Reply With Quote1gb is fine. Only battlefield2 really benefits from more.
Ok, the basic standard for how much RAM you should have goes up all the time. Right now, I have an AMD64 3000+ with 1 gig of RAM. Geforce 6600 (GT or whatever).
Oblivion is on the way, but before I pop my arm to get a vein to stick it in, I want to make sure I can run it properly.
So what is the RAM standard nowadays?
1gb is fine. Only battlefield2 really benefits from more.
RAM is so cheap these days I tell everyone to put 2 gig in new systems. It can't hurt.
Vista will be "512 meg minimum, 1 gig recommended", I believe, and we all know how MS is with minimum/recommended specs...
Is anyone actually going to upgrade to Vista, rather than just wait for the next PC?
RAM-wise, I have 2GB, so you should too.
My OS+essentials eats 300MB before launching a browser. There's a
noticable difference in games from 1GB to 1.5GB or more. It's not just BF2,
but several MMOs eat memory. I've had awful stuttering in FPSes and DAoC
since textures are swapped out frequently on a 1GB system.
Personally, I consider 512MB the bare minimum (ah pity da fool who runs with less!), 1GB recommended, 2GB optimal.Originally Posted by Robert Sharp
Some people seem to benefit from having more than a gig, while others don't. With your current config, I'd say you're fine with a gig. Frankly, your video card isn't studly enough to really require more, IMHO.
That doesn't make any sense. "You're already handicapped, so it's no big deal if you handicap yourself more?"
You should have 2 gigs for Oblivion, as the game will eat your card alive if you let it.
Hmmm...I didn't realize my video card was considered total crap. It isn't that old, and it does use PCI-e tech. HL2 looks great. Is Oblivion really THAT different to where my vid card will handicap me?
512MB minimum, more is better. My custom XP setup uses less than 100mb upon boot, so 1GB is fine for me.
It's not crap and should run Oblivion just fine. It runs pretty well on an old 9700 Pro I've got.
Out of curiosity, what did you shut down and how do you know exactly how many MBs of RAM your setup is using? I can check the performance indicators in task manager, but that's probably not what you mean.
You can do that. Process Explorer from Sysinternals works a bit better (nice task manager replacement.) it sorts, and keeps history on every process.
I've been putting 1GB on office machines for a while - 512 mb is nice for web browsing and a couple of programs. 1 GB comes in handy when you run the occasional heavy program (i.e. when I go over to try to fix some problem.)
You have to scale the amount of ram to the machine. After all, it's a bit silly to go to 2 GB on an AMD XP 2000+ with a Ti4200 for example.
A few games like WoW touch past 1GB of RAM (to 1.2 GB or so). I use 2 GB on my game machine cause no swapping is good swapping! Yeah, Battlefield has costs me quite a few machine upgrades (Ti4200 -> 9600p -> 9800p -> 6800GT). Funny enough, I stopped playing BF2 since Civ4 came out and my urge to upgrade has disappeared.
Google "Black Viper." He's got an extensive list of XP processes and different configs to use. There's a lot of junk that doesn't need to be running.
I just ordered another 1GB of RAM for my iMac, pushing it to the highest spec iMac currently available.
~$90 after tax and shipping. Don't buy RAM from Apple, they wanted like $300.
No, meaning that if you're using a low-to-mid-range video card like the 6600 series - and a low-to-mid-range CPU like the A64 3000+ - then chances are you're running at lower resolutions and detail settings to maintain a playable framerate, which means less data traffic, which means less benefit from having more RAM in your system.
I'd say a better analogy is: "There's no point hooking up a trailer to a Ford Escort: buy a more powerful vehicle if you want to haul more crap." :-)
I have a system similar to Robert's, but with a 6800GT instead, and have run Oblivion with both 1 and 1.5 gigs of RAM; I saw little if any performance gain from the extra 512MB at the graphics settings I use. So YMMV.You should have 2 gigs for Oblivion, as the game will eat your card alive if you let it.
Extra RAM never hurts, but it isn't always helpful. You may be better off saving your money, particularly if you're talking about DDR RAM; obsolescence becomes an issue.
The 6600 series isn't crap, but these days it represents the low-end of the midrange - or is it the high end of the budget lineup? Whatever: it ain't cutting edge, but if you find it adequate, it's adequate.
Bottom line: if you're satisfied with your system's performance, there's no reason to upgrade; if you're unsatisfied, that's when you start to shop. :-)
So far, I'm doing alright on the high graphics settings with Oblivion. I get some stutters sometimes, but I turned off the long distance draw, and that helped. It's a gorgeous game. I may have to tune the graphics down at some point, but it's hard once you have seen it in all its glory.
After bumping up to 2gigs I saw fantastic gains with BF2 and EQ2. Fantastic enough to make me wonder what the heck took me so long.
Me too, Robb. There aren't that many games that need it, but the ones that do are pretty good motivators.
Go with 2 Gigs and you can get away without turning off your computer for weeks.
Posting Permissions