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512mb or 1 gig

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situman

Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2003
Would I really feel a difference if whether I have 521mb of memory or 1gig of memory in my comp?
 
I felt the difference. Made some games noticably smoother and allows me to run XP without a paging file. Plus, future games will benefit even more from 1gig of memory.
 
yea it would help, but it depends what you do, and what games you play.
 
How do you run XP without the paging file? You will notice a big difference in some games (bf1942/dc, loading times crazy fast) and general performace.
 
depending on speed of the ram aswell and how it is utilized,, in win 2k and xp you can turn off pageing file in the registry,,, you can search for it here in the forums for the exact key. most games wont really use more than 512 to begin with, so if you want you could always upgrade later, since most gig of ram are 2 512's to begin with.
 
I would say that more cant hurt, so if you can afford it, go for it. More RAM would benefit memory hungry applications and heavy multitasking. Plus it gives you better bragging rights :cool: :p
 
Doh!I did a small search on yahoo and found it right away. The register y huh? Just goto system>advanced>performace settings>advanced>virtual memory> change>no paging file and click set.
 
how much will it affect performance without page file? if at all.
 
hmm depends on what you are doing, if you are plyaing bf1942 it helps a millino as that game pages almost 2-3 gbs if it can. Max it definatnly helps, most games like quake 3 or ut2k3 it only helps if you are running high resolutions like 1600x1200 with fsaa and ansio
 
And, someone please answer this question:

How does having 1024mb of RAM help games run better when most current games don't require that much RAM? In other words, once you satisfy the game's requirement, what is the extra 'room' going to do for you? I think it's best put as 'bragging rights'.

This seems to be along the same lines as the 128 -vs- 256mb Graphics card debate. Sure, future games may require or be able to use more ram, but I would imagine that the same future, by time we arrive there, will also hold sweeping changes in cpu's, boards, hard drives, etc. as well; changes that will render insufficient what we have currently. Being the personality type we are, we'll be building new systems to keep up with the technology flow, and we will incorporate the gig of ram and the 256mb card at that time. Why do it now... (???)

Thanks
 
Aughtsix said:
And, someone please answer this question:

How does having 1024mb of RAM help games run better when most current games don't require that much RAM? In other words, once you satisfy the game's requirement, what is the extra 'room' going to do for you? I think it's best put as 'bragging rights'.

Most games don't require that much RAM because they just use the paging file for the rest of what they need. However, for video RAM, 256mb is currently useless except for a select few games. 1GB of system memory and no page file helps significantly, though.
 
i say go with 1gb.... i had 1gb of crappy ddr400 ram and went to 512 of buffalo pc3700 at the best timings and it is SO much slower multitasking and playin swg :cry:
 
hey i only have 512 ram, and i guess my paging files is off..if i turn it on will it help my performance?
 
i definatley feel the difference between 512 and 1gb.
well, I also use 3 monitors now, each having its own task bar and program running on them. but a gb still makes a huge difference no matter what.
 
gb over half gb...i'd say gb....i have 512mb in mine and my friend who has an identical comp to mine brought his stick of ram over last night when we were playin bf1942 and i noticed to biggest difference in the world..
bf DOES require more than 512 if you want ot be sucessful and hate lag
 
Aughtsix said:
And, someone please answer this question:

How does having 1024mb of RAM help games run better when most current games don't require that much RAM? In other words, once you satisfy the game's requirement, what is the extra 'room' going to do for you? I think it's best put as 'bragging rights'.

This seems to be along the same lines as the 128 -vs- 256mb Graphics card debate. Sure, future games may require or be able to use more ram, but I would imagine that the same future, by time we arrive there, will also hold sweeping changes in cpu's, boards, hard drives, etc. as well; changes that will render insufficient what we have currently. Being the personality type we are, we'll be building new systems to keep up with the technology flow, and we will incorporate the gig of ram and the 256mb card at that time. Why do it now... (???)


Thanks

Try playing a massive multiplayer online game. Planetside, Darkageofcamelot, Starwars galaxies to name a few. "Only" having 512Mb will seriously bog down your performance on those system even more so then using a slightly outdated video card. I played some planetside with 512Mb of Ram and most of the time my system was struggling to keep 5-10 Mb of Ram free.
 
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