2gb to 4g of ram worth it fps wise

Hey guys, i just bought lost planet colonies and i want more fps. So i am planning on upgrade my ram to 4gb. To get maybe 10 more fps?. In all my games in general i want more fps. So going to
vista 64 + 4gb of ram give me better performance then my current specs? Worth it ?

- Thanks

 

You want more fps? Drop the rez, or graphics settings. 2 extra gigs of ram will help, but results will vary.

 

system ram usually doesn't help with fps. but i have to say when i upgraded from 2gigs to 4gigs, supreme commander seemed to average about 3 fps more. this is a real time strategy game though. i know rts's use the cpu alot more than the usual game, but i was surprised to see that. don't expect a rise though, especially first person games. it's definitely a your mileage may vary.

 

For 99% of games, 2GB to 4GB won't make much of a difference in XP. Vista maybe only because it has a much larger memory footprint. Supreme Commander is just a CPU and memory HOG, so don't use that as a benchmark for any other games.

 

Well if you see your fps dropping because of disc activity 2gb extra gbb won't hurt.

 

Open task manager and see how much ram you're using? If you are not going over 2GB than getting more will probably not help.

 

i have the game running at the lobby. its at 1.17 gb. umm.. Is there a way i can see the ram while the game is running like a its runs over the game window like fraps?

 

yeah the game take up 1.3 gb of ram max. Any point in upgrading????

 

Nope, save your money. If you're finding yourself getting up close to 2gb of ram in games close out of some apps, to me 4GB is a waste in XP for gaming

 

for the price of the upgrade ($20 in my case) its worth it. more ram increases overall fps by a little bit (more like 1-3, not 10) and also does a lot to reduce hitching and frame drops due to hdd activity. plus it makes general OS operation faster.

 

4gigs made things slower for me under XP

 

In multithreaded games (like SupCom), it is likely that more RAM will make little to no impact on FPS. However, it could still help performance, as with multithreaded games on multicore machines, the graphics can keep rendering quickly even if the game logic is hung up in the CPU. As we get in to more and more multithreaded games, FPS will represent the performance of a game less and less by itself. So basically, 4GB is future-proofing.

 

4GB of ram will make Vista feel snappier, but I don't think that really translates to much of an FPS improvement in games. That is unless it is Supreme Commander or Hellgate London, and you are actually maxing out your RAM.

 

Ram is worth it. I got a couple fps boost in general but the biggest bonus is that you can run other software while gaming without lag.

 

not so much improvements in gaming will be observed, but you will be able to multitask better. go for it, ram is cheap these days.

 

uping to 4GB RAM won't help your gaming performance much. The only real benifet I can see would be to boost vista performance. If you're not running vista then it's not really worth it. And you could always upgrade later when it would be cheaper and more worthwhile. For now I'd say don't waste your money.

 

yeah i might not do it. Also remember kiddies to upgrade my ram i am buy all of 4 gb new because the laptop i have only has 2 sodim slots :S both are taken by 1 gb ram sticks. Is there any other upgrade i Can make to boost fps?

 

I increased from 2x1G to 2x2G. Because I noticed no difference, I returned the new RAM back to the supplier, and stuck with my 2x1G (G1S - 8600M GT).

 

again, for the price, its a fine upgrade. you have to consider that its very cheap. its obviously no miracle solution.

if you can sell your 2x1 ram for $30 and buy 2x2 for $45, its hard to say no, even though the performance increase isn't THAT much.

just wait for a good deal.

other than that, there isn't much you can do as far as upgrading laptop hardware.

 

The only time more ram will raise your FPS or over all performance is if you are thrashing. Other wise it wont help you.

 

I have $100 i really want to spend it on my laptop. For better gaming. The only thing i can think of is upgrading the Ram other then that nothing.

 

Then you may as well set fire to your $100, which is 1/3 of the cost of a brand new xbox 360, which will give you a much better gaming experince than your laptop ever will. If you've already got one, then why not do something with your money that you'll actually benefit from. If you're still struggling to find an outlet, you could always give it to me .

 

I wholeheartedly disagree with that, Icaru. The laptop in his sig can give a far more varied, very good gaming experience when compared to any console, 360 or otherwise. A RAM upgrade won't be bad, and may be good. The point is that for the time being, it will have a limited impact, but looking in to the future, it's impact will become greater and greater.

 

The Laptop in his sig. has an 8600M GT DDR2. My laptop (G1S) has an 8600M GT GDDR3, and as far as gaming is concerned, it isn't even in the same league as an Xbox 360. Like many 8600M GT so-called "Gaming" laptops, although it can play the latest games when flat out, apart from a few exceptions, it can't play them like they're meant to be played. The only time I ever play a game on my laptop is when I'm away from home.

