does having 4 gigs of ram worth is now???

A

alphaqforever247

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 6, 2006
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i am runnign 2 gigs of ram. thinking of what to upgrade on my current set up. i was thinkin ram might make a difference now in all the up coming games. Seems like bioshock runs better on 4 gigs then 2 gigs of ram.
 
gawd trubles in speaking enlrish strange to meh.

Depends on applications your using. As of today for mainstream uses like games and browsing i see no need imo.
 
its great if you have a 64bit os. Otherwise don't bother. Read tom's hardware's article about the 32vs64 and 4gig barrier.
 
My CPU is a neuralnet processor , a learning computer. -_o
 
If supreme commander is your favorite game then it might be worth it. That game will use any and all available resources you have. cant remember any other games needing more than two gigs. The 4gig sweet spot should happen with DDR3 sometime in 08 or 09
 
2 GIGs has been the sweet-spot for gaming for many years, and is currently still. As above poster stated, maybe in '08 or '09 4 GIGs might reach a sweet-spot with DDR3 and the new mobos that support it.
 
I really like anandtech's "A Messy Transition" articles, since it explains real life scenarios of the 2 gig limit problem in gaming.

Also, the Microsoft word doc http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/WDDM_VA.mspx
is an interesting, easy read, including the other docs linked in that word doc.

Its all going to be a potential headache in the windows gaming world, until we all switch over to 64 bit windows... well until the 8 TB limit is hit.. heh.

From
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb147385.aspx

Differences in Addressable Memory

The first thing most developers notice is that 64-bit processors provide a huge leap in the amount of physical and virtual memory that can be addressed.

* 32-bit applications on 32-bit platforms can address up to 2 GB
* 32-bit applications built with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE:YES linker flag on 32-bit Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 with the special /3gb boot option can address up to 3 GB. This constrains the kernel to only 1 GB which may cause some drivers and/or services to fail.
*

32-bit applications built with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE:YES linker flag on 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, and on 32-bit versions of Windows Server Code Name "Longhorn" operating systems, can address memory up to the number specified by the boot configuration data (BCD) element IncreaseUserVa. IncreaseUserVa can have a value ranging from 2048, the default, to 3072 (which matches the amount of memory configured by the /3gb boot option on Windows XP). The remainder of 4 GB is allocated to the kernel and can result in failing driver and service configurations.

For more information about BCD, see Boot Configuration Data on MSDN.
* 32-bit applications on 64-bit platforms can address up to 2 GB, or up to 4 GB with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE:YES linker flag.
* 64-bit applications use 43 bits for addressing, which provides 8 TB of virtual address for applications and 8 TB reserved for the kernel.

Beyond just memory, 64-bit applications that use memory-mapped file I/O benefit greatly from the increased virtual address space. The 64-bit architecture also has improved floating-point performance and faster passing of parameters. Sixty-four-bit processors have double the number of registers, of both general purpose and streaming SIMD extensions (SSE) types, as well as support for SSE and SSE2 instruction sets; many 64-bit processors even support SSE3 instruction sets.
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TheDepths said:
2 GIGs has been the sweet-spot for gaming for many years, and is currently still. As above poster stated, maybe in '08 or '09 4 GIGs might reach a sweet-spot with DDR3 and the new mobos that support it.
Click to expand...

2gb has paid off in a few titles in the last year or two (BF2 comes to mind), but I don't think its advantage over a single gb has been anything like around 2004 when the first dx9 titles started shipping. That's when having a full gb made a dramatic difference over 512mb. I was running just 1gb up until a few months ago and can't say I really noticed a difference in performance after adding another 512mb.

I think by the end of this year with Crysis and UT3 and into 2008, when dx10 becomes more mainstream, is when 2gb will become "necessary" for an enthusiast gaming PC. That's when the real paradigm shift will occur, like what happened with DX9.

There maybe a few games that can make some use of 4gb next year, if you're running a 64 bit OS, but I highly doubt 4gb will amount to much until the 2009-2010 time frame.
 
