More then 2 gigs of RAM for gaming worth it?

Does having 3 gigs of RAM in Windows XP give you a performance boost when gaming over 2 gigs?

Similarly will 3 or even 4 gigs in Vista also show a performance gain?

Thanks.

 

With Windows XP, 2GB is plenty. With Vista, 2GB should still be plenty (it's what I have in my desktop that I'm using with Vista), but 3 or 4GB wouldn't hurt. Vista loves RAM (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), since it uses your RAM more efficiently than XP does to help programs load faster (un-used RAM is wasted RAM). That said, having more than 2GB with Vista probably wouldn't give you a noticeable gaming performance increase (at least not with today's games), but it likely would increase your overall system speed and responsiveness.

If upgrading to 3 or 4 GB is pretty cheap, I'd say go for it, if only to "future proof". If not, 2GB is perfectly fine for current games.

 

For gaming in particular, I think getting 2GB of the fastest RAM your system could possibly handle would give better results than doubling up your RAM.

My notebook came with PC2-4300 RAM when it could handle PC2-5300. Since my ATI will use available system RAM, the results were obvious after the upgrade.

 

I do not think we are at the point where 3gb of RAM is worth it for gaming but I believe that point is fast approaching, most likely by the end of 2007, 3gb will be the "norm" for gamers.

 

The fastest RAM for notebook is basically the cheapest RAM. If you can afford it, then get the 3GB or even 4GB.

 

I don't think you'll see 3GB as the norm, but instead, you'll probably see 4GB. RAM trend tends to double after each generation (512, 1024, 2048, etc). Plus you lose dual channel by going 3GB. You'll also probably see 64 bit Windows come preinstalled in retail stores to make use of all 4GB of memory.

 

Emphasis on "fast approaching". As developers push for higher res textures, larger maps, and more units on screen at a time (I'm looking at you, Crysis) the need for more RAM (both system, and VRAM) will rapidly rise. The recommended system requirements for most new games is already 2GB. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the games coming out next Holiday season will have higher recommended specs.

That being said, I doubt any (good) developers will make the mistake of making the minimum over 1GB any time soon. The install base simply isn't there yet. Once Vista gets SP1 and more people switch over, bringing their shiny new systems with them, then we may see requirements higher than 1GB.

I also second the motion that having faster (as in lower latency, not necessarily higher clock speeds) RAM is a better choice than having a lot more, but slower RAM. I slapped 2GB of the lowest latency stuff I could get in a HP ZD8000 with a ATI X600 and a P4 @ 2.8 Ghz, and it was like night and day(the unit shipped with 512mb). I nearly doubled my FPS in some games. Load times were lowered drastically. Before I couldn't play BF2 because the game would usually be over, or a least close to it, before I even loaded. After the upgrade I was usually in by the time the first batch of control points were captured. Anyways, just my $0.02 on RAM.

 

2gb --> 3gb will definitly give you an improovment in performance in modern games, and it will allow your system overall to run more smooth.

notebooks really like to share system memory with your gpu, if thats the case its an even larger benifit.

desktops have shown 6-11% increase in performance on average going from 2-->4 gb of ram.

various benchmarks here on our forums have shown a HUGE increase in performance going from 2-->3gb of ram on a system that has turbocache (50% to 100% increase documented but not confirmed)

 

If you are running Vista, plug in a flash drive to enable use the readyboost. It will also help in "increasing" ram (although in real life it just puts the cache data from the hard disk to the flash drive).

 

big difference in supreme commander performance, but other wise I can't really think of another game that comes close to using 2Gb's of ram. but like others have said, its fast approaching to the point where games will use 2Gb+ of ram.

 

The word on the street is that its only usfull for systems with a low amount of system ram, like 1gb. a 2gb+ system supposedly recieves little or no benifit from it.

 

Just remeber that if you are running a 32-bit operating system, and if you are using XP you probably are, then you cannot fully use 4GB of RAM. The max amout of RAM a 32-bit system can access is somewhere around 3GB. If you get a 64-bit operating system (which you can't really find preinstalled) then the max amount of memory the system can access skyrockets to some unholy amount like 32GB or something.

I don't think that games can recomend higher system requirements than 2GB's since only Vista 64-bit operating systems can really use that RAM anyway. And a 64-bit operating system has even more compatability issues than Vista has already, so I wouldn't think anyone is going to be using that anytime soon. Thats not something that can be fixed with SP1 either. The compatability issues come from programs (mostly installers) that are still written for 16-bit systems. Those will never work with a 64-bit OS.

 

I have been wondering about this very point... both the G1S and the C90S have configuration options on several popular sites for 3GB of RAM but wouldn't you lose any benefit from the 2GB to 3GB move due to the drop to single channel???

It would drop from dual channel to single channel wouldn't it??? In all of the desktop systems I have built 2 identically sized sticks of RAM were required to enable dual channel...

Any one have a good comparison, say on a G1S???

Thanks,

Joe

 

Found my answer Here in an other thread...

Intel's Tech doc has this to say:

Dual-Channel Asymmetric
This mode is entered when both memory channels are routed and populated with different amounts (MB) of total memory. This configuration allows addresses to be accessed in series across the channels starting in channel A until the end of its highest rank, then continue from the bottom of channel B to the top of the rank. Real world applications are unlikely to make requests
that alternate between addresses that sit on opposite channels with this memory organization, so in most cases, bandwidth will be limited to that of a single channel.

Learn something new every day...
It would be nice to see some "Real Game" comparison benchmarks though

 

Dual channel is so over rated.... in a memory benchmark like sandra on a scale of 1000 points your losing a few points (50ish). In a game or somthing you MAY at max lose 1fps, and thats just giving you the benifit of the doubt the 1gb extra ram is much much better.

Its just another one of those computer myths that got out of hand like how vista is a memory hog. You know the real answer to that one by now dont you?

Vista uses more memory than XP when the memory is unused, it speeds up the system with featuers like superfetch. But when you start a game or some other app that needs the RAM, vista will unload those resources and let the program have them. So its about equal to XP in memory use besides the obvious stuff like aero taking up abit more resrouces, but you can set it to have those things turned off when you boot into a game or program aswell.

I used to be a benchmark freak, and when your trying to top 10 in world wide benchmark contest, every little thing counts. Thats when you spring for tight ram latencies, 1:1 cpu:ram divder, and ram that can be overclocked really high, and of course the ever so popular dual channel. Every bit counted. But for the every day user its not a big deal trust me.

 

I guess that is why it took so long for them to bother putting dual channel in laptops... Thanks for the info...

 

Thank you. I do get so tired of seeing Vista bashers spout it's idle RAM consumption as some kind of crime. It's not doing anything for you at the moment, so it actively tries to find things that it can load for you that it believes will be used. If it then detects that you are loading something else, all of that information is overwritten immediately as if it was a empty to begin with.

I have a 1.5 year old HP ZD8000 with 2GB RAM and a 5400 RPM Hard drive running Vista, and it loads programs faster than machines I've used with Raid 0 7200 RPM drives and 2-3GB of RAM running XP.

Ok, enough of my ranting I will leave the thread to resume it's previous course.