My upgrade from 2G to 4G on an almost identical spec machine running a more memory hungry OS than his was not good. In fact, after experiencing no noticeable difference, I returned my new RAM to the store, and got my money back. I hope for his sake he can do the same after he realises he's made the same mistake.

By the time its' impact actually becomes significantly greater, both his laptop and mine will probably be obsolete.

 

^^^^^ just an opinion. what does comparing your 8600gt and his have to do with ram, much less an xbox 360? neither one of your laptops will be obsolete for awhile. the 8600 is a great card that get your foot in the door with all games on the market currently, though some of the games won't be as shiny as others. i think he should upgrade. it won't really help performance that much in games, but it will improve marginally, and possibly more in the future.

 

I'm not intending to compare our graphics cards, nor a 360. My point was that IMO, based on my own experience of doing exactly the same with a similar spec machine, throwing $100 at extra RAM is not going to give you any noticeable gaming benefit whatsoever. The reference to the 360 was to put into perspective what that money will get you if you're interested in gaming.

OK. If he really wants to upgrade, he should upgrade. Maybe he can return to this thread after his investment and give his honest opinion, to help others make the decision.

 

If you have $100 then go ahead. It'll help overall computer performance and may give gaming a couple more FPS. You can even buy ram and a new game with that money.

 

if it was 100$ i wouldn't do it. i waited for a while for the prices to come down. I took advantage of a deal with OCZ (it ended on the 31st, sorry) where you could get a 2x2GB set of ddr2 667mhz for $45 after the rebate.

i was able to sell my current 2x1GB set (same type) for $30 locally.

that makes it a $15 upgrade, and its hard to argue with it for only $15.

i would also like to note that my laptop (gddr3 8600m gt) puts out higher quality in CoD4 than either console.

 

Higher quality ?

 

the xbox and ps3 version look great and run great. they also run the game in 1024x600. on the pc version, you can choose the resolution to run the game in, and also choose the quality of most of the effects and textures in the game. ultimately, my laptop is able to run CoD4 at a higher resolution (1280x800) than the consoles (1024x600), while still keeping the settings high.

this mostly speaks well of CoD4, but it also speaks well for the 8600m gt gddr3 in relationship to the consoles. the horsepower behind the 8600m gt is obviously comparable to the ps3 and xbox. no word on which is the most powerful, but the pc is able to give better visuals in that particular game.

anyone in my dorm who plays their console version ALWAYS asks me why mine looks better on the laptop. its mostly the resolution, but i just like to point that out whenever people say that consoles are 50x as good as the pc.

of course, when you consider that the whole console cost about as much as just my gpu alone, the fact that the console is playing CoD4 at all is amazing. try getting a $300 computer to play CoD4! there is also the added benefit of console gamers getting many games first. (GTAIV!) plus, you are promised a good experience running any game out of the box, whereas with the PC, you might have to tweak it first, or it might just not run well period. (ie. we get crysis but no one can run the thing, consoles didn't get crysis)

we could go into it more if you want. probably need a new thread. i'm actually pro console and i almost bought a wii and i almost bought an xbox 360 just for GTA... but i decided that the Wii would only make me happy for a short period of time and that GTA IV will probably come out for the PC eventually. patience is what its all about.

i also feel like i should mention that if you buy a console and buy 8 games (over a period of time) and maybe a spare controller or two, you are going to spend $1000 total anyway. they get your money one way or the other.

 

Yeah, I think Oblivion is running ~Medium on the X360/PS3. The 8600M GT can stand a High HDR 4xAA at 1280x800

 

okay i guess ill make a comment about the 360 comment. Bro on a 360 you are so limited when it comes to gameplay in most games. First off you don't have the same online experience just because the community is full hicks and 8 year olds. 2nd, a controller? please. 3rd. 16 player max slot servers for most games.... Xbox live?? You have no options what so ever for admining servers. Can you even password games on a 360?. Cod 4 for instance wow.. No Pam4 mod ? zombie mods? No user maps. No leaning options. Also the game looks alot worse on the 360 then it does on my notebook. Anyways pointless comment you made ruining my thread. But anyways thanks for your comment though and your insight on gaming.
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Well for ram my clan is purchasing ram for me so its not my money really lolz. Also i really don't need to buy a any games since my clan covers that as well.Damn i just wish i my gpu had a faster bit interface and faster memory. Poo

 

The majority of gamers (specifically, console gamers) have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here. We do, but we are also talking on a notebook gaming enthusiast subforum (a small segment of gaming society). They don't care that they are missing out on all the bells and whistles we get on the PC (I <3 Steam and my High Res entertainment) because they don't know it exists, and Xbox Live or Playstation Home provide more than enough for their needs.

