2GB RAM USERS - NEED UR ASSISTANCE

[craige4u]

Folks,

Me planning to upgrade my RAM to 2GB and need some info.

My current specs-
Pentium 3.0Ghz HT
Intel 865GBF Motherboard
256Mb ATI 9800XT Graphics card
400 Watts power supply
512 x 2 Ram DDR400 Mhz
Windows XP Pro

Now first I wana ask, as I am having an powerful graphics card ATI 9800XT 256MB, still in many games the ?Setting recommended for your system? the Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic is always get Disabled.

Is it so that if I increase my RAM- these options will be turned on by default by the game?

In half-life 2 me getting the following default recommended settings:

Model Detail: High
Texture Detail: High
Shader Detail: High
Water Detail: Reflect world
Shadow Detail: High

Anti-Aliasing: None
Anisotropic: Trilinear
Vertical Sync: Disbaled
High Dynamic Range: Full

You guyz with 2GB of RAM can tellme what is the recommended you all are getting within HL2.

In Splinter cell ? Chaos theory the Recommended settings me getting are:

Anti-Aliasing: None
Anisotropic: 2x
Shadow Resolution: Medium

Please inform what are the results you are getting with 1GB ram and then with 2GB ram.

NOTE: I do not play BF2 !

I really wonder after having such a high powered graphics card, why still all the options are not getting to the Max. by default ?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: craige4u

Now first I wana ask, as I am having an powerful graphics card ATI 9800XT 256MB

:laugh:

the graphics card was powerful 2 years ago, but it's in the slow league now, what you need is a 7800GT.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: craige4u

Now first I wana ask, as I am having an powerful graphics card ATI 9800XT 256MB

:laugh:

the graphics card was powerful 2 years ago, but it's in the slow league now, what you need is a 7800GT.

QFT

 

[ShellGuy]

Still a good card as i am runnning a Radion 7200 W/64mb ram. Hoping to upgrade this week to a 6800.



Will G.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: ShellGuy
Still a good card as i am runnning a Radion 7200 W/64mb ram. Hoping to upgrade this week to a 6800.



Will G.

just because you run a 7200, it doesn't make the 9800 better compaired to modern cards.

 

[UsandThem]

Ah guys, give him some slack. A 9800XT is still a decent card.

Going from 1 Gb to 2 Gb of ram will help somewhat with HL2 and other games, but a newer video card would give you the biggest increase.

Craige4u, this is not a insult at all, I just am curious where you are from and how old you are?

 

[chocoruacal]

Forget 2GB...won't make any significant difference. What will? A new graphics card. Take the $200 you were going to waste on the 2GB of RAM and put it towards a 6800GS or a 6800GT, if you want to stay with AGP. Either of those cards will make your 9800XT feel like a slug.

 

[craige4u]

Guyz,

U all sayin me needin an better graphics card to run new games with default setup but HEY! Half-life 2 is more than an year old! an HL2 was even optimized to work with 9800XT !

Even, SP - chaos theory is quite an old game !

So please any genuine help will be appreciate.

 

[UsandThem]

Originally posted by: craige4u
Guyz,

U all sayin me needin an better graphics card to run new games with default setup but HEY! Half-life 2 is more than an year old! an HL2 was even optimized to work with 9800XT !

Even, SP - chaos theory is quite an old game !

So please any genuine help will be appreciate.

:Q


:roll:

The Anti-Aliasing gets automatically disabled on my card.......a 6800GS.

Just because the advice you are getting is not the advice you want to hear does not make it inaccurate or not genuine.

If you want to go out and add another gig of ram, do it. However, it is not the source of your "problem".

 

[Trey22]

Originally posted by: chocoruacal
Forget 2GB...won't make any significant difference. What will? A new graphics card. Take the $200 you were going to waste on the 2GB of RAM and put it towards a 6800GS or a 6800GT, if you want to stay with AGP. Either of those cards will make your 9800XT feel like a slug.

