1GB of Memory is (((NOT))) TOO MUCH RAM!!... Not anymore.

[mee987]

Originally posted by: everman

Originally posted by: Whitedog

SimCity 4 = bad programming for memory optimization

I won't completely dissagree with that. However, there are several other games out there RIGHT NOW that Greatly benifit from having upwards of 1GB RAM... It's not really so much BAD Programming, but rather a simple fact of a TON of data to process. a TON!

If what you mean by "bad programming" is that they are putting too much stuff on the screen to process? Well, there is an option panel to Turn everything off but Buildings and Streets so that the game will run using the "famous Minimum System Requirements", but I believe they just programmed the game to look as BEST as they could... sort of catering to those who have Loaded to the hilt computers. I can't argue with that tactic. I think it's "good" programming to do that. It would be a total waste to build a system with, say, 3GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, Radion 9700 Pro Video....etc... IF the gaming industry didn't provide software that would actually USE that kind of computing power. I'm just glad some do.

It's not "having too much on the screen at once". It's just bad memory management, probably because they think it's easier for people to just upgrade their ram than handle it better in the program.

i know im saying almost the same thing as in my previous post, but oh well. you can't say a game has bad memory management just because it uses a lot of memory. maybe you can back up your argument a bit better, and id love to hear some real reasons why you think its bad programming. do you have access to the source code?

 

[mechBgon]

In Task Manager, what's the Peak Commit Charge after running the game?

To those saying it's not fair to compare PC133 to dual-channel PC2700, remember that even PC133 is far faster than swapping to disk so the conclusion seems quite logical to me (particularly with RAM prices in a dip right now).

 

[JellyBaby]

you can't say a game has bad memory management just because it uses a lot of memory.

Of course not. A very simple program may be loading in tons of information and that's what causes the high memory loads. SimCity is probably a good example of that due to the object and stats detail.

I'm thinking of going to 1 GB. Not quite ready to pull the trigger.

 

[Sunner]

I'd say in 99% of the cases there won't be a difference, unless you're using memory heavy programs such as Photoshop, Lightwave, etc.

I do a fair bit of gaming(though I've only played Sim City 4 briefly), and I've yet to come across a game where I've been bottlenecked by "only" having 512 MB of RAM.
As for people saying XP requires foo amount RAM, I call that BS, when I had XP freshly installed, and once I turned all the Luna crap off, it used ~70 MB of memory after boot.
Even with all the junk that comes with XP's default install, it "only" used something like 105 MB, which is like 40 MB more than Win2K, but relatively neglible if you 512 MB of RAM.

After that, it's no different than 2000.

 

[Davegod75]

i'm gonna hold out another week for crucial to drop again and then i'm going in for 1 gig of pc2700

 

[Booter]

Shockwave Director 8.5, Dreamwever, Flash, Photoshop, Adobe Premier 6.5 etc..you name it!
I run these and other apps on my 1 gig xp boxen with PF disabled.

 

[paralazarguer]

Shockwave Director 8.5, Dreamwever, Flash, Photoshop, Adobe Premier 6.5 etc..you name it!
I run these and other apps on my 1 gig xp boxen with PF disabled.

I find this hard to believe. Photoshop will not start without a pagefile. Even if it did, I've used over a gig of ram opening a single 300meg scanned bitmap. Do you ever plan on opening more than one high quality scan at once? No? So why do you even have photoshop installed? Maybe MS paint would better suit your needs...

 

[Booter]

Photoshop will not start without a pagefile.

WRONG!
Dunno about your system but my starts with the no page file option set and yes Photoshop notice that pf is disabled "Windows is running without a paging file....(long message)......-- continue loading?" I choose yes, no problems at all. I will try the 300Mb file you talk about hang on...

 

[Booter]

ok i have two 5.8 MB PSD files open resaved them to BMP not singel problem oh..i have Director + about 8 ie windows open and listening to In-Grid - Tu Est Foutu on my THX digital soround system at the same time, it's all smooooooth. Now what was it that you were saying again..

 

[mee987]

ok i have two 5.8 MB PSD files open resaved them to BMP not singel problem

5mb << 300mb

 

[Booter]

5mb << 300mb

You'r right..ok hang on...

 

[BD231]

Pffffft, I can't believe someone just compared PC133 to DDR 2700. That's like putting a 8mb VooDoo 1 against a Radeon 9700Pro and saying the extra 120mb's of memory made all the difference.

