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I'm sat here with all the programs I use day to day consuming 4GB. Easily chew up 5GB if I fire up a game.
>4GB ram? Why?
- Thread starter NeilF
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Sitting here browsing and Steam open, just over 2GB of my 6 used... And if I open a game I rarely break 75%...
Ws asking myself this very question yesterday and this morning, and have just been browsing around for some nice 8gb kits...
But up until now I have been running on 4gb on this games machine... playing at types of games often with browser running in the back with some tabs open, skype, steam or origin and not much else...
Has been running fine and dandy... Yesterday playing Battlefield 4 I drop from a smooth 60fps and my computer basically locks down... 1-15 fps all over the place im like wtf.
Turns out my Ram was 100% used and it was using virtual memory or something on the SSD.
So Im assuming just like games are pushing towards and soon past 2gb on the VRAM at 1080p its right about now you will also be pushing past 4gb on the system ram!
But up until now I have been running on 4gb on this games machine... playing at types of games often with browser running in the back with some tabs open, skype, steam or origin and not much else...
Has been running fine and dandy... Yesterday playing Battlefield 4 I drop from a smooth 60fps and my computer basically locks down... 1-15 fps all over the place im like wtf.
Turns out my Ram was 100% used and it was using virtual memory or something on the SSD.
So Im assuming just like games are pushing towards and soon past 2gb on the VRAM at 1080p its right about now you will also be pushing past 4gb on the system ram!
Well, I've got 6GB now, so I'm hoping that takes me well into next year. At the moment my 5yr old Q6600 and 5month old 7870 seems to handle most things well... So I'm hoping to put off any major upgrade for as long as possible!
Soldato
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I record my gameplay, which usually turns out 100+gb of footage, at times I wish I had 16gb of ram as processing that huge size kills my system, but since prices are ludacris and I don't do it as much these days, 8gb is plenty.
battlefield 4 has a 32 and 64 bit version, if running the 64bit the game will be able to address more than 4gb of ram and it probably will leading to paging on a machine with only 4gb of ram. I think the reccomended for bf4 on 64bit is 8gb of ram.
does anyone know what version origin launches by default on a 64bit os? i think you can edit the lauch options and choose 32 /64bit.
does anyone know what version origin launches by default on a 64bit os? i think you can edit the lauch options and choose 32 /64bit.
It's all down to 32 bit programs being incapable of accessing more than 4GB. The vast majority of games are still 32 bit, and there are still a lot of 32 bit OSs out there.
With multiplatform titles co-developed on PS4 and Xbox One, we'll soon see a lot more games making use of 8GB.
With multiplatform titles co-developed on PS4 and Xbox One, we'll soon see a lot more games making use of 8GB.
I have 16gb in mine, it was cheap at the time so didn't make sense to NOT get 16gb.
Think it was £100 or something similar..
I was using it for VM's etc for work, but now I don't need to. I still leave it all in there though. I'd say 8gb is a good minumum for a performance/gaming machine.
Think it was £100 or something similar..
I was using it for VM's etc for work, but now I don't need to. I still leave it all in there though. I'd say 8gb is a good minumum for a performance/gaming machine.
My 32GB was £80
and I bought another set of 16GB for £40 from a friend who bought some stuff from OcUK's opening day but ended up not using it. He's butthurt to hell over it because the price of RAM went right up not long after. 
Soldato
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As mentioned, there will be other things using it, buffers that vary from moment to moment, etc.
I have a G19 with Core load and RAM monitoring in (pretty much) real time, so I can see when it gets high... and it does. Maybe only for a couple of seconds, but it does go quite high!!
Also, no-one mentioned DDR.
I'm no expert, but I'm guessing you have 4GB of DDR2 memory, like I do?
Having 4GB of DDR3 for starters would make a BIG difference as it's faster.
Plus, you say you have some modern games... try playing Assassin's Creed III on your system and see how, even on low settings, it chugs to a framerate crawl once you get past the introductory mission on the ship!!
If cost is the only factor, fair enough, but the Q6600 really is starting to fall behind the times.
I only have an HD6950, but that is enough to handle most games on high settings. The 4GB DDR2 and the Q6600 are the main elements holding everything back. Even overclocking stuff wouldn't do that much.
Well, my Q6600 (now with 6GB of ram) with my 7870 XT basically runs everything I throw at it fine. The longer I can put off an upgrade the better the next system will be, and the longer it will be till all the hassle of the migration.
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I'd bet loads of people go for 16gb for the simple reason that 4 sticks looks cooler than 2, 
Soldato
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I'd bet loads of people go for 16gb for the simple reason that 4 sticks looks cooler than 2,
Main reason I want 16 is that most games say they want a *minimum* of 8.
Really? From what I've seen they tend to be (at the moment) 2GB min, 4GB recommended.
eg - http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Rome_II_Recommended_Specs
Soldato
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Well, the ones *I'm* wanting to play are, anyway!
On absolute minimum AC:III won't go faster than about 14fps... That is unplayable!!
Even BF4 has a minimum of 4GB, Watch Dogs wants 6 and Star Citizen will want at least 8.
Given that these are the absolute minimum, which never seems quite good enough, I'm looking at adding in some overhead so I can run other things or bump the graphics up just a little higher than 'Spectrum 48K' level!
I'll likely start with 2 x 4GB sticks anyway and add another 8GB if I really need it. By the time the serious games come out, 16GB (or maybe even 32) of DDR4 will probably be cheap as chips!
People tend to have a balanced PC with 4GB and assume that since they don't use more than 3GB they will never need more.... forgetting that they chose 4GB because 4GB balanced well with the CPU and GPU.
Upgrade to a more powerful CPU and GPU and suddenly you may find that game, with higher graphics settings, map sizes, view distances etc, suddenly is quite happy to eat up 7GB. Naturally there are limits in many games (either because they're optimised for 4GB as a current typical amount of RAM or because they simply top out elsewhere), but that's more a symptom of most people having 4GB than a reason not to upgrade.
As mentioned, next gen consoles will likely push things up... and if you do more than one thing at a time then a lot of RAM is much more important. For a single game 4GB is usually fine, or for a variety of office-type programs. When I'm running 4VMs, an IDE/development environment and various office apps over three monitors, however, I'd grind to a halt with less than 16GB at a minimum.
Upgrade to a more powerful CPU and GPU and suddenly you may find that game, with higher graphics settings, map sizes, view distances etc, suddenly is quite happy to eat up 7GB. Naturally there are limits in many games (either because they're optimised for 4GB as a current typical amount of RAM or because they simply top out elsewhere), but that's more a symptom of most people having 4GB than a reason not to upgrade.
As mentioned, next gen consoles will likely push things up... and if you do more than one thing at a time then a lot of RAM is much more important. For a single game 4GB is usually fine, or for a variety of office-type programs. When I'm running 4VMs, an IDE/development environment and various office apps over three monitors, however, I'd grind to a halt with less than 16GB at a minimum.