Would another 1GB of Ram help me in Half Life 2?

[ghart999]

My existing setup is:

Intel P4-3.0 GHz
1 GB PC400 RAM
Gefore 6800 nu
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Mobo

I am wondering if being able to have 2GB of RAM would be beneficial to playing games, especially halflife where I can allocate my heapsize to like 1.5GB Ram? Thanks all.

 

[dighn]

i don't see how you can get any real performance gain going from 1gb-2gb

are you trying to run 5 copies at once?

 

[BlueWeasel]

It would probably help some, but not enough to justify the purchase, IMHO.

 

[Snapster]

Pretty much the same setup I have, which runs fine on mine except on max everything. The only thing that slows hl down really is the graphics card.

 

[datalink7]

Would it be benificial? Sure. More RAM is always better. However, I don't see you having a problem running HL2 with your current setup.

 

[Smilin]

I doubt it would make much difference at all.

 

[Mutilator]

Easy way to tell:
1.) Open HL2
2.) Alt tab out and open task manager
3.) See how much RAM is in use and how much is available. If you have more than 500MB available then I'd say don't bother. If you have under 100MB available then I'd say go ahead and give it a try. RAM is cheap these days.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Originally posted by: Mutilator
Easy way to tell:
1.) Open HL2
2.) Alt tab out and open task manager
3.) See how much RAM is in use and how much is available. If you have more than 500MB available then I'd say don't bother. If you have under 100MB available then I'd say go ahead and give it a try. RAM is cheap these days.

HL2 uses around 600-700MB at max detail

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: ghart999
My existing setup is:

Intel P4-3.0 GHz
1 GB PC400 RAM
Gefore 6800 nu
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Mobo

I am wondering if being able to have 2GB of RAM would be beneficial to playing games, especially halflife where I can allocate my heapsize to like 1.5GB Ram? Thanks all.

Jebus christ, can you explain why 1 GB with a 6800 vanilla is insufficient? I played HL2 with a 9800pro and 1GB of rambus with zero problems.

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: datalink7
Would it be benificial? Sure. More RAM is always better. However, I don't see you having a problem running HL2 with your current setup.

You know, if there were no physical limits to modern computers' RAM capacity, at a certain point, you should be able to keep your entire hard disk in RAM. Add an arbitrarily large amount to account for any running programs and it turns out that any more RAM is not, in fact, beneficial.

The point? There is a limit and saying "more RAM is always better" ignores the diminishing returns of increasing your capacity.

Look at your total memory usage while HL2 is running. If everything fits inside your current amount of RAM, more RAM will not help at all.

 

[Sentinel]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: ghart999
My existing setup is:

Intel P4-3.0 GHz
1 GB PC400 RAM
Gefore 6800 nu
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Mobo

I am wondering if being able to have 2GB of RAM would be beneficial to playing games, especially halflife where I can allocate my heapsize to like 1.5GB Ram? Thanks all.

Jebus christ, can you explain why 1 GB with a 6800 vanilla is insufficient? I played HL2 with a 9800pro and 1GB of rambus with zero problems.

Some people just like to max out.

 

[oupei]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: ghart999
My existing setup is:

Intel P4-3.0 GHz
1 GB PC400 RAM
Gefore 6800 nu
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Mobo

I am wondering if being able to have 2GB of RAM would be beneficial to playing games, especially halflife where I can allocate my heapsize to like 1.5GB Ram? Thanks all.

Jebus christ, can you explain why 1 GB with a 6800 vanilla is insufficient? I played HL2 with a 9800pro and 1GB of rambus with zero problems.

HL2 demands a lot of video ram when using high textures. If his 6800nu has 128MB ram like mine, then it will stutter quite a bit in HL2 at 1280x1024. turning off AA is a necessity. Even then, playing CS:S at de_dust2 gives me a single digit fps when other levels give me 60+. My advice is to go for a 256MB video card, either the X800XL or the 6800gt.