more RAM = more FPS?

[masshass81]

All of the memory articles I read focus a lot on OCing and reaching FSB speeds past those of the stock speeds. I also see that more memory will reduce load times, but how much of an effect does it have on fps in games? How much fps can you see between 512 and 1gig (being same RAM and same system setups)?

 

[Corporate Thug]

well, there is a lot less lag with a gig. memory intensive games will "hiccupp" when you get to graphic intensive parts. thus, with a gig of ram, you will have a higher "minimum FPS" than the 512 and therefore a higher average FPS

 

[scaryclownsarefun]

i was wondering that myself. i heard that having 1GB of ram will completely eliminate the nead for a paging file, and can increase the life of you hard drives because of it. i don't think that more than a gig is neccesary, but i am not sure about the difforence between 512 and 1Gig.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

I don't play a lot of games, but i know the difference between 512megs of ram and a gig in UT2004 is HUGE. Not for FPS, but for loading times and and general game play.

 

[Lithan]

In cod:uo, I get mild freezing when dipping into swap. With 1gig, smooth as silk. My buddies who run with lower quality settings run fine with 512 though. I run max settings.

Also, I am always the first loaded.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: scaryclownsarefun
i heard that having 1GB of ram will completely eliminate the nead for a paging file

That's not true. Windows likes having a paging file no matter what. I think it's kinda a security blanket for Bill Gates.

 

[Tylanner]

I think it would help alot in games like BF1942 and UT2004. But games like doom or quake or CS, you wouldn't see much difference.

Of course none of this matters if your PC is limited elsewhere.

 

[Concillian]

I have tested BFV extensively, and have some data on RAM if you want to read through what I posted on planetbattlefield.com a few months ago and some person was nice enough to post up on the web:

http://home.insightbb.com/~dgr...vietnam_benchmarks.htm

I didn't really see any change in FPS between 512 and 768, but I did see a significant improvement in level loading times (from close to 90 seconds down to 60 seconds) and there was some stuttering after level loads that went away with 768 megs.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I have yet to see a convincing test where more ram = more FPS, if anything it helps your load times and not much else. If it does up your minimum FPS then the average FPS should go up but all the tests I see show the average between 512MB as pretty equal so that should mean the max FPS is lower with more ram in order for the average to be the same? No, more ram usually does not mean more FPS.

Buy a 512MB stick of some of the fastest ram (such as the Crucial Ballistix PC3200) and then buy another stick later on down the road as faster ram does = more FPS.

 

[Concillian]

While I didn't see FPS change between 512MB and 768MB, there WERE definitely pauses that happened with 512 MB that did not happen with 768 MB, especially right after a map load. This did NOT show up in FRAPS, and I don't know why. The difference was definitely noticeable in BFV going from 512 MB to 768 MB. But 512MB was definitely playable.

 

[masshass81]

so since faster RAM = more FPS, how much of a difference are we talking about. In another thread a guy is comparing $160 1gig of cas2.5 with 512mb of faster RAM. Lets say we compare the Corsair value 1gig cas2.5 with ~$290 Crucial ballistix 1gig cas2 - how much of a difference in FPS and load times are we talking about here (w/o considering OCing)?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I'd say about 15-25% if you've got each memory running at its fastest clock and settings. Obviously you don't buy ram like Crucial Ballistix if you don't plan on pushing it to its max (DDR500+) Otherwise the difference isn't going to be as dramatic if you're just running each at 400MHz (DDR) and different timings and therefore the extra money spent on the faster ram isn't going to be worth it.

 

[dguy6789]

more ram is ALWAYS GREATER then faster ram. Going from the slowest ram in the world to the fastest, if the size stays the same, wont get you even 5 more fps. Imn talkin spending 200 bucks on a 512MB super ram. Its all useless.


If you have 512MB of ram or less, when you play doom3, or ut2k4 at max settings with 20 ppl, it will pause once in a while for like half a second. More ram gets rid of this, and more ram allows you to alt tab with ease. Thats why my new rigs gonna have 1.5GB

 

[Delorian]

Originally posted by: scaryclownsarefun
i was wondering that myself. i heard that having 1GB of ram will completely eliminate the nead for a paging file, and can increase the life of you hard drives because of it. i don't think that more than a gig is neccesary, but i am not sure about the difforence between 512 and 1Gig.

