Will upgrading my RAM help me with Bioshock?

My set-up is listed in my sig. The E1705 maxes out at 2 gigs of RAM, so that's what I'm upgrading to. How much will this help me?

Right now, to get a good frame rate, I keep it at 1400x900 and use mostly medium setting, with some effects turned off.

Today I tried it at 1024x768 with everything on high and all effects on, and it ran pretty well and looked really nice, until I got the machine gun. Then the FPS started to drop to hell.

Do you think another gig of RAM will really help me in terms of frame rate, and playing at atleast 1400x900 at medium/high settings with all effects on?

When I say play, I'm talking about the demo. I'm going to be upgrading my RAM and then trying the demo again. I'll probably buy the game even if I don't see the performace increase I'm hoping for.

 

probably not. it will help with stuttering when entering a new room, and load times slightly. If you notice your hard drive clicking alot while playing the game then you need more RAM. Bottom line, it will help with hitches and random pauses, but not overall fps, mostly.

EDIT: dont get me wrong though, its a worthwhile upgrade.

 

I think it will indeed help.. it sounds like something to do with like the sound effects loading, frames ..etc... does it do it EVERYTIME you use the machine gun? Or just a few here and there?

Bottom line, you probably can help it... but it again is only a demo.. perhaps thats a known issue that may be remedied soon?

 

That is really weird. I played BioShock on my 1520 with the 8600M GT and it ran fine on 1440x900 and basically all max settings. I think I left certain things off....but

Isn't the 7900 GS almost equivalent or better than the 8600M GT? I don't know if it could be the 1GB of ram because if it only happens with the machine gun it has to be something else.

 

Yes, having insufficiant ram can cause this, but also insufficiant video memory can too. Usually not having enough ram will cause stuttering, eccessive HDD loading, or the screen freezing for a few seconds. Not having enough video memory can make your FPS go from something like 100fps to 3 suddenly. Anything like lowering just one setting can keep it from maxing out.

If your running windows vista then the extra gig will probebly solve your issue, if it's not enough ram, then now you have enough, and if it's not enough video memory, then now your system has more to share with the GPU.

 

From memory the 7900GS is a lower clocked, version of the 7900GT and GTX , less pipes etc etc.
so its more comparable to the 8600mgs, but without DX10 features.

It sits just above midrange (7600 gt) graphics cards , actually the 7600gt desktop model was overclocked to go faster than the 7900gs, which was always brought up in reviews.

adding ram improves performance against cacheing, I dont think there are any Turbocache notebooks that have the 7900 series chipset, turbocache uses system ram to augment graphics ram, for texturing and such.

so more ram would not really do anything for your card as regards rendering images, it may stop other issues though such as AI calculations and as previously mentioned Audio processing, especially having audio samples loaded into ram instead of virtual memory on the hard drive.

Upgrading your laptop ram is also quite cheap, (a heap load cheaper than upgrading the machine itself to get better graphics)

just dont forget that its very likely that you have 2 slots with 512meg in each
so you would probably have to buy 2 separate 1 gig modules to make up the 2gb ram

double check also if there is a bios update for your system to accept 4gb ram.
I am saying this because the ati x1000 series and geforce 7x series notebooks are generally of the newer generation that can support more ram, although this would need 2 x 2gig Sodimms.

Good luck and happy gaming.
I sooo need to upgrade my machine the x1400 struggles to play the bioshock demo decent at all, with the only bonus being that I can take a few minutes between each frame render to decide which weapon to use LOL

 

The extra ram surely wont hurt, 1GB is the minimum required for bioshock, 2GB will make a positive impact, it might not completely solve the issue, but it should help considerably.

 

double check also if there is a bios update for your system to accept 4gb ram.
I am saying this because the ati x1000 series and geforce 7x series notebooks are generally of the newer generation that can support more ram, although this would need 2 x 2gig Sodimms.

I hope there isn't an update, just because I already ordered the 2x1GB of RAM because I'd read, and was tld by a Dell rep yesterday, that the max I could put in was 2GB.

Thanks for all the info, guys. Even if the extra gig of RAM doesn't help me with BioShock, I know I need more than 1 gig of RAM anyway. So the upgrade is worth it to me.

 

You'll need a 64 bit OS to properly address 4 GB or more. I think you are correct, the E1405/1505/1705 max out at 2 GB, thats not to say that 2GB sticks wont work, they may,they may not,or they could lead to stability issues, and Dell wont offer you support if your going over their stated max.

 

In the end maybe 3GB will be a better thing for you, if 2GB isnt enuff. that's 1x1GB and 1x2GB sticks.

 

ram should help

but apparently the drivers for the 79xx series hinder your framerates

i tried the new beta drivers with the modded inf file and i still get stuttering (7950gtx)

If you want to save some money right now (what is it, $50 for a 1 gig stick) you can wait a week or 2 and see if 3rd parties will fix this issue. But you'll probably want to upgrade to 2 gigs anyways

here's the beta drivers