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Attention - Owners of 2GB of RAM (2x1GB)

W

Waylay00

Golden Member
Hello owners of 2GB of RAM (2x1GB),

Would any of you be so kind to perform a couple of tests for me? I am wanting to know the difference in loading times in many games (ie, BF Vietnam, HL2, Doom 3, etc) between 1GB and 2GB. I currently have the option to get 2GB (2x1GB), but if there isn't much of a difference, I would rather save the money. So could any of you compare the differences in loading times, etc?

Thank you very much.
 
Yeah, that's basically the same stuff that I was looking at, except that was OCZ (same CAS Latencies of 2-3-2-5) and it was $60 more. Thanks for the link Jose.
 
Ive used both 1 and 2gig setups,and the 2gigs are much faster. Not all games can take advantage though. Only Doom3 and I think HL:2,Farcry,and UT2K4 utlilize 2gb for significant performace gains. Next-gen games will need 2gigs, and 2gigs would be optimal for longhorn when it arrives as well as XP-64. Also 2gigs significantly reduces boot time, and loading. I'd go fo the 2 gigs (I have 2gigs of OCZ and am looking foward to getting 4 gigs
 
Originally posted by: Chode Messiah
Ive used both 1 and 2gig setups,and the 2gigs are much faster. Not all games can take advantage though. Only Doom3 and I think HL:2,Farcry,and UT2K4 utlilize 2gb for significant performace gains. Next-gen games will need 2gigs, and 2gigs would be optimal for longhorn when it arrives as well as XP-64. Also 2gigs significantly reduces boot time, and loading. I'd go fo the 2 gigs (I have 2gigs of OCZ and am looking foward to getting 4 gigs
Click to expand...

I could see HL2, Doom 3, and maybe Far Cry using more than 1gb, but UT2k4 and simply booting the computer?? UT2k4 barely consumes over 512mb after several maps of onslaught. 1gb is perfect. My computer boots the same speed with 512mb as it does with 1gb or 1.25gb, therefore, why would it boot any quicker with 2gb?
 
If it matters at all my experience.

I used to run my sysem with 1GB of RAM, 2 X 512MB TCCD @ 1T
Now I'm, running with 2GB 4 X 512MB TCCD @ 2T

Even though it's slower, it performs quite a fair bit faster in games like Doom 3, Farcry and HL2 with settings cranked up.
I would and will *not* go back to 1GB.
 
Originally posted by: Chode Messiah
Ive used both 1 and 2gig setups,and the 2gigs are much faster. Not all games can take advantage though. Only Doom3 and I think HL:2,Farcry,and UT2K4 utlilize 2gb for significant performace gains. Next-gen games will need 2gigs, and 2gigs would be optimal for longhorn when it arrives as well as XP-64. Also 2gigs significantly reduces boot time, and loading. I'd go fo the 2 gigs (I have 2gigs of OCZ and am looking foward to getting 4 gigs
Click to expand...

You guys are going to have to provide some benchmarks if you're going to say things like that.

I spent a lot of time running my system with 2 GB last week and I went back down to 1GB because there was almost no difference (although the only one of those games I tested was FarCry). It didn't speed anything up enough to notice and it absolutely didn't reduce boot time.
 
Originally posted by: Tostada
You guys are going to have to provide some benchmarks if you're going to say things like that.
Click to expand...

I demand benches as well.

Originally posted by: Kensai
Even though it's slower, it performs quite a fair bit faster in games like Doom 3, Farcry and HL2 with settings cranked up.
I would and will *not* go back to 1GB.
Click to expand...

Benches, please? I know differences in RAM sometimes can't be shown with benches, so maybe use a stopwatch to measure the time it takes to exit HL2, FarCry, Doom3, to load the game and its maps, or possibly shoot a video of the games running to demonstrate the change in smoothness (if present).
 
A second 1GB stick to match mine is down to $99 at ZZF ... I'm actually kind of looking for an excuse to have 2GB 🙂
 
I agree with the skeptics. People are always going to be scremaing how you need more and more. Thats fine, but although 1 gig is the current "golden amount" for games, two gigs is DEFINITELY overkill.
 
Originally posted by: Gerbil333
UT2k4 barely consumes over 512mb after several maps of onslaught.
Click to expand...

That's ridiculously untrue.

Today i was playing on Cain's Lair ONS server, & i was actually using up all my RAM to run the huge map we were on.

Granted, i did have a few things running in the background (Konfabulator, MSN, Winamp), but those proggies don't take up much RAM at all.

With large ONS maps, i have a feeling i'd see smoother play with more than a GB.
 
I play on Cain's Lair all the time too and I've never seen my peak memory exceed 550mbs. Usually it's about 510. Is that all you had running? I never leave anything running in the background while I play games. I run at 1280x960 with 4x AA, 16x AF with the following game settings:

High
Normal
High
Normal
Normal
Normal
Full
[all boxes checked]
 
I'm gonna assume my RAM usage has to do with the fact that i run @ Holy Sh!t settings @ 1280x1024.

