A need for 256mb ram for win98se /win2k for gamers?

[Hankysmoo]

I have a cusl2 with 128mb ram mosel vitalic rev 2 at cas222 5t7t with my p3 700 running at 133mhz bus....I am a hardcore gamer and was wondering if I should get an extra stick of 128mbsdram cuz the prices are so low now. Is it worth it at all? I use win98se for games and win2k for hw and web browsing. I heard some rumors that 256mb ram might decrease performance or some stuff like that. What do you hardcore gamer/overclockers think?

 

[kantonburg]

I tell you what I play all my games and stuff in win2k and I just went from 128meg to 229 meg and it made a WORLD of difference in everything in win2k.

 

[Doh!]

If you are concerned with gaming performance, extra stick of memory mostly likely won't help you since you use Win98se for gaming. If you use win2k for gaming, however, you'll notice the performance improvement with the extra memory.

 

[1KrazyFool]

Performance gains with extra RAM aren't measured in FPS. They're measured by the increase in smoothness of your system as a whole, and of the ability to open programs out of disk cache, and leaving programs open while you game. Does opening UT or HL or Q3 out of the disk cache sound like fun? It is. Win98 and 2000 will use extra RAM for the disk cache, no matter what anyone says about Win98. Trust me, if you got the extra $60 bucks or whatever, you'll enjoy your investment.

 

[MrCoyote]

The more memory you have, the more a game like Unreal, Quake can use for textures. It will preload all the textures it needs into memory, instead of swapping back and forth to disk.

You can easily set the amount of Cache that Win98 uses for the disk cache. TweakAll is one program that allows you to change the cache amount. On my computer, the max setting was set to unlimited, meaning it would eagerly chomp away your memory, if it wanted to. I changed the min/max settings to a nice 6MB size each, and performance is so much better, and I have regained a lot of free memory.

IMO, as a programmer, you can never have enough memory. I have 128mb, P3 and Geforce 64MB, and games still swap in and out from memory. My friend has a similar setup, but with 256mb, and there is very little swapping and a lot smoother gameplay. If prices stay low, in my next system I'm going to fill it with 512mb.

In one of my programming classes, I asked someone how much memory he had, and he said 32mb running Win95!!! What I don't get is all of those people that still have 32mb!!! How can they run anything? Talk about some major disk thrashing going on!

 

[Ecliptic]

When I moved up from 128 to 256, there was a difference, but only a slight one. I personally do not think the performance was worth the extra $100 though. If you are happy the way things are, leave it. But if you want smoother gameplay, upgrade.

 

[Spoooon]

I upgraded to 256 megs. I think it's quite nice. 😀

 

[Sugadaddy]

I just installed a second 128 mb stick a couple of hours ago. I dual boot win98se (for gaming) and win2k pro for the rest.
From what I've seen until now:
in win98se: almost no difference in programs or games (only thing I noticed was an extra 5 fps in Unreal Tournament)

in win2k: almost impossible to notice the difference too. I loaded a bunch of programs (like 10), and ram usage never went over 60%. As for games in win2k, I can't say since I don't play any games in win2k.

Forgot to say that this second stick isn't mine, it's for another comp I'm building for my dad. I was planning on getting one for myself, but I've changed my mind. I'll keep my money for my ddr upgrade in a couple of months...

 

[snowyowl]

I have 256MB on Win2k and it runs well. Anything less is not enough. I had my ram usage up to 220MB the other day. But I have lots of software running in the background. I noticed a big difference from 128 to 256 when playing Unreal. I don't think you would get much usage out of 256 on Win 98.
But hey, a stick of 256 is only $90 now anyway!

 

[TEEZLE]

I have a comment and a queston. I have 512mb in my P3-700 ibm laptop. Tep i know 🙂🙂 And it was very quick until I installed Norton Antivirus 2000 on it. (Win2K is installed). On bootup it takes a lot longer for the gui to show up (about half a minute longer). Any remedy or something? Or shouild I get McAfee?

Also, if you go to 256mb you will see a small increase in speed. I am going to format the drive and put WinMe on it because I play too much games 🙂 (BTW my video is a 8mb Savage IX) If I were you I would decide on which operating system is the best for you, and if you keep Win2k go ahead and get the memory. I bought a stick of 128mb PC133 ECC at the computer show for $75.

Hope this helps

TEEZLE

 

[mofo888]

For win2k, it can utilize more memory more effectively compared with
win98se. Thus jumping from 128 --> 256 will yield better performance
if you multi-task. For games, you should see slight gains.

 

[StuckMojo]

hell, i just upgraded my win2k box from 256 to 384 😛 i say go for it.

(i was using 135M when doing nothing [i have server installed] and hitting 230 no prob...right now im using 201 with nothing but IE, icq, and powerstrip open and veritas backup exec doing a backup in the background)