Gaming : 8GB vs 4GB system RAM

arknor · 27 May 2011 at 12:19

you dont need 4 gb yet where miles from it imo aslong as games are still made to run on consoles...

sure if your building a comp right now then ram is so cheap you may aswell buy 8gb but upgrading from 4GB -> 8GB right now is pretty pointless

peterattheboro · 27 May 2011 at 12:34

I've got 8GB just because I could. Processes still seem to take all of it though which slows my comp down

Like when I'm installing a game. it doesn't magically know to only use half that

Raumarik · 27 May 2011 at 12:39

Got 8Gb, to be honest haven't noticed any improvement in performance at all in games, have noticed mutlitasking is smoother though.

wannabedamned · 27 May 2011 at 12:45

32bit systems are still mainstream, and so is the software, Which means the memory limitation is always taken into account. The only reason more than 4GB general comes into use is when taking away background processes within the operating system. The sweet spot is actually 6GB, 2GB for the operating system, etc. 4GB for the game. Some games manage to utilize more, But its still not a necessity. The main reason systems are being built with 8GB ram, is the price of the Memory. Why buy 4 when you can buy 8 for so cheap.

Dano · 27 May 2011 at 13:02

8GB, it wasn't worth not getting it for the extra forty quid, this way I have two slots spare for extra if ever needed and still have dual channel.

zer · 27 May 2011 at 13:05

Killerkebab said:
Anyone else smile to themselves and think back to the days of 8 vs. 4 Mb of RAM?

Damn! I juuussst missed that!! My entry computer had 32Mb Ram, which i later upgraded to 64Mb just to handle Unreal 1. Aaahh, those were the days.... :cool:

mame · 27 May 2011 at 13:08

I had my i5 in January 2010. I went with 8gb straight away just because:

I knew if I went with 4gb, I'd spend time wondering if I need another 4

and

If I upgraded from 4gb to 8gb later on, I'd never find a matched set. RAM seems to change all the time.

tbz_ck · 27 May 2011 at 13:09

I had 18GB until my 12GB kit failed.....

Running VM's though so I had a reason other than gaming!

AWPC · 27 May 2011 at 13:14

Pointless using more than 4Gb + 32 bit OS for PC gaming. 99.9% of all PC games can only use 2GB max anyway as they are 32 bit applications using more than 4GB you are stuck with 64 bit OS which many applications still have issues with. Come back in about 10 years when 64 bit will be the standard but its been around since 2005 & not made much progress since then has it anyway!

opethdisciple · 27 May 2011 at 13:26

AWPC said:
Pointless using more than 4Gb + 32 bit OS for PC gaming. 99.9% of all PC games can only use 2GB max anyway as they are 32 bit applications using more than 4GB you are stuck with 64 bit OS which many applications still have issues with. Come back in about 10 years when 64 bit will be the standard but its been around since 2005 & not made much progress since then has it anyway!

Windows 7 x64 (and vista for that matter) are perfectly stable os for running 32bit apps and games.

No need to wait.

Next gen games are due to finally come as 64bit as standard. BF3 for one!!

Its just that running a 32bit app on a 64bit os, is still limited by 32bit limitations.

iviv · 27 May 2011 at 13:27

opethdisciple said:
Im no expert, but if the application is 32bits, regardless where or not its running within a 64bit os, it still has all the limitations of a 32bit application.

Vram also presides over system ram, so the gpu is loading all the data in to vram (2Gb) and due to the 3Gb~ 32bit limitations, the 4Gb of system ram only 1-2Gb of it is addressable.

Thus giving the illusion of 90% ram usage. (Gpu stealing system ram effectively - due to 32bit limitations)

At least thats how I understand it.

Nope, its how uv said. a 32-bit process is only able to address 2Gb of ram, or (I believe) 3Gb if its made large address aware. Those are the only limits when running on a 64-bit OS.

uv · 27 May 2011 at 13:31

opethdisciple said:
Im no expert, but if the application is 32bits, regardless where or not its running within a 64bit os, it still has all the limitations of a 32bit application.

Vram also presides over system ram, so the gpu is loading all the data in to vram (2Gb) and due to the 3Gb~ 32bit limitations, the 4Gb of system ram only 1-2Gb of it is addressable.

