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Is 1024mb Necessary?

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D1sc1pl3 0f Mal1c3

Gawd
Joined
Sep 19, 2004
Messages
521
Do I really need a gig of RAM for gaming? I mean, what kind of performance increase am I looking at in say HL2/CS:S if I upgrade from 512mb?
 
Not a requirement, but it WILL offer better performance. Windows will automatically readjust the amount of free RAM and devote more of it to whatever programs are being run at the moment, giving a boost to your performance in games.
 
Any possibilty of you knowing what percentage increase in frames I could expect? And would you guys reccomend more RAM over say a new mobo? I was under the impression that the one in my sig was a bit dated...
 
I have a gig of RAM, and play HL2 at 1024x768 at 2x AA. After playing for an hour, Task Manager reports a peak memory usage of about 700mb used.

So, in this case, 512 would not have been enough, but a gig is a tad overkill (but nice to have just in case)
 
Does 1 GB of ram increase frame rates? Not that I've noticed (but if you live by fps, then bench it yourself) It's not a 20 - 30 fps, and you prolly won't "notice" a 5fps increase, then again, I am not a benchmarker, I just set things so things play well.
Does 1 GB of ram increase smoothness of game play? Yes
Does 1 GB of ram decrease load times?(maps, levels, etc) Yes
Does 1 GB of ram increase your overall gaming experience? Yes
Do I have "benchmarks" to back it up? No, but I can tell the difference overall, and isn't that what really matters in the long run?

So yah, bumping to 1 GB of ram makes a difference. It's probably the best upgrade you can do to your system to bump overall performance withouth spending a great deal of cash.

Peace,
Tim
 
Many games use more then 700MB RAM. It's not necessary, but the memory will get used, saving you from paging to disk while gaming. Paging will kill FPS, if it happens while the game is running, but is more likely to happen loading the game/levels (increasing load times).
 
nicely put tim. that should honestly be a sticky in the memory forum, SOO many people ask....
 
I would say yes also. I have been running on 512 just fine for a couple of years until I bought a new video card that came with Farcry. I have noticed that Farcry will continually take more that 512 (700 more like it), which ends up leading to a choppy game. So if you are a gamer, I would say yes because that is a sign of things to come. While you may not see any real benefits now (I don't play HL so I don't know), you should see some benefits shortly as new games come out.

In fact, I just ordered my gig upgrade and it should be in today.
 
I would have to agree that having 1024 of RAM has it's gaming advantages. If your budget (i.e. wife/girlfriend/"life partner" if you live in Mass. :) allows for it then I would. You can always get it, try it our for a week and then RMA it if you think the difference isn't worth the cost. But I have a feeling you'd probably keep it. I do a lot PC work besides gaming and when I'm programming in .NET or video editing or graphics work in Photoshop, the more RAM the better. Generally I tell people that upgrading your RAM will be the easiest and usually cheapest upgrade (performance:cost) you can do for your PC.
 
awsiemieniec said:
I would have to agree that having 1024 of RAM has it's gaming advantages. If your budget (i.e. wife/girlfriend/"life partner" if you live in Mass. :) allows for it then I would. You can always get it, try it our for a week and then RMA it if you think the difference isn't worth the cost. But I have a feeling you'd probably keep it. I do a lot PC work besides gaming and when I'm programming in .NET or video editing or graphics work in Photoshop, the more RAM the better. Generally I tell people that upgrading your RAM will be the easiest and usually cheapest upgrade (performance:cost) you can do for your PC.
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would you mind if you tried to trim down your sig a bit? it should never been 3x longer than a decently long post, hehehe ;)
 
motherboards offer very little additional performance. at this rate, you'd be better off buying a better gpu..
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
motherboards offer very little additional performance. at this rate, you'd be better off buying a better gpu..
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Agreed. Your A7V8X-X isn't a bad board. I run an HTPC system with a board close to your board's age - the ASUS A7V600 and I also use it for an additional game rig when my son and I are playing BF or something. Get some RAM and a maybe a little later get a good video card. Wait a while. Because the next upgrade you'll probably do is a full system update with PCIe components, SATA and I'm guessing an AMD CPU in a BTX case. Prices for all this stuff will drop with time.
 
D1sc1pl3 0f Mal1c3 said:
Cool. It's reassuring, at the very least. Thanks.
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My daugher has a similar spec'd system that you have - main difference is she has a 9600pro instead of the XT. I got her a second stick of Kingston HyperX PC27000 (512MB) to bump her up to 1 GB for her 17th b-day and EVERYTHING runs better for her.