You are an enthusiast PC gamer, the majority of console gamers don't go there for games. That said, I own both a gaming PC (well, MacBook Pro running Vista) and several consoles. Why knock any of them? They are all quite fun. (Though I agree, I much prefer multiplayer on PC).

 

How can playing a game on a laptop screen be considered to be better visually than playing on a decent sized screen ?

Although COD4 on the 360 is rendered in 1024 x 600, It looks great on a decent sized screens (i.e 40/42in).

If you connect your Laptop to a decent sized screen, in attempt to get an even comparable visual experience, the only way you're going to get it looking other than messy (i.e. without loosing sections of the screen, or it being blurred) is by increasing your resolution to 1920 x 1080.

Then we can compare visual experiences.

 

and how many people have 40/42inch screens? -.-

 

If you play a game on a laptop where the screen a foot from your face and the screen is 15"-17", it's actually visually larger than a 27" screen at 5 feet away. The same thing holds true for a 40"-42" screen at 8-10 feet. And anyone that thinks an image rendered to a 1024X600 back buffer and upscaled to 1920X1080 is comperable to an image natively rendered as 1280X800 or higher can be called at best a novice.

 

System RAM will help with skipping more than FPS. A lot of modern games try to change skipping into an FPS drop by loading new areas more slowly, but earlier.

 

QFT. And that is a basic concept many people fail to grasp.

 

Ill just add another point in here playing on a screen closer up gives you alot more advantage and makes it more fair for online competitive play as well. On the TV you are so far away it from it you can't see the fine details on the textures.
Here is huge thing for me since i play game very competitive on a tv i just can't because one of my strong points in gaming is being able to see the battlefield quick. You can scan what is in front of you on 17'' monitor then a tv. Also i play with 360 players on lost planet colonies even with the brutal mouse support in close combat i can still do more then they can with the mouse. Also in sniper maps i can snipe from one side of the map because i can see much more clear because the screen being closer to me and have aa on so i don't see any jaggies. I talk people on lost planet about basics things to enhance my gaming the questions i ask them .... are so beyond what they can understand is you hear dead silence. With bad control, bad community , lack of features (online,gameplay) also the downgraded graphics and on top of that playing on tv i would never play on a console. Been a console gamer till xbox. So i know i am not missing anything.

 

don't get me wrong, i actually like consoles in general. i MIGHT be skipping the xbox360 ps3, but i have a ps2, i might buy a wii, and i might buy a ps4 or xbox 720... or the rewii.

but you can run CoD4 in 16:9, 16:10, or 4:3 on the pc. there are tons of resolution options. you don't lose any of the screen (i think you meant that, "loose?")

and yes i have the option of playing on my monitor or outputting it to a larger TV. of course, even with the console, you still have to buy a massive TV separately if you want it, so that is sort of a moot point. its kind of like a bonus to both PC and console, so doesn't differentiate them well.

 

That's rubbish, the Xbox 360's GPU isn't any better than that. Heck my Geforce Go 7600 can play Oblivion not much worse than the 360.

I do think that PC games suck balls at the moment and will for the forseeable future. So it's best to get a 360 anyway, but put up with the lower detail on games that aren't available for it.

 

Yeah the monitor comment i made is pretty rubbish lolz. But i was really saying console gamers play on TV and thats how the console games are meant to be played.The purpose of a monitor is so you can sit up close to it and when i think tv, I think sitting on couch. (Devil May cry 4 demo just finished!!! woot)I hope the game has mouse supports lolz!

 

But you could hook a computer up to a high res TV and play with a 1920X1080 back buffer, and it would look better than console. And PC games most assuredly don't suck, the problem is lots of the games out on PC are console ports. Those do often suck. But most actual PC from the ground up games are good.

 

Your statement is correct. However, We are not talking about an Image. We are talking about a game. If you're not familiar with the concept, then let me try to explain in a way that you may understand ....

As you mentioned in your statement, a single 1280 x 800 image will always look better than a 1024 x 600 upscaled image. However, connect a laptop with an 8600M GT to a decently sized (40/42 in) screen and as I mentioned previously the only way you will be able to play without missing parts of the picture, or blurriness is to increase the resolution to 1920 x 1080. OK, COD4 on the 360 is rendered @ 1024 x 600, but the 360 upscales it to 1920 x 1080, and plays it at a far smoother framerate than you will ever see any laptop with an 8600M GT play the game at when it is outputting to a resolution of 1920 x 1080. OK, the 8600M GT output is rendered at a higher 1280 x 800, but so what, the framerate will be poor in comparison to the one on the 360, and it's jerkiness, especially in areas of smoke, and intense combat, will far outway the benefit of the rendering difference between 1024 x 600, and 1280 x 800.

