sticks. The Corsair Value Select can be had for around $80 a stick.
 
You should not experience any stuttering with that rig. SOmething else is wrong. I would personally (I just bought 2x1mb OCZ pc3500) upgrade to 2x1gb but even so you should run slick with what you have now.
 
I think it's my sucky hard drives, to be honest. I have about 800MB of memory free when I start up BF2, because I shut down all unnecessary processes except McAfee and RivaTuner, and I know McAfee isn't giving me any trouble, because I played with it disabled and had the same stuff. My rig is pretty cool by most standards, it's just S478/AGP, but high-end everything for that platform. I boot from my 30GB IDE drive, but the game is on my 80GB SATA drive. I heard that SATA cables were unshielded, so that may be causing me trouble since my hard drive is right next to the port and I doubled back my cable a time or 2. Whenever I get stuttering, there's MASSIVE hard drive paging going on, as my activity light goes nuts, but stays off when it's running smoothly, for the most part.

BF2 spends so much time loading, can't it just put everything that I might ever possibly need in my RAM? I mean, I have 800MB free!

EDIT: To you who are suggesting 2x1GB, I'm almost headed in that direction, since I've been told that there's no way I run 1T with 4x512, although I could get 2 more 512 sticks for $115, and they'd be identical to the ones I have now. If I could get assurance that I can run 1T with them, I'll buy them in a heartbeat. If I can't, I'll go 2x1GB IF I can be assured of 1T. Otherwise, I'll just have to deal with what I have now, which, as you said, isn't too shabby. :D
 
I want 2-2-2-10 at 200MHz with <= 2.8V.... Any cheap 1GB sticks gonna provide? My BH5 obviously does it easily, but that's only 2x256MB and not 2x1GB...
 
Bump for help, I'd really like to know if I can run 1T with 2x1GB, or if I should just abandon it. If I get 4x512 and it won't run 1T, can I RMA it if they advertise 1T? If it doesn't work, i'm not averse to just paying the 15% restocking fee, I'm not trying to rip them off, but would a situation like that justify an RMA?
 
[Tripod]MajorPayne said:
I found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145574

That's as high as I'm willing to go on the price, I may even drop down. I can get some Kingston value ram for less, and I really don't need high performance stuff if I'm going 2x1GB sticks.

I just received that from Newegg (now they say out of stock, lucky me!), the TwinX XMS 2048-PC3200C2 (2x1024). Sold my 1024-PC3200LL (2x512) on eBay for $150 to offset the cost.

Anyway... BF2.

With 1G, it ran "OK" at 1280x960 with everything on high, although every time I exited the program, Windows would take several seconds to redraw the desktop. Locked up once on exit, too. Some in-game performance issues, such as when switching to TV missile view there would be some stutter. All in all, it felt imperfect, and that simply would not do. Been waiting for this game for too long. ;)

At 2G, my rig feels like it takes it all in it's stride. I can hop in/out of BF2 instantly, either by exiting or by going back/forth using alt-tab. No ingame performance issues at all.Frame rates constantly between 48 and 100fps.

BF2 "may" use less than 1G, but when competing with the O/S, I believe the page file is hit too much for me to deal with.

Note that this is all related to "high" settings, with textures on "medium" then 1G might be fine.

BTW, I went for two new sticks rather than adding a gig, because my A64 setup would downclock from DDR400 to 333 with more than two sticks...
 
So I'm looking at just buying 4x512, and if it won't run 1T, I'll return it. I really don't want to fight with it that much.
 
I just want to know if anyone runs 2 gig stick on an nf3. I am looking at using my dfi board, and don't want to use 3 dimms because it kills the speed. Any recomendations at newegg, anyone? Looking for ocz, or corsair, maybe patriot, don't know much about patriot ram. I am currently running a gig of hyper x and bf 2 stutters alot when gaming.

Would like to oc to 220 FSB if possible.

Suggestions?
 
[Tripod]MajorPayne said:
So I'm looking at just buying 4x512, and if it won't run 1T, I'll return it. I really don't want to fight with it that much.

1T vs 2T really doesn't make that much difference. It alot of areas it wont make hardly any difference at all. If you actually need more then 1GB of RAM for performance then you'll never even notice the difference between 1T and 2T over the increase in amount of RAM.

And hopefully in the near future AMD will release an Athlon 64 that doesn't have a crappy memory controller and can handle 4 DIMM's at 1T. Until then just run 2T if you have to.
 
By release is there any chance this will come in a driver/bios flash? Or cpu upgrade only?
 
Yes, keep us updated. They use the stuff that other guys are selling as 2-3-2? I might guinea pig some of that stuff. I want 2 gigs for BF2... just sell my Gskill LE and the upgrade will hardly cost anything at all.... except mucho mem clocks! The ability to do 1T would kinda give a boost to the cheap stuffs price/performance.

I figure 300*10 in my prommie at CPU/14 mem clocks (214ish 2-3-2-6-1T) would be one hell of a BF2 rig! Currently 277*10 1:1 on just an XP90. There can really be a lot of good practical uses for 2*1gb, for the right money as well.
 
no, i think the rest of the chips are some weird high density hynix or infineon ram.. i know of only one time when crucial hasn't used micron based chips, and it was when there were supply issues when ddr400 finally became an official spec :p
 
[Tripod]MajorPayne said:
Voltage shouldn't be a problem if you're only running at 200 mhz. I think there's some Corsair 2x1GB that'll do 2-2-2-6, but it's sorta expensive. Let me see if I can find it.

EDIT: Gotcha!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145574

I ordered this last night. I've been needing to replace my mem for a while I currently have a 512stick of corsair and a 512 stick of some ecc mem. I have to underclock them to 166 for my system to run stable. CPU is a AMD 2400 Barton @ 3200 and a BFG 6800GT OC 256.

Right now I play mainly HL2/CS and EQ hydraing (2 accts running on same comp).

I think I'll see a improvement.
 
Just try this before you decide to plunk some cash:

Dynamic Lights, Dynamic Shadows, Lighting: These three settings alone can make a significant difference to the amount of lag and freezes/jerkiness you experience in the game. Reduce the Dynamic Shadows setting to start with, as it has the most noticeable impact. Then reduce the Dynamic Lights setting if necessary, and finally the Lighting setting may also need to be reduced for smoother gameplay.

This is off of Tweakguides.com's BF2 tweaking guide. I've also heard the going from 'high' texture quality to 'medium' makes a big difference without much of a visual impact.
 
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