At what point would 2GB RAM be a bottleneck?

Assuming running Vista in this case, what kind of computer use would it take to exhaust 2 GB RAM enough to slow down further applications or run out of memory? In other words, what would it take for 2 GB to not be enough?

Following from that, is pagefile usage ever an issue for 2 GB RAM vs. 4 GB RAM?

I am already familiar with 32-bit OS underutilization of 4 GB RAM. I'm curious about real-world performance gaps (or potential gaps) running 2 GB RAM.

 

You'd have to run some pretty intensive applications to tie up 2GB of RAM; high-res photo editing, video editing, and games are very high consumption applications. Of course, these computer uses are not very common among average users.

 

It would take one poorly written program that has no garbage collection, malloc issues (memory allocation, so called memory leaks) to bring down a system to a crawl.

This question is highly debatable and depends on your own use of your PC.

 

How much memory do games actually use these days? Keep in mind I haven't seen anything more recent than 2005 or so on my own computer. Are there actually any games out there where 2 GB would be a bottleneck and the CPU or GPU wouldn't be? The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether one single app could use enough memory to make 2 GB not enough.

 

Yes there is-Crysis!

 

The most I've ever seen a game use was 600MB for c&c3.dat, a data file for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. There are probably more memory hungry games out there, though.

 

Vista is pretty much better off with at least 3 Gb of Ram, since 1 gb is used by the OS .
Anything above 3 Gb is enough for pretty much anything.

 

Games are nothing. My friend who's an engineer, he uses some design software that can eat up quite a lot of RAM. He currently has 6 GB of RAM in his workstation and he said it's not enough.

 

BF2 needs more than 2Gb with XP, so itll def. need more with Vista.

 

That's pretty fascinating. I'd probably want to get BF2 if I get a new computer. I loved BF1942. It "needs" it? That seems surprising for a game that came out three years ago, before people regularly had 2 GB RAM. Is there really a performance gap when running it with 2 GB vs. 3/4 GB? Is there a reason why even the recommended RAM requirement (1 GB) is only half what you are saying doesn't run the game well?

And stewiegriffin -- yes, I would have expected that for engineering demands. My question primarily pertains to laptops where there are currently physical limits on what you can run on a system that weighs 4 to 8 pounds. In other words, consumer/business market systems running a 32-bit OS.

So far I'm hearing that heavy applications and games such as Crysis and possibly Battlefield 2 demand a system with more than 2 GB RAM. Though I suppose you'd be much more likely to run into a wall with GPU with Crysis before 2 GB RAM was a problem, right? Thanks for the responses.

 

Well i am running crysis under xp 32bit with DX10 hacked onto it (suprisingly easy) and its using up 94% of my 2GB RAM! do you think it would be beneficial for me to go 64bit and get some more RAM?

 

Well first thing is, you should not revive old threads.

Second, you dont need more memory, you are not allocating your memory efficiently.
Go to start, than go to the run command and type in MSCONFIG,
go into the startup and serives tabs and shut off all programs, services and software which you are not using. That will free up a lot of your cpu, memory and harddrive cycles, making your laptop run faster and more efficiently.

Since you have XP, your memory usage at startup should be no more than 300Mb, of it is, than your memory is not allocated properly, and you need to clean up the registry with msconfig.

K-TRON

 

thanks, i didnt know this was an old thread, i found it on google, anyway thanks