What you have obviously failed to understand is that when we are talking about a visual gaming experience, we are talking about an animated game, not a still picture. If the comparison was between the 360 and a PC with a much more powerful graphics card, then it would be different, as the framerate/smoothness could be equalled, if not bettered, whilst also giving the benefit of the higher rendering resolution.

BTW, I don't make this S**T up, and none of it is speculation, nor unjustified opinion. I conclude it from my own testing, and in this particular case, I have compared my Laptop (G1S, 8600M GT) running COD4 against my 360, both outputting @ 1920 x 1080. To make a fair test, I tried both Composite and HDMI connections for the 360. I'm not a PC hater, or a console preacher, I've invested significantly in my Desktop PC, my Laptop, and my console, and so am not biassed either way. As always, my views, as an engineer are based solely on actual results I have personally obtained during experimentation and testing.

Best Regards,

Novice.

 

No, what you have failed to understand is that the framerate at 1280X800 will be better than the 360. 360 games are only required to have 30FPS. The computer will get better than that. I'm sorry, but you think you know more than you do. Still image or moving image, higher res with equal or better texture and effect fidelity and equal or better framerate will give you a better experience, as long as your TV's scalar is good. It really is that simple.

And you are wrong about "missing parts of the picture". Any modern TV has the options available to display the entire image in the correct aspect ratio. You just have to read the manual and/or mess around with settings to get it to display correctly sometimes. How do you think "1080i" TVs manage to display on 1366X768 physical pixels? That's right, TVs have scalars too. That means the TV itself can upscale/downscale too. Nice try though.

 

Quote:
8600M GT GDDR3, and as far as gaming is concerned, it isn't even in the same league as an Xbox 360

Really ?

I have COD4, DIRT, Gears of War, and GRID for both the PC and 360.

I regularly play all 4 games on my 360, my Asus G1S (8600M GT) and my desktop (8800 GT). I have spent a great deal of time adjusting settings on both PC's and making comparisons between all 3.

It is after comparing the results obtained during a considerable period of testing that I made this (Rubbish) statement.

 

Of course they all attempt to display in the correct aspect ratio, but if you try to display a PC signal in anything less than 1920 x 1080 on a (1920 x 1080) HD TV, then it is blurry, whereas the 1920 x 1080 XBOX360 picture isn't.

With reference to the 360's 30fps, you state "360 games are only required to have 30FPS. The computer will get better than that."

Fact: A laptop with an 8600M GT will not play COD4 @ 1280 x 800 without dropping significantly below 30 fps during areas of heavy smoke and combat.

Fact2: I don't think I know, or pretend to know anything more than I have concluded during my own extensive testing, but thanks for the personal insults anyway.

I'm not trying anything, other than to express my opinion based on actual results.

 

To me it always felt like the 360 could do more impressive things than a 8600m. I dont think its so much the fact that the 360 has a better gpu, but maybe because games are optimized for that system

 

@ icaru: you are definitely taking a strong defensive stance here. now im not going to flat out say you are wrong, but i just want to ask you something:

will you at least recognize that there is a POSSIBILITY that maybe you have a setting wrong or that there is a problem between the connection of your laptop and your hdtv? just a possibility.

because when i hook up my laptop to my TV, there is no blurriness and none of the image is missing... i run in 16:9 aspect ratio when i plan on outputting the signal to the TV. thats 1280x720. on my laptop i run it in 1280x800 or 1024x640.

the xbox / ps3, both run the game in 1024x600.

also, is your laptop doing the upscaling or is it your TV? that is an important question i think, because nvidia gpu's are capable of upscaling, just like the xbox does. TV's also have upscaling algorithms. My guess is that nvidia's upscaling algorithms are better, but I don't know enough about it and i guess it depends on the TV.

just a thought. maybe some more experimenting is in order? i look forward to hearing your results.

 

I only become defensive when I recieve personal insults as a result of merely stating conclusions of my tests.

My laptop was doing the upscaling because I set the res. on the laptop, and it was outputting at this res.

My conclusion is simply that at same/similar resolutions, the 360 gives considerably smoother framerates/gameplay than my 8600M GT laptop.

(although my 8800GT desktop is a different story )