Maybe I'll hit up Newegg and get some ordered then, I've been eyeing a 512mb upgrade to dual channel for the last three months but prices have been pretty steady on pc3200ddr.
I very rarely break 200mb of use in normal WinXP operation, 96-120mb is about normal. I use it all in BF:V though, more would help when I need to alt-tab out to mute an idiot in teamspeak.
I noticed that when playing UT2k4, my system wanted 700ish megs.. my roomates with similar video etc, and 512 was paging all the time. Very annoying. 1 gig for sure.
Anubis
No Lifer
yea a gig is finr, i have a gig in my machine and it comes in hands for gameing and when u use photoshop, PS likes ram the more the better
I would say go for a gig. But I've noticed that while running Unreal 2004 and the new Splinter Cell at max settings that my computer only uses about 650mb. So, I GUESS you would be fine with 768mb if you couldnt afford another 512mb stick. It would make more sense to just buy the 512mb stick and be done with it though.
768 of ram helps my system a lot when playing games especially desert combat. for hardcore gaming 512 is the bare minimum i think these days. otherwise if you add another 256 to 512 to your system i think that'll be enough HP to play far cry and doom 3.
Hey in response to your post about memory. I know you got tons of answers but I have a true solid answer for you. The raw answer is YES you DO NEED 1gb of memory if you are planning on playing anything from Battlefield,UT2K4,Far Cry and any new title like HL2/D3. And now for my proof.
First off my 2nd system that I built two years ago was purchased with 1.5gbs of memory. Right away I noticed no difference with 512mb or 1.5gb but I did find it didn't clock as well with all 3 sticks so I sold one off. I ran that 1gb all the way till about 6months ago when I built a system for a friend and took one of my sticks out for it. (all I was playing for games was CS) So remember this is my 2nd system so I still believed from checking my ctrl, alt , delete that none of my games were using anywhere close to the total 512mb so I had no issue parting with it. Sure enough 2 months ago I started playing some different games , Battlefield 1942/Desert Combat mainly. That game uses huge ammounts of memory and will only run smooth on 1gb. So I ended up 2 weeks ago buying another stick of 512mb for that 2nd system. Also before I purchased the extra 512mb , I notice Unreal 2004 ran like crap on my 2nd system. Once I dropped in the 512mb stick for a 1gb total, it was night and day.
The thing is these new games are using around 300+ megs alone , usually more like 400-500+ for large Battlefield games. My thought process for the needed ammount of memory was always, start a game, in the middle of it, ALT Tab back to desktop and hit ctrl,alt,delete to check total memory usage. Now I would take that number and compare it to my total. So with XP using around 180mbs and the games using say 300mbs I figured 480mbs was still less than my 512mbs available and I don't need to upgrade. But what I just figured out besides physically seeing a difference with the 1gb was when I checked the memory usage and it showed say that same 300mbs (example) used for the game and the 180mbs for XP and rest of apps for a total of 480mbs, now with that 512mbs of memory I was running you would think if I was using 480mbs that 480mbs minus 512mb would leave me 32mbs free but that wasn't the case. It would actually show me that I had more than 32mbs , and the only way I could have more memory if it was showing me actually using 480mbs at that point in time was I was using virtual memory which is using the hard drive as memory. What is happening is XP doesn't show all the memory that it really needs in that usage window.
Right now you can test this even with no game running.
1.) Hit Ctrl Alt Delete
- view total memory usage
- view total memory
2.) Take the used memory figure and substract from the total ammount you have installed in the system. Now that sum should be your "available" or "left over" ammount right. Wrong!
3.) Look at the available memory now, notice it is less than your sum. See its windows using more than it is showing in the PF Usage window.
Thats why if you have only 512mb but the PF Usage windows says only 420mbs used and the game is still chopping its because look at the available memory, if its larger than what the used minus total is then its using that hard drive as memory which is causing the slow down.
EXample my system I am wrighting this on has 1024 installed. Right now I am using 225mbs of it in the PF usage window. So take that 225 minus the 1024 and I should have about 799mbs free right, nope my available shows 701mbs available which means my system is eating up a extra 100mbs or so of memory and not showing it in the usage window.
I know I talked you to death but I was wrong for so long until 2 weeks ago when I figured this out.
First off my 2nd system that I built two years ago was purchased with 1.5gbs of memory. Right away I noticed no difference with 512mb or 1.5gb but I did find it didn't clock as well with all 3 sticks so I sold one off. I ran that 1gb all the way till about 6months ago when I built a system for a friend and took one of my sticks out for it. (all I was playing for games was CS) So remember this is my 2nd system so I still believed from checking my ctrl, alt , delete that none of my games were using anywhere close to the total 512mb so I had no issue parting with it. Sure enough 2 months ago I started playing some different games , Battlefield 1942/Desert Combat mainly. That game uses huge ammounts of memory and will only run smooth on 1gb. So I ended up 2 weeks ago buying another stick of 512mb for that 2nd system. Also before I purchased the extra 512mb , I notice Unreal 2004 ran like crap on my 2nd system. Once I dropped in the 512mb stick for a 1gb total, it was night and day.
The thing is these new games are using around 300+ megs alone , usually more like 400-500+ for large Battlefield games. My thought process for the needed ammount of memory was always, start a game, in the middle of it, ALT Tab back to desktop and hit ctrl,alt,delete to check total memory usage. Now I would take that number and compare it to my total. So with XP using around 180mbs and the games using say 300mbs I figured 480mbs was still less than my 512mbs available and I don't need to upgrade. But what I just figured out besides physically seeing a difference with the 1gb was when I checked the memory usage and it showed say that same 300mbs (example) used for the game and the 180mbs for XP and rest of apps for a total of 480mbs, now with that 512mbs of memory I was running you would think if I was using 480mbs that 480mbs minus 512mb would leave me 32mbs free but that wasn't the case. It would actually show me that I had more than 32mbs , and the only way I could have more memory if it was showing me actually using 480mbs at that point in time was I was using virtual memory which is using the hard drive as memory. What is happening is XP doesn't show all the memory that it really needs in that usage window.
Right now you can test this even with no game running.
1.) Hit Ctrl Alt Delete
- view total memory usage
- view total memory
2.) Take the used memory figure and substract from the total ammount you have installed in the system. Now that sum should be your "available" or "left over" ammount right. Wrong!
3.) Look at the available memory now, notice it is less than your sum. See its windows using more than it is showing in the PF Usage window.
Thats why if you have only 512mb but the PF Usage windows says only 420mbs used and the game is still chopping its because look at the available memory, if its larger than what the used minus total is then its using that hard drive as memory which is causing the slow down.
EXample my system I am wrighting this on has 1024 installed. Right now I am using 225mbs of it in the PF usage window. So take that 225 minus the 1024 and I should have about 799mbs free right, nope my available shows 701mbs available which means my system is eating up a extra 100mbs or so of memory and not showing it in the usage window.
I know I talked you to death but I was wrong for so long until 2 weeks ago when I figured this out.
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