The RAM upgrade to 1 gb is the cheapest, easist way to boost your over all system performance. No, you won't be setting any new records, but you WILL notice a difference.

And as always, we're here to help (and we don't bite... much)

Peace,
Tim
 
you definitely need at least a gig of ram with current games. I personaly want to up mine another 512 and i have a decent system. 512Mb doesnt cut it with current games :)
 
yea specially for mmorps like world of warcraft and so on they require a shitload of ram..over 512 :p but they will still rrun but not as smoothly its a good upgrade overall
 
System in sig plays far cry flawlessy...honestly I don't see a need to upgrade to 1000gb and I won't even be purchasing ram until I do a complete overhaul. And it won't be standard DDR either. And yes I plan to get HL2 :) (I wish they had a demo)
 
1GB probably won't help you in HL2. I've never seen the HL2 process over 400MB, and since I've got 2GB one would think that if it knew how to use more ram it would. I wish it would use my extra ram & 2nd cpu to preload the next area & cache the previous one, thereby eliminating that annoying loading time. Aside from load times, I doubt 1GB will improve smoothness, as whatever you get out of the extra ram will pale in comparison to the effects of the sound st-t-t-t-tut-t-t-t-ering. For a smooth HL2 experience, disable sound lol. Despite this, I'm still having fun w/ it. It's not as good as Far Cry, but still fun for a shooter (I'm more of an RPG & strategy fan). Alas, the initial facination with the gravity gun has worn off & there's too much precision jumping.
Far Cry, OTOH, might be aided a good bit since I've seen the game using way over 512MB lots of times (back when I had 1GB).
My personal opinion is that 1GB isn't absolutely necessary but it's very nice to have, and I wouldn't consider buying a memory config that wouldn't allow a good upgrade path to 1GB.
 
Spetsnaz Op said:
System in sig plays far cry flawlessy...honestly I don't see a need to upgrade to 1000gb and I won't even be purchasing ram until I do a complete overhaul. And it won't be standard DDR either. And yes I plan to get HL2 :) (I wish they had a demo)
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then you must think flawlessly entails running @ 640x480 with low detail settings

My x800xt-pe ran far cry @ 80FPS @ 1600x1200 with 4xAA/16x AF but every say 30 seconds when i moved FPS would go down to like 5 for a period of say 10 seconds while it loaded textures and caches from the hard drive. And forget about transitioning areas quickly, like when in a vehicle, you'll die from the choppiness and crash 9/10 times.

I just got my 1GB mushkin 2-2-2-5 in the other day and WOW does it make a difference. It just doesn't ever drop below 45FPS now, at all.

It is def. neccessary for a decent gaming experience
 
I can't see someone getting their daughter that is a teenager ram for her birthday... Ahh all the girls I'd know would be like... I got 128 in my Dell and thats all I need or not even know what to do with it.
 
If you are a gamer I can't stress the importance of 1 gig enough, Far Cry on the highest deail will have to recycle ram during the game with 512mb causeing the game to hitch for a bit (believe me) :p
 
tree_ said:
I can't see someone getting their daughter that is a teenager ram for her birthday... Ahh all the girls I'd know would be like... I got 128 in my Dell and thats all I need or not even know what to do with it.
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all the girls I know don't even know if they have a dell, let alone the amount of memory. Consider yourself lucky :p
 
I have 256mb in my computer right now, and i was looking to upgrade. I'd love to get a gig of ram, i just dont really know where to look first. Is the best recommendation pricewatch, zipzoomfly, ebay, or newegg ? I got the 6800oc deal from bestbuy w/ hl2, farcry, i'm mainly playing WOW right now. I run into some choppy moments while playing. I'd like to get some value ram without breaking my wallet, i really need something to hold me down until Jan, the gfs x-mas list is killing me... :(
 
the amount of ram someone needs is probably one of the most important decisions to make when building/upgrading a computer. althought this decision is important, it's not difficult. the more, the better. it's that simple. get as much ram as you can afford. i have a gig of pc-4000 and my next upgrade is ANOTHER gig, if i could afford to ditch my 2 512 sticks and buy 4 gig sticks, i would in a heartbeat, but there isn't alwasy a budget for that kind of awesome-ness.

there is such thing as overkill...say you have a computer you use for word processing and surfin' the net, you're not going to need 4 gigs of ram in that beast. but for gaming, multimedia, etc. the more, the better.
 
It depends on what you are playing

Some games like battlefield 1942 are ram intensive. The guys with more get in faster. If the game puts all of the graphics into ram, then yes you will need it. If you are playing on higher resolutions, yes you will need it, if all you are playing is counter-strike 1.5 at 640x480, no you don't need it.
 
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