Is there really any reason to have over 512mb of ram?

[Philippine Mango]

When playing farcry I see the computer utilize all of the ram. Lately I was working with an image that was 1.5GB and I adjusted photoshop to take 70% of the ram MAX and it did it easily. It was also using not only using 700MB of physical ram but it also happen to PAGE 700MB to the HDD! And THEN photoshop had about 7GB of "scatch disk" being used on the HDD. I can easily see a need for more ram, though I heard that the ram will default to a slower speed if you put over 1GB of ram in the system.

 

[madman300]

1.5GB image... wow!.... link?

 

[Philippine Mango]

150.JPG
151.JPG

It's now 1.42GB but when I add one more image (needs to scan more) it should hit about 1.6GB

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Jojo7
With windows 2000 while playing eq2, I've noticed my peak mem usage up to 1.65gb at some points. I do play at with high details and 1600x1200 though.

That's called a memory leak. Bad programing. No way that game uses a quarter that much.

OP,
Basically three games I've played go over the 512 limit FarCry (about 700), Doom 3 but rarly, and HL2 (about 550)..

Those numbers seem high but OS uses abuot 110 too and that's included there..

So NO, rarley does average user need more than 512.

In fact 256 is still just fine for a web browseing/office machine. (as long as you keep the spam/spy/leech whores out)

But 1G is manditory for hard core gaming or 3D workstation.

 

[walkure]

Originally posted by: Amaroque
Prime95 Stage2 GCD will use 920 MB by itself on my machine, not including the OS, or any other apps.

This is scary to me, as I bought my new system with 1GB value RAM (Mushkin PC 3200), and plan to do some very intense math on it. Well, I'm not at all surprised by the high RAM utilization... I'm just wondering exactly how high I'll get in the work I'm planning on doing (working with groups of very high order, and also possibly high dimension Hopf algebras).
GAP: System for computational group theory


Can I get a shout out from fellow math nerds plzkthx

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
When playing farcry I see the computer utilize all of the ram. Lately I was working with an image that was 1.5GB and I adjusted photoshop to take 70% of the ram MAX and it did it easily. It was also using not only using 700MB of physical ram but it also happen to PAGE 700MB to the HDD! And THEN photoshop had about 7GB of "scatch disk" being used on the HDD. I can easily see a need for more ram, though I heard that the ram will default to a slower speed if you put over 1GB of ram in the system.

thats nothing, ive had photoshop write 30 GIGS to the scratch disk when doing stuff on images over 600 megs, I also have 1.5 gigs of ram, and would like more

 

[BentValve]

EQ2 typically uses about 650mb of ram when I have check the processes in Windows, ive seen peak memory well over 1.5 gigs. EQ2 is a system hog for sure. Most of it is because you are loading up other peoples information.

I had 2 gigs of ram for awhile and EQ2 did run considerably better than it does now with only 1gb of ram.

But having 4 sticks of ram would not allow any decent OCing so I sold half of my ram... when 1gb sticks get down in price I am probably going back to 2 gigs.

 

[Spikesoldier]

UD client - rosetta project - 3xxMB by itself
simcity4 - up to 7xxMB by itself

adobe and corel...meh

havent played D3/HL2/CS:S/far cry/WoW but plan to (vid card and cpu/mb on its way)

edit: firefox sometimes likes to use a lot of memory as well (up to 7xMB i remember)

 

[0010010110]

Originally posted by: madman300
ok, all you gamers out there... how many of you have actually tested it out to see how much ram your system is using while playing these games? Peak? avg?

madison

Had an axp3200, 512 ram and a 9600xt.
Had a few stuttering problems with ut2k4 until I put another 512 in, but also take into account that when I added the second stick I was running dual channel instead of single.

Other than that adding the extra 512 improved loading times alot on all of my games.

 

[Spikesoldier]

Originally posted by: 0010010110

Originally posted by: madman300
ok, all you gamers out there... how many of you have actually tested it out to see how much ram your system is using while playing these games? Peak? avg?

madison

Had an axp3200, 512 ram and a 9600xt.
Had a few stuttering problems with ut2k4 until I put another 512 in, but also take into account that when I added the second stick I was running dual channel instead of single.

Other than that adding the extra 512 improved loading times alot on all of my games.

single vs dual channel on the K7 platform isnt a very big difference.

512 to 1024MB is.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Spikesoldier
UD client - rosetta project - 3xxMB by itself
simcity4 - up to 7xxMB by itself

adobe and corel...meh

havent played D3/HL2/CS:S/far cry/WoW but plan to (vid card and cpu/mb on its way)

edit: firefox sometimes likes to use a lot of memory as well (up to 7xMB i remember)

What about corel draw for windows 3.1? Infact I actually have it , big 'ole blackish box with tons of stuff.

 

[0roo0roo]

commits at 830 for me.. running treesize, firefox with a buncha tabs, media player classic..azuerus, speed disc.. 6 file explorers..aim, icq, stickies, netpersec, and some other stuff. i like being able to scan stuff without worrying about running outa ram. or running a game and not having to close everything. and yes certain games like 1942/desert combat/simcity actually use more then 512.. its been quite a while since 512 was good enough for some games. i used to look at the commit charge on a 2nd monitor while playing simcity just to see...it crept over 512 easy. minimizing to check seems to give false readings.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: madman300
I have been thinking about upgrading to 1.5 gigs of ram lately so I decided to see if it was needed.

I have been checking out my Peak Commit Charge and it is hard as hell for me to get it over 500megs. I have to have numerous instances of winamp (playing music) media player (playing a DVD) about 15 Internet explorers, AIM, Nero, etc etc running to get it over 500megs.

So my question is, is when do I need more than 512MB of ram? Is there any reason for me to have more? I really don't game much. Mostly I use my computer for internet, email, music, movies and as a general file server. However I will play HL2 or Doom3 from time to time.

My setup is currently

Dual Athlons 2600+
512MB ECC
300GB 16MB cache boot drive
800GB scratch drive (dual 400s)
Radeon Graphics cards
etc etc...

solid edge is a memory hog, i had a few part and draft files open at it was using over 250meg. i had 3 tabs in fire fox open n that was using about 70mb, media player and other things that always run in background like steam, hotsync manager etc....i had 414mb left of 1gb

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: biostud
Only gamers and people who work with huge amounts of data will benefit from more than 512mb

If running Illustrator, PShop, Matlab, PowerPoint, Firefox, and TV is "huge amounts of data" then yes more than 512 benefits.

matlab? we have that here....no idea how to use it! hope they teach us

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

I have seen my usage up around a gig while playing EQ2 so having more than 512mb is a great help.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: madman300
s hard as hell for me to get it over 500megs. I have to have numerous instances of winamp (playing music) media player (playing a DVD) about 15 Internet explorers, AIM, Nero, etc etc running to get it over 500megs.

My Peak Commit is at 950Mb, and running at 551Mb load right now. It's really not that hard.