Thus giving the illusion of 90% ram usage. (Gpu stealing system ram effectively - due to 32bit limitations)

At least thats how I understand it.

You're right about x86 applications being limited to 4GB, but running an x86 application in an x64 environment (OS) will not cause less system ram to become addressable. It simply means that the application itself can't address more than 4GB, whereas any other application running on the x64 host can still address anything up to a total of 256TB RAM.

An x86 application running on an x64 host cannot cause anything outside of itself (eg the OS) to address less than the remaining amount of physical RAM.

Rroff · 27 May 2011 at 13:39

GPUs do NOT map 1:1 VRAM to Systen RAM even on 32bit systems in normal operation - there may be some cases where it happens by co-incidence. The system will map an "aperture" in System RAM - typically around 256-320MB per GPU, which is used as a pool to transfer data from the System RAM to the GPU for its useage.

Kurisu Makise · 27 May 2011 at 13:52

RavenXXX2 said:
For gaming 4GB is enough, I would have settled for 4GB but went X58 and so 6GB ram.

this

opethdisciple · 27 May 2011 at 14:14

I cant be sure, but I was of the understanding that the amount of vram you have on your gpu gets reserved in system ram also (in a 32bit environment due to the address limitations of 32bit).

So if you have 4Gb system ram plus 1Gb vram, the 1Gb of vram is included in the 3Gb 32bit limitation thus living only 2Gb of system ram addressable. (But yea I agree the remaining 64bit process are still running in the rest of the ram)

Lets put it this way, I see this predicatment in actin regularly on my pc.

Shogun 2, which uses more than 1Gb or ram, when I exit the application sometimes Im greeted with a message telling me that do I want to turn of aero as it doesnt have enough ram to run.

Thats becuase my gpu has stolen 2Gb of my system ram and windows is struggling to run in the remain sysem ram.

Of course its not, and may be a false statement by the os, as my pc is not running slower areo is not having any issues, and when i press the 'sod off' buton, everything is just as wonderful as it was before.

Xelene · 27 May 2011 at 14:22

More RAM lets your run stuff in the background without worrying about it. Most games are still hard coded to be 32bit applications and thus can use a maximum of 2GB system RAM.

uv · 27 May 2011 at 14:22

opethdisciple said:
I cant be sure, but I was of the understanding that the amount of vram you have on your gpu gets reserved in system ram also (in a 32bit environment due to the address limitations of 32bit)..

Nope.

The limitation of x86 hosts is that they can only address 4GB RAM. It's mandatory that add-on cards such as GPUs, SPUs, RAID cards, etc are addressed first, meaning that the system RAM can only be addressed up to a total of 4GB minus the afore-mentioned hardware.

Nothing is mirrored, GPU ram isn't reserved in system RAM, and x86 applications on x64 hosts do not cause the same limitation to occur.

Xelene · 27 May 2011 at 14:32

uv said:
Nope.

The limitation of x86 hosts is that they can only address 4GB RAM. It's mandatory that add-on cards such as GPUs, SPUs, RAID cards, etc are addressed first, meaning that the system RAM can only be addressed up to a total of 4GB minus the afore-mentioned hardware.

Nothing is mirrored, GPU ram isn't reserved in system RAM, and x86 applications on x64 hosts do not cause the same limitation to occur.

...and there's no reason in this day and age to run a 32 bit OS. W7 64bit has good drivers for all but the most archaic hardware, and can run 3 bit applications natively. If for some reason you still need to run a 16bit application, the built in XP VM is fine.

dalin80 · 27 May 2011 at 14:42

iviv said:
Nope, its how uv said. a 32-bit process is only able to address 2Gb of ram, or (I believe) 3Gb if its made large address aware. Those are the only limits when running on a 64-bit OS.

LAW doesn't always help either, it caused many issues with some games. X3 was almost unplayable.

remy87 · 27 May 2011 at 14:46

iviv said:
For £30 I would be making the jump up to 8Gb. Except that my CPU heatsink is so large that it covers the first two ram slots, so I couldn't upgrade even if I wanted to

Hang on so you are running your ram in 2 different color slots? meaning not in dual channel mode. Unless they are making mobos differently nowadays?