Old chestnut....more than 2 gig...32bit os.

tasslehoff · 19 Jul 2009 at 19:07

Firstly my specs...

Athlon64 x2 6000+
2gig pc6400 ddr2/800 (2x1gig)
Gainward gtx 260 gs

Winxp 32 bit
MSI k9n sli (nforce 570 chipset) mobo

Another 2 gigs of ram..is it worth it?? (I know about the memory mapping etc & how only so much of it will be used under a 32 bit operating system)....but newer games like GTA IV, seem to want a lot of memory for recommended spec...(over 2.5 gig)..

So I wondered if going over the two gig mark under a 32 bit system would make any difference with games like the above....(I know I could do with a quad core..but not replacing my mobo etc for the sake of a handful of games)

And assuming another couple of gigs may be better...

Also wondered if it would make any difference to speed etc as to HOW I got it to 4 gig? (4 banks of 1 gig or 2 banks of 2 gig?)

I did try putting 2x512mb of same spec mem along side my 2x1gig but the pc would'nt boot up.....so don't know whether it just didn't like the mix or the extra mem slots on my mobo are for another type of memory. (I doubt it as the pins are the same?) Mem slots..currently using orange slots...2 spare green slots.

TIA Andy.

tasslehoff · 20 Jul 2009 at 18:48

Tnx for the advice Rroff & Jeremy....May as well get round to buying some then...(have written down benchmarks for GTA IV so we shall see).

As I've 896megs of ram on my G-card..I suspect I'll see less than 3.5 gig as it will use more of the "4 gig" resources. What I read somewhere anyway.

Tnx again..Andy.

tasslehoff · 23 Jul 2009 at 21:07

Cheers for the replies all.....Got the ram today....shows up as 3 gig..(as expected...where's my extra .072???!!

). As for GTA....no not much difference there.....Oblivion...either the "loading area" bits seem more seemless...or it's my imagination. Apart from that...can't say how I would notice much difference (ok only tried two games) as most things run fine as is. But early days yet.

Windows 7...think I'll wait & see how games etc run on it first....especially 64 bit.

GTA again....yeah it did make me decide to get more ram...was thinking of just overhauling the mobo/cpu to a quad core, but most reviewers when commenting on their new quad core seem to comment on how fast it makes either gta or crysis...just seems a waste of time for a couple of games...

Currently running GTAIV on 1280*1024 (monitor restricted) all settings high....except no shadows (Can't stand the effect) distances notched up to a quarter or half...runs fine...benchmark was averaging 38 so can live with that...(gone off topic a bit here :\ )

Tnx again for input...Andy.

tasslehoff · 30 Jul 2009 at 16:20

Oops I was only joking about the .072 bit if that's what prompted your reply..(but tnx for going into detail all the same

"limited to 128gb"....I remember my first pc..upgrading it from 4 meg to 8 megs....how huge it seemed at the time....Think we'll have no choice but to go 64 bit in the near future..else there is no further memory upgrade. Tnx again..Andy.