I thought that back in the Win3.1 days w/16 full megabytes of edo ram! Looks like that will always be false!

 

[RelaxTheMind]

my win3.1 compaq had 8mb edo ram. i upgraded to 32mb (16x2) and I saw significant increase in windows loading time. I dont remember if I got any fps increase on doom original. guess I have to dust it off and do some testing.

I went from 256 > 512 > >1.5gb > 1024mb ram (crucial > kingston > kingston+OCZ > OCZ) The biggest difference in loading time was from 256 > 512 and only a tad faster with 512 > 1024 most games but Sims 2 loads in like half the time now. Doom 3...no difference (love the graphics and seemingly repetative gameplay but not the "play it once" plot).

So if i had 2gb of PC2100 ram cas3. Would it really be faster than 1gb of pc4200 cas2. Most games dont even dump that much data to RAM at the same time.

Now if you are talking about having about 3gb of ram and making a RAMdrive and installing the entire game on it..... OK yes much faster. Given you shut down/uninstall any "RAM optimizers"

My old games that I can fit on the RAMdrive load in mere fractions of the time.

vicflo

 

[Pollock]

Originally posted by: RelaxTheMind
my win3.1 compaq had 8mb edo ram. i upgraded to 32mb (16x2) and I saw significant increase in windows loading time. I dont remember if I got any fps increase on doom original. guess I have to dust it off and do some testing.

I went from 256 > 512 > >1.5gb > 1024mb ram (crucial > kingston > kingston+OCZ > OCZ) The biggest difference in loading time was from 256 > 512 and only a tad faster with 512 > 1024 most games but Sims 2 loads in like half the time now. Doom 3...no difference (love the graphics and seemingly repetative gameplay but not the "play it once" plot).

So if i had 2gb of PC2100 ram cas3. Would it really be faster than 1gb of pc4200 cas2. Most games dont even dump that much data to RAM at the same time.

Now if you are talking about having about 3gb of ram and making a RAMdrive and installing the entire game on it..... OK yes much faster. Given you shut down/uninstall any "RAM optimizers"

My old games that I can fit on the RAMdrive load in mere fractions of the time.

vicflo

You should compare 1GB of CAS2.5 to 512MB of CAS2, since that's a more feasible comparison. Honestly, you can get quality PC3200 ram for the same price as generic PC2100 ram. And by the way, there's no such thing as PC4200 CAS2 ram; it just can't be done. Anyway, the general rule of thumb with ram is that capacity > bandwidth > latency. Anand (or some other AT journalist) even said it himself.

 

[dguy6789]

"So if i had 2gb of PC2100 ram cas3. Would it really be faster than 1gb of pc4200 cas2. Most games dont even dump that much data to RAM at the same time. "


Yes. The difference between ram speeds(pc2100 to pc3200) is trivial at best. Run doom 3, host a dedicated ut2k4 game server, burn a cd, compress an entire harddrive's contents at max compression, have aim open, 15 web browsers open, and have music playin in the background all at the same time. I can guarentee the 2GB of pc2100 will be more then twice as fast as the 1GB of pc4200.

Remember, most people dont do stuff this intensive, but for people that do, they know what is good.

 

[RelaxTheMind]

heh. I usually close everything when i run doom 3 anyways. lags a bit when i try to run mp with some mp3s.
for any other games I can. Im pretty sure the extra ram helps a bit. then again a game that isnt as cpu intensive helps too.

sorry didnt know about the pc4200 cas2 thing.

So one of the few good reasons to buy faster ram for most people would be (i guess) to give overclocking headroom.

PS. Speaking of FPS I need to lower the clock on my t14200.... while posting this there are sprites above the above sentence.

yuck

vicflo

 

[Jojo1971]

ive seen difference when i upgraded from 512 to 1 gig but not from 1 gig to 2 gigs..