How much RAM for gaming?

[Jumpem]

Is 4GB enough? Is 8GB overkill?

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

4gig is enough. Unless you run a 64-bit OS, you won't be able to even see/use the full 8gig.

 

[MustISO]

4GB is fine for now.

 

[inhotep]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat
4gig is enough. Unless you run a 64-bit OS, you won't be able to even see/use the full 8gig.

I agree. 4GB is good for now for both 32bit and 64bit OS. And yea 32bit XP or Vista can't use more than 4GB, I think it can use 3.5GB according to MS's website.

I have 6GB right now without virtual memory and none of my games have used more than 1.7GB ram.
Games like FSX, HL2+it's mobs like TF2 etc, Arma, etc.

When I had 2GB ram, I have to turn on virtual memory which slows things down a lot.

So if you are running one game at a time, 4GB is enough.


Added: 8GB is not an overkill as you can turn off your virtual memory so windows no longer use the virtual ram on your hard disk, swapping between ram and virtual ram. Your machine will fly.

 

[Marty502]

Would you guys disable the pagefile with 3 GB of RAM and Vista? It's what I've got. Heaviest game I play is Oblivion.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: Marty502
Would you guys disable the pagefile with 3 GB of RAM and Vista? It's what I've got. Heaviest game I play is Oblivion.

No...disabling VM can cause programs to do wierd things sometimes.

 

[TC91]

Originally posted by: Marty502
Would you guys disable the pagefile with 3 GB of RAM and Vista? It's what I've got. Heaviest game I play is Oblivion.

Well if you dont like the pagefile, why not set it to a very low value like 32mb or something (dont remember what the min pagefile size is). That way apps that want it (like photoshop) wont complain about it. Only do that if you are sure that you will not exceed the usage of your 3gb of ram though.

Although on vista, due to the superfetch feature, i wouldnt think a pagefile would be a big concern as most of your most common apps would be prefetched into your ram (unless you disabled superfetch).

 

[Nothinman]

Added: 8GB is not an overkill as you can turn off your virtual memory so windows no longer use the virtual ram on your hard disk, swapping between ram and virtual ram. Your machine will fly.

Windows won't use it even if it's setup unless it needs to so the only thing you're doing is freeing up some hard disk space.

 

[inhotep]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: Marty502
Would you guys disable the pagefile with 3 GB of RAM and Vista? It's what I've got. Heaviest game I play is Oblivion.

No...disabling VM can cause programs to do wierd things sometimes.

It does weird things when VM is disabled because it's running out of RAM, not enough RAM.

Like what TC91 said, you don't have to totally disable VM. Also keep in mind that some RAM maybe allocated for graphics. Try adjusting the VM size and see what happens. It won't hurt.

I don't think 3GB is enough to disable VM. You can try it thou. Have your task manager running and look at the performance tab. Or you can get a better task manager, Process Explorer, from here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/e...nternals/bb896653.aspx

You can always get more RAM as quality RAM is very cheap these days, try online retailers.

 

[Yellowbeard]

This is a good read for 4gb of RAM and gaming info:

http://www.corsairmemory.com/_...rformance_Analysis.pdf