Crysis recomends gamers put at least 2Gb into their machines and tech demos for preview purposes have run on 4Gb machines. There's other games which make use of above 2Gb, Supcom as previously mentioned, company of heroes when you host one of the 8 player matches online which quite happily push total memory usage in Vista 64bit to over 3Gb

If you're going to get 4Gb make sure to get a 64bit OS so you can use it all, with a 32bit OS you'll only be able to use 3Gb tops, my system before 64bit only detected ~2.5Gb of the total 4Gb.

Memory is a cheap as chips at the moment anyhow, theres been a steady decline in the price of DDR2 system RAM, I'd snatch some up before the prices shoot back up as is common with memory.
 
Krenum said:
My CPU is a neuralnet processor , a learning computer. -_o
Click to expand...

terminatorgrin8wi.gif
 
meatfestival said:
I wouldn't bother with 4 gig just yet, unless you plan on running Vista 64bit
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I'll second that. Trying out Vista x64 right now, and most games run (and have hitching/cache thrashing) like I'm under XP with 1GB. I'm about to go back to XP because of this (not to mention the performance losses) very reason. If you're using Windows XP I'd say forget it - 2GB is fine.
 
I was using 2gb ram for about 4months before I went to 4gb in vista x64. With 2gb when alt+tab during games theres was a noticeable long delay as windows reloaded everything into memory. Once I got 4gb that is no longer an issue. I can switch between the game and adjust my music without worrying how long it will take and if I can survive while doing it.

Even if the game wont use all the ram it does help with little things like that everywhere. Then again im also running many applications in the background while gaming as well. Vent Server/BT/FTP Server/IRC/ the 4GB ram has really helped remove any possable slowdowns due to lack of memory for the game.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
I'll second that. Trying out Vista x64 right now, and most games run (and have hitching/cache thrashing) like I'm under XP with 1GB. I'm about to go back to XP because of this (not to mention the performance losses) very reason. If you're using Windows XP I'd say forget it - 2GB is fine.
Click to expand...

Vista takes a week or 2 to settle down concerning hdd thrashing, it spends a fair bit of time building indexes and working out your routines and habits conerning what you load and when. When it does settle down its notably faster than XP with a decent amount of memory, especially when switching between 3d apps and the desktop.
 
I would go to 4gb ram now because of the price. I have 8gb in my machine and I upgraded that 2/3 months back when ram prices were slowly dropping. I am using vista 64 it does have some bugs in it that affect me such as explorer crashing offen but other then that the only issue I had was trying to install it with more then 2 gigs installed. It is blazing fast using photoshop and alt tabbing and running games in windowed mode thats for sure. For the price its worth it to do 4gb then a 64bit os.
 
ServerKing said:
I would go to 4gb ram now because of the price. I have 8gb in my machine and I upgraded that 2/3 months back when ram prices were slowly dropping. I am using vista 64 it does have some bugs in it that affect me such as explorer crashing offen but other then that the only issue I had was trying to install it with more then 2 gigs installed. It is blazing fast using photoshop and alt tabbing and running games in windowed mode thats for sure. For the price its worth it to do 4gb then a 64bit os.
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Lucky you. It's blazing fast and explorer crashes often. :rolleyes:
 
The question I ask myself is whether the ~$100 spent on 2 more gb of memory could better be used in another part of the build. $100 more will get you a lot more processor, a much faster hard drive, a higher end or more feature rich mobo, or even the difference in price between GPUs ... all of which will provide more performance/bang for the buck than 2 --> 4 gb of memory for most applications.

That being said 64bit OS can technically take advantage of the memory, and if you are not concerned with how much money is spent on the system it won't be a negative to have the extra memory. But most applications won't take advantage of it.
 
Excellent point hunter33. You can always throw money at something, but I'd rather get a GTX vice GTS than buy 4gb of ram for "just in case" situations.
 
Most single applications wont take advantage of it no, but if you use several high profile applications or like to do multiple things at once it's helpful.

