I recently upgraded my 1024mb corsair DDR RAM to a 2GB GEIL DDR RAM. I have played a few games and I do not notice any load time differences, or preformance upgrades since I had the 1GB of RAM. I checked to make sure the RAM was detected as 2048mbs under RUN > Dxdiag. It was there, but I dont see a major 'jump' like I expected. Any reason why perhaps?
Not getting the most out of my new 2GB RAM.
- Thread starter Coldkilla
- Start date
WHY would you expect to see improved load times? Load times have NOTHING to do with RAM. A faster hard drive subsystem is the only thing that will improve load times.
Frankly, you should have asked here first. Most of us would have told you that it's really not worth upgrading from 1Gb to 2Gb unless you're a serious Battlefield 2 player (BF2 is the ONLY game that actually uses 2Gb - it's a major ram hog like BF1942 was), or you're a serious Photoshop user, or you use a few other ram hungry apps like VMWare Workstation or AutoCAD.
Other than that, the only reason to have 2Gb is bragging rights. Maybe next year when some real 64bit games come out we'll all need to upgrade to 2Gb, but it's just not necessary right now.
The simple test to see if you EVER need more RAM is to go to the Performance tab in Task Manager after using your most RAM intensive apps and games, and compare "Peak Commit Charge" memory to your "Total Physical Memory". You never want the Peak Commit Charge to exceed available RAM - when it does it means you've been using Virtual Memory which will cause a performance hit.
Frankly, you should have asked here first. Most of us would have told you that it's really not worth upgrading from 1Gb to 2Gb unless you're a serious Battlefield 2 player (BF2 is the ONLY game that actually uses 2Gb - it's a major ram hog like BF1942 was), or you're a serious Photoshop user, or you use a few other ram hungry apps like VMWare Workstation or AutoCAD.
Other than that, the only reason to have 2Gb is bragging rights. Maybe next year when some real 64bit games come out we'll all need to upgrade to 2Gb, but it's just not necessary right now.
The simple test to see if you EVER need more RAM is to go to the Performance tab in Task Manager after using your most RAM intensive apps and games, and compare "Peak Commit Charge" memory to your "Total Physical Memory". You never want the Peak Commit Charge to exceed available RAM - when it does it means you've been using Virtual Memory which will cause a performance hit.
I have BF2. I havn't re-installed it (I just formatted), and what performance area should I look for better preformance in?
I'm not a BF2 player (I hated BF1942 and hate this one even more), but I've been told it seems to run better with more than 1Gb. if it's like 1942 was, it'll just feel smoother. It's not low average framerate that makes a game feel laggy, it's having the MINIMUM framerate drop too low that ruins the experience.
I wouldn't expect anything dramatic.
You didn't mention what CPU and video card you're running. BF2 is a performance hog. Don't think that adding memory will make up for an older vid card or an older CPU.
I'd consider a Athlon 3200 and Radeon 9800 Pro (or equiv Intel and/or NVidia) to be the minimum for serious BF2 gaming. Even with that hardware BF2 will default to medium visual settings.
I wouldn't expect anything dramatic.
You didn't mention what CPU and video card you're running. BF2 is a performance hog. Don't think that adding memory will make up for an older vid card or an older CPU.
I'd consider a Athlon 3200 and Radeon 9800 Pro (or equiv Intel and/or NVidia) to be the minimum for serious BF2 gaming. Even with that hardware BF2 will default to medium visual settings.
I only had 200 for an upgrade. System specs:
AMD 64 3000+
Geforce 6800 GT 256MB
2x 80GB Hard Drives
2GB Geil RAM
MSI K8T800 FIS2R
I didnt have the money for a socket 939 mobo AND a 939 processor ( I currently have 754). So i had to go with something. I had always thought that RAM was loading times. I guess I was wrong. Well thats 200 down the crapper.
AMD 64 3000+
Geforce 6800 GT 256MB
2x 80GB Hard Drives
2GB Geil RAM
MSI K8T800 FIS2R
I didnt have the money for a socket 939 mobo AND a 939 processor ( I currently have 754). So i had to go with something. I had always thought that RAM was loading times. I guess I was wrong. Well thats 200 down the crapper.
LOL, the 3400+ (Newcastle which runs at 2.4 GHz) would give you a speed boost for $178 US at newegg. Don't worry about the lost $200. Your machine should run UT2007 when it comes out next year.
There is a big diff in 1gb to 2gb of ram; it?s not a frame rate difference though.
If you want to see the difference do this, ALT-Tab out of a game like BF2. Then open IE or whatever browser you use. Notice how it opens almost as fast as when you are not playing BF2. Now go back to playing the game.
Repeat with only 1GB of ram. You will see a difference. Sorry the game is not going to load the maps or play any faster, but once it is loaded it will be smoother, and you can ALT-Tab out of games much faster now.
Happy Alt-Tabing
If you want to see the difference do this, ALT-Tab out of a game like BF2. Then open IE or whatever browser you use. Notice how it opens almost as fast as when you are not playing BF2. Now go back to playing the game.
Repeat with only 1GB of ram. You will see a difference. Sorry the game is not going to load the maps or play any faster, but once it is loaded it will be smoother, and you can ALT-Tab out of games much faster now.
Happy Alt-Tabing
I've found having 2gigs helps load maps faster in CS:Source.
but thats only by a few seconds and it only really matters so you can laugh at your buddy hosting the server because you got in faster than him hehe.
but thats only by a few seconds and it only really matters so you can laugh at your buddy hosting the server because you got in faster than him hehe.
Since RAM is measured in nanoseconds (ns) upgrading to faster RAM is not visible unless you are working with large programs like Photoshop, BF2 or doing things like Video Editing.
For load times > faster HDD
For game performance > faster Graphics Card
For encoding > faster CPU
For multi-tasking > more RAM
Just my take.
For load times > faster HDD
For game performance > faster Graphics Card
For encoding > faster CPU
For multi-tasking > more RAM
Just my take.I agree, i think if you have the 80 bucks or so get a small 10k HDD, load your os and games on it, move your music/movies/etc to the 80gigs (RAID?).
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