For gaming, is there a point to upgrade RAM?

My laptop has 4 GB DDR3 RAM (1066 thing) and I was wondering, does upgrading it to either 6GB or 8 GB have any effect on gaming? My cpu is i5 450m and gpu is ATI Mobility Radeon hd 5870. Thanks!

 

In most cases, no. If you're a heavy multitasker who leaves stuff running while you game, then maybe. But otherwise most games do fine with 4GB RAM.

 

Nope, 4GB is enough. You only need to add more RAM if you find yourself running out and it all depends on what you do. I do game and level design and I could honestly use up 16GB of RAM if I tried, I have 12GB in my desktop and I've ran out before....in photoshop lol

 

Maybe if you have 8GB you can try creating a 4GB ramdrive and put your swap file on the ramdrive instead of hdd you'd see a benefit. Otherwise most games don't use more than 1GB

 

Hmm I thought most modern games will use more than 2GB. I've seen Crysis in 64 bit exceed 4 GB.

But pertaining to this thread, as long as games continue to be 32 bit only, then 4GB is fine. Once games start to release 64 bit regularly, maybe then having more than 4GB for gaming will make sense.

 

Crysis is a bit of an outlier. Most modern games won't use more than 2GB, because that's all they can use on a 32bit machine. They will likely use less in the general case. And even when they move to 64bit, there's not a huge jump in memory usage. Most game memory usage is in textures and maps and such, which don't expand with the move to 64bit. Only program code actually expands memory usage with 64bit, and those executables are generally only a few tens of megabytes at the most.

 

That seems rather counter intuitive, the swap file is used primarily when you run out of ram, so if you put the swap file on RAM then it's more likely to be used seeing as you could have used the RAM that the swap file would be located on to stop the swap file from being used much in the first place. This might not make sense but it's just a silly idea to do that.

 

It makes sense with some older programs that specifically allocate swap space in addition to regular memory, and with a 32bit OS. Not on a 64bit system.

 

ya 4GB is enough.. MW2 for me uses 3.2GB at most but i've got 8GB page file too

 

I see. Thank you guys for answering my question quickly. I guess I don't need to spend extra bucks on RAM for now.

Anyways, I have another random question. When I do decide to buy a RAM in the future, can I mix up the different RAM types? For example, mixing 1066 and 1333 versions of 204 pin RAM?

 

You can mix size, brand, etc, but I don't think you can mix speed.

 

It will default to the slowest speed RAM anyhow.

 

Hell no. 2GB is enough. (see sig.)

 

I notice some games using near to 4GB of RAM, GTA IV was one game and another was one that I had installed high texture Mods.

 

4GB RAM is plenty for the most part. 2GB is stretching it though. If you can afford it 6GB or 8GB can't hurt. But that money could be better put elsewhere like a faster CPU, better screen if offered, or even an SSD, or towards something like a Momentus XT hybrid hard drive.

 

4GB should be more than enough for gaming

 

Heres a question: What would the personal use of having 32gb of ram be? Since some companies DO offer that...well maybe not in laptops

 

Major Photoshop work, lots of virtual machines, any multitude of 3D apps like CAD, Maya, etc.

Personally, I've considered getting lots of RAM if/when it gets cheap again and making a nice big ramdisk and have certain apps load there at boot up.

 

I cant imagine photoshop using 32GB of ram. I mean, thats A LOT of ram. Unless your taking some 70 MP picture of mars and then a 70 MP picture of earth with a bunch of people in it, then taking those people and putting them in the mars picture and making them fly and make it look as realistic as possible..

But I dont even think that could use 32gb of RAM

 

Recommended (not mimimum) installed RAM is 2GB for most all modern games.

 

im not sure, nut i think it needed for those billboard sized photos as they are large and are usually a composite of several large pitctures pieced together via layers. add to this the ram headroom you need to manipulate all those pixels for effects such as lighting, masking and such abd im thinking you could well use that kind of ram for photoshop.
i know guys who video edit professionally and semi professionally will gobble that amount of ram in ppro and ae.

 

Of course it can all depend on how much stuff you have running in the background. 2GB with a fairly clean machine I agree. But load up itunes, adobe crap, skype, blah blah blah, you can consume 1GB of that RAM pretty quickly. 4GB you should be safe and more than adequate.

And regarding all that RAM for Photoshop, once you start adding layers, running effects, etc, it can quickly consume a LOT of memory.

edit: lol - what trvlbug said!

 

Well you all have good points. Except I don't use photoshop that much. I knew really professional stuff would use that much.

Back on topic. For me the most you'll ever need for gaming is just 4gb. Easily go with less. Just depends on how much multi tasking you do.

 

2gb is more tha enough. my dekstop is currently on win 7 64bit. Games like Starcraft II, CSS, MW2, Live For Speed, DiRt2, Grid and etc etc. All working fine.

The only time i see my Rams being maxed is during video editing.
Which will lag like hell.

So for gaming, i'll recommend 4gb. Speeds? well, no noticiable difference in gaming wise.

 

the VRAM is more important than system ram in most cases.

Most games are ok with 2GB of ram, some modern games go above 2gb and need 4gb to perform there best. But it depends on the settings of the game and thats an important point to make.

It may take 4GB of ram to play on VHIGH but only 2GB of ram to play on High for the same game.

So really what is important is to match the RAM to the system, if you have a high end machine then you want 4GB+ to sync well with that system, if you have an older or slower machine then there is no reason to upgrade the RAM expecting a performance increase because it wont happen.

 

To be honest, the cost difference between 2GB and 4GB is like what, $40 and lots of times if you configure a PC it can be less at the OEM. $40 is well worth the benefit you'll get. But to go to 8GB it's $100+ over 4GB, and the benefit is minimal for most cases, except those mentioned.

So bottom line, choose 4GB and a 64bit OS.