2GB does make a big difference these days

caff · 2 Feb 2006 at 23:37

Received my Corsair 2GB pack of Value Select RAM from OcUK yesterday - and it DOES significantly boost performance.

World of Warcraft doesn't 'stutter' any more. Games load smoothly, and application switching seems faster - everything seems much quicker in fact.

I'm dead chuffed.

Basically, if you're thinking of upgrading to 2GB, do it, it'll keep your PC going for a little while longer yet.

R B Customs · 2 Feb 2006 at 23:41

same here.
i went for mushkin. but boy has it made the difference... the new mobo done the trick too.

DannyW · 2 Feb 2006 at 23:54

Yeh I got my Geil today, its so much better on BF2 and other games and apps.

Webster · 3 Feb 2006 at 11:16

R B CUSTOMS said:
same here.
i went for mushkin. but boy has it made the difference... the new mobo done the trick too.

is that the mushkin 6400UL ?

AWPC · 3 Feb 2006 at 16:35

Ultra Quality Gfx in Quake4 is unplayable for me with 1GB even on a 7800GTX512! This I put down to the continual pagefile access. 2GB is very fast & very smooth. Over 90FPS even on full detail with 16AF 8AA 1920x1200.

Amps · 3 Feb 2006 at 16:54

Do you think it will help me out with my problem.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17531234

the thing that makes me think its not memory is that memwatcher shows that there is about 300mb free but this might be due to windows dumping some of the stuth onto my hd.

AWPC · 3 Feb 2006 at 20:55

Amps said:
Do you think it will help me out with my problem.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17531234

the thing that makes me think its not memory is that memwatcher shows that there is about 300mb free but this might be due to windows dumping some of the stuth onto my hd.

Try turning vsync off. I could play NFSMW with 1GB very smoothly with vsync on + AA off. Vsync + AA on nvidia cards can cause slowdowns/stuttering with some games (unless you have SLI or game @ a lower res like 1024x768).

Dirk · 3 Feb 2006 at 21:47

Head over to www.xbitlabs.com and check out the '2GB of RAM: Do We Really Need That Much?' article.

"....high-performance systems have to get 2GB of RAM. Gamers feel the need for this amount of system memory more than anybody else, if they want to be able to play the latest games with the high-quality image settings. Moreover, 2GB of RAM or even more than that will be very handy for professionals working in “heavy” applications processing large amounts of data."

Big.Wayne · 3 Feb 2006 at 22:14

AWPC said:
Try turning vsync off.

If you turn vsync off don't you get a lower quality image?

Cyber-Mav · 3 Feb 2006 at 22:50

yea 2 gig is awsome, but now im after 4 gig of ram. im gonna build an opteron system soon with winxp 64 and 4gig of ram. should be a smooth machine.

AWPC · 3 Feb 2006 at 23:14

Big.Wayne said:
If you turn vsync off don't you get a lower quality image?

Depends on your rig. You lose AA as that needs Vsync enabled to work and with Vsync off on some setups you can see vertical tearing.

If you game @ 1024x768 or 1280x1024 then with max details & AA unless you have very powerful rig some recent games will struggle unless you have an X1800, X1900, 7800GTX256/512 or SLI/Xfire as whenever you use AA you are asking your PC to process a lot more information @ once and that is why you can get slowdowns. Some people prefer smooth gameplay with minor visual artifacts like tearing not bothering them whilst others prefer the ultimate picture quality with a slower FPS. Unless you have a high end gfx card + ram + CPU you need to trade off performance vs picture quality. Even on a 7800GTX512 some games slowdown with AA + vsync because nvidia also do not officially support Direct 3D + Triple Buffering (only in OpenGL). You can get a tweaking tool which allows D3D + Triple Buffering but this has issues with some games/PCs as well.

http://www.nonatainment.de/web/DirectXTweaker/Download/tabid/58/Default.aspx

Amps · 3 Feb 2006 at 23:42

I am not sure if new ram will really help me.

Something is holding my rig back it may be the 7800gt if it is ill have to upgrade.

just dont want to go spending money if that wont help.

Naffa · 3 Feb 2006 at 23:47

caff said:
Received my Corsair 2GB pack of Value Select RAM from OcUK yesterday - and it DOES significantly boost performance.

World of Warcraft doesn't 'stutter' any more. Games load smoothly, and application switching seems faster - everything seems much quicker in fact.

I'm dead chuffed.

Basically, if you're thinking of upgrading to 2GB, do it, it'll keep your PC going for a little while longer yet.

hang on.. you upgraded to 2GB of RAM for World of Warcraft... the word 'noob' comes to mind on this one.

ToLearn · 4 Feb 2006 at 01:55

if he has gone to 2gb kit and has noticed a nice performance increase in world of war craft and and application switching seems faster - everything seems much quicker in fact.

THEN HOW IS HE A NOOB LEARN SOME MANNERS

Edinho · 4 Feb 2006 at 05:20

naffa said:
hang on.. you upgraded to 2GB of RAM for World of Warcraft... the word 'noob' comes to mind on this one.

Eh? So he upgraded his system to make his favourite game more playable/enjoyable. The 2GB over 1GB makes a big difference. Hardly think that qualifies him as a n00b.

YooEntSinMeROYT · 4 Feb 2006 at 17:09

AWPC said:
Ultra Quality Gfx in Quake4 is unplayable for me with 1GB even on a 7800GTX512! This I put down to the continual pagefile access. 2GB is very fast & very smooth. Over 90FPS even on full detail with 16AF 8AA 1920x1200.

Yeah I've been running Ultra Quality in Q4 with 2GB with 2x6800 Ultras with 2xAA & 8xAF@1600x1200 res. Very smooth. Sod needing an additional 256mb of gfx RAM!

caff · 5 Feb 2006 at 11:57

naffa said:
hang on.. you upgraded to 2GB of RAM for World of Warcraft... the word 'noob' comes to mind on this one.

I'd hardly consider myself a noob... I've been using, supporting and developing on PC's since 1991...

And yes, I don't know if you've ever played World of Warcraft - but the average memory usage is around 600MB. Add in firefox running in the background (40MB), MS Outlook and a couple of other programs, AV, Firewall, the pagefile and soon my 1GB started to struggle.

R B Customs · 5 Feb 2006 at 14:59

Webzta said:
is that the mushkin 6400UL ?

it was the mushkin 991382 ( dual channel, DDR2, PC@5300, 667Mhz, two gig)
i love it

only cost me 130 for the pair too !

Roll · 6 Feb 2006 at 10:34

Interesting results here from caff and others.

Apart from games has anyone who has made the jump to 2GB noticed any real world performance increases from upgrading (eg. does windows generally run more smoothly, do other Microsoft applications run better)?

I'd be interested to hear peoples experience.

Admiral Huddy · 6 Feb 2006 at 10:58

Putting the cat amoungst the pigeons here. I run my rig (in siggy) at 1600x1200 4AA 4AF with no clitches. I see that from the data provided in performance tool that my 1gig of RAM is suffient.

Maybe some of you don't have enough page swapping? It’s a massive overhead for your 2gb Ram to hold data that isn’t frequently held as the system has to keep this data refreshed, which is a massive overhead in itself. Hence the CPU will always designate un-frequently used data from RAM to pagefile, as this is part of the CPU management.

Only when i see an big increase in page swapping will I consider buying an extra gig of memory, but not for the sakw of it.