I didn't have AA or AF turned on though.
 
Could be. I opted for AA and AF instead of the Holy Sh*t settings.

Ok (15 minutes later). I tried about 5 minutes in Cain's Laire with the Holy Sh*t settings + 4x AA, 16x AF and the same resolution of 1280x960. To my utter surprise, I managed 15-30fps...I'd expected a slide show at those settings. Here's a screen shot of Task Manager while in the middle of the game. It looks like you're right with those settings: Only 53MB's left!

BTW, those settings + AA/AF looked EXTREMELY good.
 
more RAM is useful for other reasons too, you can run virtual machines :

* less desktop clutter - PCs are so fast now & no speed difference with MSOffice
* snapshot your task - I'm learning .NET, it doesn't matter if I switch off my PC, I can leave the hardcopy book open and resume the machine as if I never left
* uninstall programs? why? just delete virtual machine. Uninstall utils tend to do half a job.
* provided you opt to take a snapshot of the current machine's settings then if you screw something up you can just revert to where you were
* reduces need to rebuild computer owing to "middle aged spread"

convinced? you need VMWare (Workstation or Server) or Microsoft Virtual PC or Server.

just my thoughts..... but big companies use VM's for testing and we've been using VM's at work for a long time without issues. You need enough RAM for the installed OS plus the "guest" OS('s) - if you have enough RAM then you can run mutiple machines including the possibility of W2K3 domain role separation between machines...
 
Originally posted by: n7
I'm gonna assume my RAM usage has to do with the fact that i run @ Holy Sh!t settings @ 1280x1024.

I didn't have AA or AF turned on though.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have anything to do with Holy Sh!t.
I run 1280x960 @ middle for most things, no AA, and I get up to 800+MB RAM usage in game with Winamp/MSN/usual stuff in the background.
Definately way above 500MB. When I had 768MB of RAM installed, it was 100% used, when I went up to 1GB it was 90% used. UT2004 is happy with 1 gig of RAM.
This is with Win2k and WinXP.
 
Originally posted by: Waylay00
Hello owners of 2GB of RAM (2x1GB),

Would any of you be so kind to perform a couple of tests for me? I am wanting to know the difference in loading times in many games (ie, BF Vietnam, HL2, Doom 3, etc) between 1GB and 2GB. I currently have the option to get 2GB (2x1GB), but if there isn't much of a difference, I would rather save the money. So could any of you compare the differences in loading times, etc?

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Your request is flawed. People running two 1GB DIMMs, have them set up in a dual channel mode. If they remove one DIMM the dual channel mode isn't operating, therefore there is just that much more of a performance hit.
You need an Apples to Apples comparison to answer your real question.
You need someone with two 512mb DIMMs and two 1GB DIMMs laying around for a correct evaluation.

Test 1. Load times for two 1GB DIMMs in dual channel mode.
Test 2. Load times for two 512mb DIMMs in dual channel mode.

 
Originally posted by: Blain
Originally posted by: Waylay00
Hello owners of 2GB of RAM (2x1GB),

Would any of you be so kind to perform a couple of tests for me? I am wanting to know the difference in loading times in many games (ie, BF Vietnam, HL2, Doom 3, etc) between 1GB and 2GB. I currently have the option to get 2GB (2x1GB), but if there isn't much of a difference, I would rather save the money. So could any of you compare the differences in loading times, etc?

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Your request is flawed. People running two 1GB DIMMs, have them set up in a dual channel mode. If they remove one DIMM the dual channel mode isn't operating, therefore there is just that much more of a performance hit.
You need an Apples to Apples comparison to answer your real question.
You need someone with two 512mb DIMMs and two 1GB DIMMs laying around for a correct evaluation.

Test 1. Load times for two 1GB DIMMs in dual channel mode.
Test 2. Load times for two 512mb DIMMs in dual channel mode.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it
 
I had a feeling someone would mention this. I didn't think dual channel would make THAT much of a difference though.
 
Well, I'm surprised to see peeps say Doom3 loaded faster with 2gigs vs 1 gig.

I've been doing a benchie project on-n-off over the past couple of months. I was only testing 512MB vs 1 gig. I found Doom3 to gain little in the way of boot or reload saves (after getting fragged). Whereas Far Cry and Painkiller benfited the most. Especially PK.

My benchie's lead me to doubt very seriously whether D3 would benefit from the xtra gig of ram.

Fern
 
I see a huge difference between 512mb and 1gb...

But back to the topic: Can anyone provide some benchmarks to demonstrate the difference between 2x512mb @ 1T vs. 4x512mb @ 2T? If it's < 3% in most games, I'll go for 2gb.
 
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