I'll trust chiznow on his statement but a gig of ram is not as big a help as you make it out to be Whitedog. With the memory you bought you've upped the the Work Per Clock Cycle to 2 times that of PC133 at the same clock, you've switched to arguably the fastest Athlon chipset available, and you've upped the front side bus by 33mhz which brings about a 100 to 200 mhz performance bump to the Athlon core. Wake up man

.

 

[Booter]

927 MB >> 300 MB

Just changed image size of the 5.8 mb(width 793 height 1285) and resaved it, total size: 927MB (972 271 250) file(width10000 height 16204) .

 

[mee987]

i dont know a whole lot about PS, but i think that even after saving a copy as a 900mb+ file, the 5mb file is still whats kept in ram. try reopening the 900mb file then playing with that one a bit.

 

[paralazarguer]

Yeah, that's great but that means that you're only working on one file. Open another and you're right over the top of your ran by about 800megs. You must be using photoshop 7. I'm still using 6 which won't allow me to open without a pagefile.

 

[lorlabnew]

I added 512MB of RDRAM for 1GB total this weekend; and I'm pleased with the upgrade.

Since standard these days is really 512MB, I don't feel a gig is an overkill for any poweruser ... While not every application will tax this amout of RAM to it's full size, you will not get caught off-guard if some does...

 

[Booter]

paralazarguer resizing the 5.8 to a whopping 10000 pixel width 927 MB (more then 3 times bigger then your 300MB challange bmp file) with director loaded with dir file, 8+ browser windows + playing music at the same time + having another 25 mb file open in photoshop, surely this proves my point. I took on your challange and i won, deal with it

BTW i work with Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (great program!!!!)

 

[magomago]

Guys, dual channel means nothing on a SSP....well almost nothing.

In all benchmarks (save for one) the dualchannel outpaced the single stick by 1-5%




'

I got SimCity4. If you run this game with all the goodies turned on, it will bring a system such as mine to it's knees. The main contributing factor is the amount of RAM this game gobbles up. I ran the game with system monitor running and checked it afterwards... It IMMEDIATELY gobbled up every bit of free RAM I had when I loaded the city.

But how many OTHER games are like this? That is the key question I assume. I don't think there are. Battlefield 1942 runs silky smooth on my configuration and I can' t think of a currently more demanding game

 

[mee987]

But how many OTHER games are like this? That is the key question I assume. I don't think there are. Battlefield 1942 runs silky smooth on my configuration and I can' t think of a currently more demanding game

well if there isnt one by now im sure there never will be.

oh, and im still skeptical about the 927mb photoshop file... wouldnt photoshop have to open the entire file to show it on screen? but its not possible to have the entire thing in ram. im confused.

 

[paralazarguer]

paralazarguer resizing the 5.8 to a whopping 10000 pixel width 927 MB (more then 3 times bigger then your 300MB challange bmp file) with director loaded with dir file, 8+ browser windows + playing music at the same time + having another 25 mb file open in photoshop, surely this proves my point. I took on your challange and i won, deal with it

BTW i work with Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (great program!!!!)

Yeah, see, that's not what I"m talking about. When you simply enlarge a small file, it's still small. Don't get it? Well, it doesn't ad detail, it just copies the same data several times over to make it larger. When it's re-compressed, the data is just as small. Get it? Try scanning in at high resolution a true 300 meg bitmap. Open it up and look at taskmanager. That's 900 megs gone.

 

[Booter]

oh, and im still skeptical about the 927mb photoshop file... wouldnt photoshop have to open the entire file to show it on screen? but its not possible to have the entire thing in ram. im confused.

Don't be confused, it does open the whole thing after you resize it. I saved it to disk after PS had finished resizeing the file, no problem whatsoever, keep in mind all the other processes going on simultaneously (director, audio, ie etc...)

 

[mee987]

if the file isnt in ram, how is it "open"?

 

[Booter]

Try scanning in at high resolution a true 300 meg bitmap. Open it up and look at taskmanager. That's 900 megs gone.

my scanner is not installed yet (i've just chifted mobo) will post back within 60min, stay tunend!

 

[Booter]

how is it "open"?

There is a window with the new resized file in PS.

 

[mee987]

but the file thats open isnt 927mb... its just that big in the format you saved it in. you may have written a 927mb file to the hard drive, but the one thats open in photoshop is still 5mb