those of you who have upgraded from 512 to 1gb memory

[Arcanedeath]

The bigest difference I noticed when I went from 512mb to 1GB was that I could cache more apps and Everquest (back when I still played it) ran soooo much smoother it was amazing. Also when I was converting some of my DVD's to MPEG4 for backup purposes it went somewhat smoother when editing stuff and syncing up the audio and video for some of my Anime.

 

[JBT]

i mostly noticed that games ran alot smoother and my system didn't mind having so many windows open at once anymore.

 

[Gerbil333]

There's a HUGE improvement:

-UT2k4 and many other games took 10-15 seconds to exit with 512MBs. They exit instantly with 1GB. Also, the game would sometimes freeze after a couple hours while the hd chugged to catch up. That would take about 1-3 seconds, and then it would resume. That doesn't happen with 1GB.

-HL2 stutters with 512MBs. It's stutters significantly less with 1GB...usually only one minor stutter when passing through a save point, or opening a saved game (512MBs = stutter all the time--very annoying)

-With 1GB, the computer is about the same speed after exiting a game as it was before gaming. With 512MBs, it had to fiddle around with the page file and reload stuff into memory.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Amaroque

Originally posted by: nbarb99
I just did, in fact 🙂 I went from 512MB generic PC133 RAM to 1024MB PC3200 (2x512MB Crucial Value RAM). The difference is definetly not *as* noticeable than the switch from 256MB to 512MB, but I can definetly tell. I'm a crazy multitasker, so I frequently have 100MB worth of browser sessions in memory, plus many other apps and services running. With 512MB, I would semi-frequently run out of physical memory (according to the Windows Task Manager).

Now, I can even switch out of games to open some browser (Firefox!) windows or launch something else, and I barely notice any page file usage. I'm pretty happy with the upgrade 🙂

How did you go from PC133 to PC3200 w/o changing the motherboard? 😕

probably a board like that ecs k7s5a that had both types of slots, i am assuming....

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: Gerbil333
There's a HUGE improvement:
-HL2 stutters with 512MBs. It's stutters significantly less with 1GB...usually only one minor stutter when passing through a save point, or opening a saved game (512MBs = stutter all the time--very annoying)

-With 1GB, the computer is about the same speed after exiting a game as it was before gaming. With 512MBs, it had to fiddle around with the page file and reload stuff into memory.

I've noticed the exact same thing.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

UT2k4 is a prime candidate for more memory, turning out pre load all player skins helps for 512, but ive left it off for 1Gb too, ive never noticed any stutters when a few people entre the game, i guess my file system and hard drives are fast enough to deliver the info when needed. Id imaging pre caching the skins helps, but only when a hoard of people join at once.

 

[Mizuchi]

Originally posted by: volrath
loading times in games: 0 improvement
studdering in games: huge improvement if your games are paging (game uses all your memory)
running more things at once: that's why you get more memory, really.

At 512MB, WoW was extremely choppy and I couldn't alt+tab to surf forums, e-mail, etc without some major wait times.

At 1536MB, WoW is extremely smooth. Only 1 hiccup instance a session at most, so far. Also, I can play in windowed mode and alt+tab to other apps instantly.

Eliminates the need to close out programs to free system resources.

 

[Tiamat]

yes big improvement in game play, multiple programs openning at the same time.

 

[stevty2889]

It depends some on the games you play, but I noticed a differance in most games when going from 512mb to 1 gig. I just went from 1gig to 2gig. In most games it isn't noticable, but in some MMORPG's, such as star wars galaxies, it made a very noticable improvement. I was getting some really bad lag in some area's where there were a lot of buildings or charactors loading, and it would start using the page file. Since I went to 2 gig of ram, no more major lag.

 

[hippotautamus]

I went from 256mb of pc133 to 1gb pc3200
Honest to God, I nearly sh!t my pants the first time I fired up an 8 player melee in Age of Mythology.

 

[imported_asfd]

I did that, the feeling is like a breeze when fire app, smooth and fast.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

512 -> 1024 was a BIG difference for me, no more paging during FarCry loads. Where's the poll?