Quake 4 doesnt need more than 1 gig of RAM and 256MB of video memory

[crazydingo]

Just wanted to share this with people who didnt know:

No performance gain between 256 MB video card & 512 MB video card

No performance gain between 1 gig of RAM & 2 gigs of RAM

I'm still waiting for AT's article on Q4 performance.

 

[Reiniku]

It doesn't seem too surprising. Out of all the games that have come out I've noticed only BF2 has really required 2 gigs of ram for real smooth gameplay.

 

[Corporate Thug]

this is why i have refrained from goin to 2gb

too few games use it

 

[thegimp03]

Q4 seems pretty dependent on processor speed when you're under heavy fire/around a lot of people online.

 

[ZobarStyl]

Not surprised. D3 didn't need it, why would Q4? Only BF2 by those wonderkids at EA really needs 2GB...go figure.

 

[sisq0kidd]

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl
Not surprised. D3 didn't need it, why would Q4? Only BF2 by those wonderkids at EA really needs 2GB...go figure.

I think the 2GB BF2 phenomena is not talking about performance gains in terms of frames, but in terms of choppiness. I, for one, have seen a good increase in "smoothness" going from 1GB to 2GB of ram.

Loading and starting levels, etc.

 

[subzero813]

what Quake 4 needs is a patch to fix the lousy multiplayer code or at least enable mutithreaded processing to brute force its way through said lousy code.

multiplayer will bring your system to its knees, no matter the specs, you will drop fps at inopportune moments which has other side effects of mouse lag and the like.

because while your video card, and your cpu can handle the new-fangled graphics, sending every little possible annoying detail about those graphics for 12 people simultaneously online (squishing it to fit normal broadband speeds is an achievement in and of itself), then having your cpu process all that is what slows it down (6600GT and up can handle the graphics fine at most settings).

my friend in a X2 4800+, dual 7800GTX SLI has fps dropping in multiplayer :| now if it had SMP, it'd probably wouldn't cuz of his fast dual core, but right now the extra core doesn't help.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: crazydingo
Just wanted to share this with people who didnt know:

No performance gain between 256 MB video card & 512 MB video card

No performance gain between 1 gig of RAM & 2 gigs of RAM

I'm still waiting for AT's article on Q4 performance.

The thread title should be ammended to say "doesn't need more than 256MB of video memory with medium quality textires" since that is what all the benchmarks are done at. High quality textures seems good on a 256mb card as well from what I have seen, but try ultra quality and benchmark a full level and you will see the difference that more video ram makes. Granted, even then average framerates won't show the real difference, you would have to look at contuious framerate graphs to see that where the card without enough video ram to hold all the textures in memory will studder while swapping data, the card with more ram will hold steady.

As for system ram, yeah, I am sure 1gb is plenty for Quake4 reguardless of settings. I have alrways played the game on a machine with 2gb, but I doubt the program uses anywhere near that much system ram.

 

[gxsaurav]

guys, what kind of performance can i expect from my system, Pentium 4 3 GHz, 1 GB RAM & 128 MB FX5900XT

also, when will the demo come out, any idea

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Quake 4 at 1600X1200 Ultra Quality, 4x AA - Constant 1.93 GB system ram usage. I think in some cases, 2 GB is vital.

 

[Zenoth]

Makes me remember in the first months of Star Wars: Galaxies release, that game used up to 900 MB of RAM. But it was thankfully optimized since then.

 

[Captante]

Last night when I was playing SWG at 1280x1024 it was sucking up 790mb's .. still pretty heavy-duty

 

[Sentry2]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman

Originally posted by: crazydingo
Just wanted to share this with people who didnt know:

No performance gain between 256 MB video card & 512 MB video card

No performance gain between 1 gig of RAM & 2 gigs of RAM

I'm still waiting for AT's article on Q4 performance.

The thread title should be ammended to say "doesn't need more than 256MB of video memory with medium quality textires" since that is what all the benchmarks are done at. High quality textures seems good on a 256mb card as well from what I have seen, but try ultra quality and benchmark a full level and you will see the difference that more video ram makes. Granted, even then average framerates won't show the real difference, you would have to look at contuious framerate graphs to see that where the card without enough video ram to hold all the textures in memory will studder while swapping data, the card with more ram will hold steady.

As for system ram, yeah, I am sure 1gb is plenty for Quake4 reguardless of settings. I have alrways played the game on a machine with 2gb, but I doubt the program uses anywhere near that much system ram.

I'll second that

 

[batmang]

all i know is, i get 50-60 constant on almost every map in multiplayer.

specs are in my sig.

btw, quake 4 is awesome.

 

[ArchAngel777]

I'll be the first to admit the BF2 isn't programmed by the brightest in terms of efficiency... However, you have to remember that the game levels are absolutely huge and support a very large number of players and vehicles. The game is just massive.

That being said, it is good to know that Quake 4 doesn't require all of your available memory

 

[dopefish21]

Originally posted by: Reiniku
It doesn't seem too surprising. Out of all the games that have come out I've noticed only BF2 has really required 2 gigs of ram for real smooth gameplay.

FEAR also as constant 1100MB+ usage on my machine.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: dopefish21

Originally posted by: Reiniku
It doesn't seem too surprising. Out of all the games that have come out I've noticed only BF2 has really required 2 gigs of ram for real smooth gameplay.