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: craige4u


So please any genuine help will be appreciate.

Ok, ill help you
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Get a new video card if you want improved preformance

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: craige4u
Guyz,

U all sayin me needin an better graphics card to run new games with default setup but HEY! Half-life 2 is more than an year old! an HL2 was even optimized to work with 9800XT !

Even, SP - chaos theory is quite an old game !

So please any genuine help will be appreciate.

Those games may be a year old but your video card is over 2 years old. Get a new video card, more memory will do nothing to help your problem.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: craige4u
Guyz,

U all sayin me needin an better graphics card to run new games with default setup but HEY! Half-life 2 is more than an year old! an HL2 was even optimized to work with 9800XT !

Even, SP - chaos theory is quite an old game !

So please any genuine help will be appreciate.

Look, I'm in the same boat as you (9800pro owner here) and I don't really want to upgrade just yet because I remember how great of a card it was.. What you need to do is 1. Get a FPS counter, and either tally up the FPS you see in your head or figure out what your average frame rate is, for HL2, mine is about 50-60 while it does peak as high as 100 and low as 40.
2. After figuring out what your FPS is, look to see if you think it's high enough, if it is, just add 2X AA and then see if your frame rates dip too low so that the game is either unplayable or not, if it doesn't then your good! If you want more AA and you think your card can compensate, then try higher AA and see how it effects your game. Game makers don't enable AA because video cards act differently to it...
3. If your card DOES suffer and gets into the 30FPS/20FPS range, consider
A. Changing the Texture and Mipmap preferences to "High Performance" in the ati control panel.
B. Make sure you have catalyst 5.11 drivers (5.12/.13 apparently have no benefit for me and you)
C. Overclocking your video card, I currently have mine at about your speeds [420/375(5 mhz faster core, 10 mhz faster ram)] Since you have an XT card which is the 360 core, you should be able to achieve much higher clocks than I can (I max out at about 430MHZ)...
4. Make sure you have few programs running while you play, if your really serious about gaming, close everything, including your antivirus and when your done "playing" either load them back up or restart.
Summary: Enable AA and see if your games runs slow, have relatively latest drivers, make sure you have nothing slowing your system down in the background, consider overclocking, Enjoy...

 

[supastar1568]

i beat HL2 on a radeon mobility 7500 64mb and 512mb of ram.


beating the game is beating the game.

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: supastar1568
i beat HL2 on a radeon mobility 7500 64mb and 512mb of ram.


beating the game is beating the game.

experiencing the game is experiencing the game

 

[wraith3k]

It doesn't matter what the game automatically assigns for the settings. If you want the highest settings, then just turn them on. I always find I can bump up the settings over what's "recommended" without any significant issues.

But as far as the original question goes, no another gig of ram will not help an issue like this, a better video card will. All adding ram will do is prevent the hard drive from caching as often, but the drive performance increase that 2GB would have over 1 is probably not that noticable.

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: theslug
but the drive performance increase that 2GB would have over 1 is probably not that noticable.

Correct........probably only 3-5 FPS (unless its BF2, then it would help a lot for detail and texture)

 

[0roo0roo]

buy a 7800gtx or sli and then u can claim powerful, your card is old. computer hardware has an extremely short life, let alone when trying to use the most stressful features like fsaa. hell its only more recently that high end cards have become powerful enough to play current gen games with such features on. before it was only possible on older games or games with rather mild graphics requirements. more ram will keep you from stuttering, but it will never give you fsaa/af

 

[caz67]

get a new vid card, minimum.

 

[jc9970]

Forget the memory upgrade and buy yourself a 6800GT.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Originally posted by: supastar1568
i beat HL2 on a radeon mobility 7500 64mb and 512mb of ram.


beating the game is beating the game.

I beat it on a GeForce 4 MX 420 64MB and 512MB of ram. I had it set on 800x600 all low settings, with any options capable of being set to off turned off. I was able to play at 40fps average . As low as 6 and as high as 73. That is awsome for my crappy old card. (Its weaker that a geforce 2 non MX). HL2 is a sweet engine.

