In games, why more than 256mb memory?

[Ra\/eN]

Part of the NDA prevents me to say which games... yet it is getting scary(the amount of ram).. the fog, the smoke.. the flash of lazers... and moving individual tree leaves. The water as it splashes and sparkles.. till it turns red from the battle.. aww man.. screw it I am gonna go play.

[jstnomega]

Morrowind.

Bring RAM.

Lots & lots of RAM.

[jagojago12]

Originally posted by BremenCulhaven


This is a result of your hard drive subsystem, which is one of the slowest systems in your computer. Should get another HD and run a Raid will get a minimum of 10% improvement in hard drive performance.

BC

This is a result of my hard drive subsystem because I am using my page file because I've ran out of physical memory. Thus, I'm going to spend $40 to get more memory instead of spending about $200 on a RAID 0 setup.

$0.02

[BremenCulhaven]

Originally posted by jagojago12

I might get another stick of 256MB tomorrow. Sometimes Morrowind takes excessively long to load levels.

Ah, no this has nothing to do with the page/swap file. A game loads from the hard drive and executes from memory. You said above it takes a long time to load a level. The game is always going to have to load the level initially from the hard drive then run/execute the code from memory. If, there isn't enough physical memory to load all of the lvl then the rest of the lvl will be paged on the hard drive. Adding more memory will not help the speed of transferring the level from the hard drive to physical memory. For example, if you save and reload often having a raid will speed up reloads, but having more memory won't. Having more memory will only speed up game play during the game when the game has to access the hard drive for more information vs not having to because you have the available physical memory.

BC
Oh, and it would only cost you about $160 to setup a raid using another Maxtor 80GB hd. I personally run two 40GB IBMs in a raid configuration and pull over 1000+ on HDD in PCmark2002.

[Ashpool]

Originally posted by BremenCulhaven
Oh, and it would only cost you about $160 to setup a raid using another Maxtor 80GB hd. I personally run two 40GB IBMs in a raid configuration and pull over 1000+ on HDD in PCmark2002.

Still cheaper to get more RAM and have better gameplay

[EDIT]And you still have to format your drives in order to make the RAID work[/EDIT]

[Anarchy UK]

I don't see why anyone would ever want 512MB ram... it wasn't that many years ago that you could buy 500MB hard-drives!!!!

Seriously, how many users with 512MB actually use it?

Let's face it.. 256MB is shed loads and more than enough for nearly everybody..

Still.. it's cheaper than ever.. so what the hell..

I got mine from Crucial in the UK.. brilliant service.. ordered it monday - got it tuesday.. 256MB CAS2 PC133 SD for £40 inc. vat.. it is hard to find generic in the UK for that price (when figuring in p&p).

[Ra\/eN]

Originally posted by Anarchy UK
I don't see why anyone would ever want 512MB ram... it wasn't that many years ago that you could buy 500MB hard-drives!!!!

Seriously, how many users with 512MB actually use it?

And it was only yesterday that we used a 286 with 16 kb of ram... with no hard drive...
then it was a 166 with 16 mbs and 500mb hds
then it was.. 733 with 128 mbs 2.0gb hd
and this gets higher with each year software.... yeah stay away from getting more ram, and pay the consequances .. when you might SAY....DAMNIT I SHOULDA GOT IT WHILE IT WAS CHEAP..
NOW I CANT RUN "GAME OF THE YEAR 2003"

And if you take the time cruise diff forums.. lot of users, not just gamers are heading the 512 limit....

[johndoe23]

Originally posted by Anarchy UK
I don't see why anyone would ever want 512MB ram... it wasn't that many years ago that you could buy 500MB hard-drives!!!!

Seriously, how many users with 512MB actually use it?

Let's face it.. 256MB is shed loads and more than enough for nearly everybody..

Still.. it's cheaper than ever.. so what the hell..

I got mine from Crucial in the UK.. brilliant service.. ordered it monday - got it tuesday.. 256MB CAS2 PC133 SD for £40 inc. vat.. it is hard to find generic in the UK for that price (when figuring in p&p).

256 ram is not enough if you want to play games at high settings. To list some examples morrowind, SOF2, GTA3. And new games are that are just around the corner like UT2003 will definately need 512. Also if you are doing Photoshop work or even running alot of programs 256 isn't enough.

[low-standards]

i play gta3 @1024x768 all maxed out and don't run out of memory on my 256mb system. this is the fourth time i have seen on the web that gta3 benefits from more than 256mb memory. not on my crappy system! no hard disk paging here in this game.!