FEAR also as constant 1100MB+ usage on my machine.

Right, another game that I believe is sub-par in terms of engine effeciency... The game is way cool, but definately isn't a "D3" or "Source" powered engine.

 

[kylebisme]

Heh, it is absurd to expect that a game which uses both lots of stencil shadows like D3 and lots of high resolution textures like HL2 would be able to run as quickly as either of those two. Fear does all that and more and other than a occasional studder it runs quite well on my system at reasonable settings.

Also, dopefish21, was that 1100mb total system usage for everything you had running, or just the Fear.exe itself? I have run task manager on my second display while playing Fear, and eve with everything cranked the process never broke 900mb.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
Heh, it is absurd to expect that a game which uses both lots of stencil shadows like D3 and lots of high resolution textures like HL2 would be able to run as quickly as either of those two. Fear does all that and more and other than a occasional studder it runs quite well on my system at reasonable settings.

Also, dopefish21, was that 1100mb total system usage for everything you had running, or just the Fear.exe itself? I have run task manager on my second display while playing Fear, and eve with everything cranked the process never broke 900mb.

I don't think it is absurd to think that F.E.A.R. is sub-par in the effeciency department. F.E.A.R. isn't even playable at 2048 X 1536. Yet, Half 2 runs very smooth. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect F.E.A.R. to run at least half as smooth, but doesn't even do that. It seems to run about 25% of what Half Life runs at. Which is pathetic, at best!

Great game, poor engine.

 

[kylebisme]

If you could take HL2 and add real time volumetric lighting and stencil shadowing, vitrual displacement mapping for all the decals, and the mass amouts of particle effects Fear has, I'm sure HL2 would run a hell of a lot slower than it does now. Granted, it is hard to say exactly how well adding all that stuff to HL2 would turn out; but do I know that if I turn all that stuff off in Fear the game runs as least as fast as HL2, so I don't rightly see the point of your comparison.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
If you could take HL2 and add real time volumetric lighting and stencil shadowing, vitrual displacement mapping for all the decals, and the mass amouts of particle effects Fear has, I'm sure HL2 would run a hell of a lot slower than it does now. Granted, it is hard to say exactly how well adding all that stuff to HL2 would turn out; but do I know that if I turn all that stuff off in Fear the game runs as least as fast as HL2, so I don't rightly see the point of your comparison.

I guess I would have to see some hard numbers to believe that. I am going to need to see some links. I don't have any numbers myself, but I am willing to state that Source would trump Lithtech's engine doing the same work, anyday.

Edit ** I misread the bolded statement, because you didnt place a question mark. So, I am not sure if you meant to ask that in rhetoric, or if you are saying it does run just as fast with all those options turned off?

 

[kylebisme]

Heh, actualy please pardon my dyslecxica as I apparently wound up swapping the "do" and the "I" when rephrasing my comment. But as for my statment, I know Fear runs pretty damn fast when I turn off all the stuff listed above; have you ever tried running the game like that?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
Heh, it is absurd to expect that a game which uses both lots of stencil shadows like D3 and lots of high resolution textures like HL2 would be able to run as quickly as either of those two. Fear does all that and more and other than a occasional studder it runs quite well on my system at reasonable settings.

Also, dopefish21, was that 1100mb total system usage for everything you had running, or just the Fear.exe itself? I have run task manager on my second display while playing Fear, and eve with everything cranked the process never broke 900mb.

It was probably total system usage. Mine is pegged at 1.3 GB when playing fear. So, with the OS and all memory resident programs running (anti-virus etc.etc.) plus FEAR running WILL result in disk thrashing (page file swapping) which causes massive stuttering. I switched to 2GB and FEAR is as smooth as butter with all options maxxed of course. 1280x960 on a 7800GTX. With only 1GB the game bordered on unplayable at the settings I desired because of the VERY annoying and constant stuttering. 2GB is the answer for this game. At the very least 1.5 GB.

 

[Reiniku]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: dopefish21

Originally posted by: Reiniku
It doesn't seem too surprising. Out of all the games that have come out I've noticed only BF2 has really required 2 gigs of ram for real smooth gameplay.

FEAR also as constant 1100MB+ usage on my machine.

Right, another game that I believe is sub-par in terms of engine effeciency... The game is way cool, but definately isn't a "D3" or "Source" powered engine.

Well put.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
It was probably total system usage. Mine is pegged at 1.3 GB when playing fear. So, with the OS and all memory resident programs running (anti-virus etc.etc.) plus FEAR running WILL result in disk thrashing (page file swapping) which causes massive stuttering. I switched to 2GB and FEAR is as smooth as butter with all options maxxed of course. 1280x960 on a 7800GTX. With only 1GB the game bordered on unplayable at the settings I desired because of the VERY annoying and constant stuttering. 2GB is the answer for this game. At the very least 1.5 GB.

With a clean running system, what little else you have on in the background windows will place comfotably on your swap file. so if the game itself doesn't use any more than the 900mb I have seen it take then a well managed system will run it just as well with 1gb as it will with 2gb or more. It is only when the actively working processes need more ram than you physically have that you will see swapping.