 

[ottothecow]

I upgraded my system in august(A64 3200+, fx5900U) from 1gb to 2gb of ram. I did it mostly because I was building a computer for a friend who was willing to pay almost retail for the gig of ram I already had--the system wasnt screaming for an upgrade but I had wanted to.

I didnt do any strict testing/benchmarking but I have heard that in older games that have no real use for over a gig of memory, adding the second gig will actually slow them down slightly. It definately didnt make a noticeable difference in the framerate of some FPSs like HL2/CS:s/CS as that is most definately limited by other factors than by having only 1 gig of ram. What did make a huge difference was playing WoW. With the 1GB, a very large area like Orgrimmar would be pretty damn nasty at peak times and the extra gig certainly made a difference.

The extra gig is nice for everyday use as I dont worry as much about things like Azureus/java sucking up large chunks of memory. Photoshop is also nicer when working with lots of layers and high-res images but I havnt done much of that since leaving for school as I only have a 5mp camera and snapshots dont really need editing (thats what my professional-photographer father does though but his new G5 has WAY more RAM).

Basically, 2GB of ram isnt going to do much for your FPS unless you are having noticable resource conflicts (like the amount of simultanious stuff going on in large WoW cities) but it might be nice for desktop use and multitasking if you have some memory-intensive applications. It's not that expensive to upgrade as there are lots of rebates and you can sell your old sticks for a decent amount since the market for DDR-400 is still pretty good (at least on my mobo, I had to replace them as adding more would slow down to DDR333 though you may have a nicer board)

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: goku

Originally posted by: craige4u
Guyz,

U all sayin me needin an better graphics card to run new games with default setup but HEY! Half-life 2 is more than an year old! an HL2 was even optimized to work with 9800XT !

Even, SP - chaos theory is quite an old game !

So please any genuine help will be appreciate.

Look, I'm in the same boat as you (9800pro owner here) and I don't really want to upgrade just yet because I remember how great of a card it was.. What you need to do is 1. Get a FPS counter, and either tally up the FPS you see in your head or figure out what your average frame rate is, for HL2, mine is about 50-60 while it does peak as high as 100 and low as 40.
2. After figuring out what your FPS is, look to see if you think it's high enough, if it is, just add 2X AA and then see if your frame rates dip too low so that the game is either unplayable or not, if it doesn't then your good! If you want more AA and you think your card can compensate, then try higher AA and see how it effects your game. Game makers don't enable AA because video cards act differently to it...
3. If your card DOES suffer and gets into the 30FPS/20FPS range, consider
A. Changing the Texture and Mipmap preferences to "High Performance" in the ati control panel.
B. Make sure you have catalyst 5.11 drivers (5.12/.13 apparently have no benefit for me and you)
C. Overclocking your video card, I currently have mine at about your speeds [420/375(5 mhz faster core, 10 mhz faster ram)] Since you have an XT card which is the 360 core, you should be able to achieve much higher clocks than I can (I max out at about 430MHZ)...
4. Make sure you have few programs running while you play, if your really serious about gaming, close everything, including your antivirus and when your done "playing" either load them back up or restart.
Summary: Enable AA and see if your games runs slow, have relatively latest drivers, make sure you have nothing slowing your system down in the background, consider overclocking, Enjoy...

So why not just use FRAPS?

Would be alot easier than counting frames in your head. I'll start counting right now...1...60...200.. oh, I lost count.

FRAPS is your friend.

 

[alimoalem]

have you tried enabling AF or AA?

 

[craige4u]

As fas as increasing the RAM goes my game(hl2) hangs for a sec. or so,
with all the settings to the Max. with 1280x1024 Resolution and hence me wana upgrade but now i guess there is hardly any point in upgrading the memory as i doubt it will fix the problem.

Thank ya all for ya replies,
cHeers!