4GB vs 2GB Memory

[Tangman85]

What exactly is the difference if any for gaming, etc?

 

[Nothinman]

Depends on the game.

 

[Tangman85]

Well...games in general, does memory increase performance? Decrease loading times?
I know it makes tabbing a bit easier and faster, but for gaming and such, it should be usefull, no?

 

[JustaGeek]

My Quake 4 at 1680x1050 played at Ultra Quality settings would occupy 99% of my RAM, causing "stuttery" performance.

Adding 2x512MB for a total of 3GB seems to have solved the issue. The memory use jumped to ~72% in some scenes.

To use 4GB of RAM, you need the 64-bit Windows.

 

[Tangman85]

Yep, I own a windows xp x64, that's game 🙂

 

[Cabages]

I am also wondering this. It would be useful if there were some kind of comparison with charts and such, but I havent been able to find one.

 

[clarkey01]

I have 32-bit Vista, I put in 4GB and I see just over 3GB (3110 MB) which is expected. My games run a lot smoother online (Battlefield 2/ Quake 4). If you spare cash then I'd say make the jump..

One thing to note is Vista's quite clever, it will know you have more Ram and it will use more, for instance I read this before my upgrade and I checked how much ram I was using after start up and it was around 700 MB (around 35%), then when I went to 4GB it went to 1.01GB of usage (about 35% again) and this is same config, no extra services or applications or anything...However vista turns all this off when gaming (So I read too).

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: clarkey01
I have 32-bit Vista, I put in 4GB and I see just over 3GB (3110 MB) which is expected. My games run a lot smoother online (Battlefield 2/ Quake 4). If you spare cash then I'd say make the jump..

One thing to note is Vista's quite clever, it will know you have more Ram and it will use more, for instance I read this before my upgrade and I checked how much ram I was using after start up and it was around 700 MB (around 35%), then when I went to 4GB it went to 1.01GB of usage (about 35% again) and this is same config, no extra services or applications or anything...However vista turns all this off when gaming (So I read too).

Yeah, Vista is smarter with memory. People think that their memory usage should stay the same when they add more memory, but Vista will detect how much there is and utilize a bit more of it to make things run a little bit better. It will be sure to give you back what you need should you have a demanding application.