Is 2GB RAM too little for Windows 7 when gaming?

I've just upgraded from 2GB to 4GB today. So far i've noticed a very nice performance boost all around, or perhaps more accurately a 'responsiveness' boost. Crysis Warhead (only game i have installed so far) shows a massive improvement. I can run it with textures and shaders on enthusiast and everything else on gamer with almost no stutter now - aside from save points and certain marked transitions. One other thing i noticed was how quickly the game exits now, with 2gb ram it would literally take about a minute for my system to become responsive again, and the hard disk would be thrashing away. Now the game closes almost instantly an i can open another program right away.

Overall the move is well worth it, even if ram prices are not good at the moment. At least i can say that this 4gb cost me 1/2 of what 2gb did when i built this sytem! If prices fall in the coming months i will most likely grab another 4gb kit.

Regarding Windows ram usage, i am on W7 Home Premium 64bit, and with Security Essentials and this webpage open (IE) i am using 818mb.
 
FoxEye said:
:eek:

I always knew there was a reason not to use IE :p
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You said your system went from 700GB to 500GB when you closed firefox, so by that logic, firefox is using twice as much ram as IE :P. Dont wanna get into a browser debate, but just making an observation :)
 
Well, just got round to purchasing 2 x 2GB modules today.

So now running:
OCZ Platinum 2 x 1GB
OCZ Gold 2 x 2GB

Total = 6GB

I wonder what improvements will be immediately noticeable?
 
Anth said:
Just to add my bit to this, am on windows 7 Pro x64 at the moment, with only this browser open and one or two small background programs (none would be considered resource hogs)

My PC is currently using 1.94GB of my 6GB Memory.

Therefore I would say upping from 2GB is essential in W7.

Gaming it would be an absolute definite.
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most will be only cached by windows though and gets released when needed.

2gb should be fine for most games but any that are ram intensive might not run so great, 3gb is the ideal minimum,
 
arknor said:
most will be only cached by windows though and gets released when needed.

2gb should be fine for most games but any that are ram intensive might not run so great, 3gb is the ideal minimum,
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What he says. If you have more ram then windows 7 will use more ram. I have been using 2gb for about a month and can even play Bad company on max settings although there is a slight stutter despite running at 60fps which I would assume is the ram. So I would say 3gb is a good minimum for gaming.
 
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I'd say 4gb minimum really. My system always uses over 3gb playing Crysis Warhead, and on one level in Crysis it completely filled the RAM and brought my system to it's knees. :(
 
I can max Just Cause 2 on 2GB. Some games would benefit and so would multi-tasking. But in terms of gaming I don't really think its that important. Just turn off any background apps before you start a game.

I don't run anti-virus products though.
 
6 or 8 gb is what to aim for in my experience for a very smooth system depending on what cpu/motherboard you use
 
My advice is just get 4GB. I'm not going to upgrade it until I go onto DDR3 systems though. You can play most games on 2GB. Windows 7 is perfectly fine on 2GB depending on how much you multi-task.
 
Corasik said:
You said your system went from 700GB to 500GB when you closed firefox, so by that logic, firefox is using twice as much ram as IE :P. Dont wanna get into a browser debate, but just making an observation :)
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Woooooooooooooooooooosh
 
bells said:
6 or 8 gb is what to aim for in my experience for a very smooth system depending on what cpu/motherboard you use
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rofl.... windows 7 uses barely anything i can be playing a game and only be using 2.5gb of memory 1200 of that is just windows cache stuff that can be freed if needed without effecting swapfile usage
 
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