Being able to keep all the OS files in memory while you run other apps is nice because it keeps everything fast, even alt tabbing out of games etc.

if you're aiming purely for game performance chances are pound for pound you'll get better FPS with a better video card or CPU, but sheer FPS is not everything.
 
im aure crysis will take advantage of the 4gigs but only at the highest settings.
 
4GB does make a difference in stuttering with FSX on Vista 64 Bit. Of course, I'm also running Active Sky, along with a SHITLOAD of addons and extra scenery. Looks like a dream, though. :)

Upgraded from 2 to 4 and it really did make a difference.

Of course, the other games really didn't have a noticeable difference. It may have made one, but I didn't notice it.
 
Ur_Mom said:
4GB does make a difference in stuttering with FSX on Vista 64 Bit. Of course, I'm also running Active Sky, along with a SHITLOAD of addons and extra scenery. Looks like a dream, though. :)

Upgraded from 2 to 4 and it really did make a difference.

Of course, the other games really didn't have a noticeable difference. It may have made one, but I didn't notice it.
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You should take some screenies and post them in a thread...I'd be interested to see what it looks like...
 
I still haven't seen a game take over 300mb of memory in my task manager.
 
When ram was dirt cheap i bought 4 x 1GB sticks for 120 bucks total (30 bucks each) and i run vista 64. I would recommend 4gb over 2gb in vista, in xp it makes little to no difference.

If you want Vista 64 to run as smooth as XP 64 you should use 4gb of ram imo.
 
One probably will not see a performance improvement in games when upgrading to 4GB, but I would imagine that loading times would be reduced.
 
darkpark said:
One probably will not see a performance improvement in games when upgrading to 4GB, but I would imagine that loading times would be reduced.
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yes and re-loading times are basically instant.

With no reason to empty memory space games which re-use common game elements can keep them in memory between loads and when it needs to re-use them they're instantly ready.

With multicore CPU's we're starting to accept that we can do lots of higher CPU usage things in parallel, and that requires having more RAM. Besides it's nice to have utorrent running with 10 torrents on the go, and firefox with 20 tabs open using 200mb of RAM and not have to worry about my performance while playing a game. When you have plenty of RAM you stop caring about the few mb saved here and there by closing off unecessary services, it's nice not to have that kind of worry (i think only techies are really ever concerned about this, but all the same)
 
darkpark said:
One probably will not see a performance improvement in games when upgrading to 4GB, but I would imagine that loading times would be reduced.
Click to expand...
As long as your OS isn't swapping anything out to accommodate the loaded data, I don't see why it would. Memory access still takes the same amount of time, doesn't it?
 
there is only 1 game that uses all my memory, and thats stalker, nothing else.
 
first let me say that in vista 64, going from 2 gigs to 4 gigs was a HUGE difference. just today i added 2GB flash drive as readyboost, and all i have to say is that everything is fast and pops up in an instant when i click it. with 2gb when i would alt out a running game or press the start key for that matter to get to the desktop, there would always be a 10 second lag before i could access the desktop. also, when i would exit a game the same thing would happen. with 4gb there is ZERO lag doing these things. i tried 8gb and didnt notice a difference over 4gb. so i think 4gb is the sweet spot for vista and i dont see myself getting more memory anytime soon, probably not until next version of windows.
 
The OP is actually running some rather expensive memory. Looks like maybe $200 (at the egg) for an upgrade. That would be hard for me to justify it that was my system. Plus going with 4 sticks might hurt your OC. It hurt mine anyway (I need more northbridge cooling I think). The OP already has a pretty nice video card, so I'm not sure how he would significantly improve that short of SLI.

But for people running slower speed memory, now seems to be a really good time to buy if you think you might need it sometime in the future. For example, my memory looks to be only like $60 AR at the egg.
 
Forealz said:
If I ran 64 bit XP can I still install all the same games?
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Only game I've had trouble with with XPx64 is Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. That's due to the lack of 64-bit support in that goddamn Starforce scheme that comes with the game.

Otherwise, all of my other games work just fine with XPx64.
 
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