[Anarchy UK]

Originally posted by johndoe23


256 ram is not enough if you want to play games at high settings. To list some examples morrowind, SOF2, GTA3. And new games are that are just around the corner like UT2003 will definately need 512. Also if you are doing Photoshop work or even running alot of programs 256 isn't enough.

I can run Fruity loops 3 with more than 10 vst plugins at the same time with no problems.. AT THE SAME TIME as running fruity I could be surfing the odd web page.. I could also open up word or outlook or powerpoint or even xara and start messing around... I can easily have all these applications running at once doing stuff.. and I could keep switching between them...

I seriously think some of you guys are kidding yourselves reagrding what you need. I understand.. you would much rather be the 512MB guy rather than the 256MB guy; despite 256 being enough for your purposes.

Exactly what needs 512MB in photoshop and how often do you do that particular task anyway?

[jagojago12]

Originally posted by BremenCulhaven


Ah, no this has nothing to do with the page/swap file. A game loads from the hard drive and executes from memory. You said above it takes a long time to load a level. The game is always going to have to load the level initially from the hard drive then run/execute the code from memory. If, there isn't enough physical memory to load all of the lvl then the rest of the lvl will be paged on the hard drive. Adding more memory will not help the speed of transferring the level from the hard drive to physical memory. For example, if you save and reload often having a raid will speed up reloads, but having more memory won't. Having more memory will only speed up game play during the game when the game has to access the hard drive for more information vs not having to because you have the available physical memory.

BC
Oh, and it would only cost you about $160 to setup a raid using another Maxtor 80GB hd. I personally run two 40GB IBMs in a raid configuration and pull over 1000+ on HDD in PCmark2002.

When I run out of memory the whole level and data that's loading parts of the new levels are going to be placed into Virtual memory. Performance will be helped significantly if the data could be placed onto a DDR module running at about 95% effective (I get 2000MB/sec from PC2100) than letting the level load from a hard drive getting a sustained transfer rate of 40MB/sec, a far cry from 2000MB/sec. There's still going to be lag when the hard disk data goes to the physical memory but Morrowind is the single game where I suspect that it is paged into my virtual memory. No other games lags this bad.

[BremenCulhaven]

Originally posted by jagojago12


When I run out of memory the whole level and data that's loading parts of the new levels are going to be placed into Virtual memory. Performance will be helped significantly if the data could be placed onto a DDR module running at about 95% effective (I get 2000MB/sec from PC2100) than letting the level load from a hard drive getting a sustained transfer rate of 40MB/sec, a far cry from 2000MB/sec. There's still going to be lag when the hard disk data goes to the physical memory but Morrowind is the single game where I suspect that it is paged into my virtual memory. No other games lags this bad.

Yep, understand that. BG2 was like that with 128mb memory. Once you moved far away from your starting point if you didn't have enough memory to load the whole zone into memory the hard drive would need to be accessed causing the game to chug some. The way you're initial posted sounded like you where refering to loading the level in the first place (like a saved game) and not the game loading needed data in the middle of game play.

One thing I do find funny is how people try to make their systems very fast OCing, expensive video cards, and gangs of memory but only run one hard drive and sometimes a slow one at that.

BC

[mcarag]

Originally posted by Anarchy UK


I can run Fruity loops 3 with more than 10 vst plugins at the same time with no problems.. AT THE SAME TIME as running fruity I could be surfing the odd web page.. I could also open up word or outlook or powerpoint or even xara and start messing around... I can easily have all these applications running at once doing stuff.. and I could keep switching between them...

I seriously think some of you guys are kidding yourselves reagrding what you need. I understand.. you would much rather be the 512MB guy rather than the 256MB guy; despite 256 being enough for your purposes.

Exactly what needs 512MB in photoshop and how often do you do that particular task anyway?

I'm a design professional, and can attest to the bottleneck 256MB of RAM poses. Web work is OK in Photoshop when you keep the art at screen DPI, but working with enough high-res photos for print, and shuffling them between Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign will bring a 256mb machine to quite a slowdown. If you're working with one photo at a time in PS, then 256MB is ok. But when I'm working on comps or sketches for print, I rarely find myself with less than several high-res, occasionally full-spread images open at once (usually with Illustrator or Indesign running at the same time).

I suppose that's just my personal practice, but I'd rather extend the ceiling to 512MB than limit my practices to fit within 256MB.

[jagojago12]

Originally posted by BremenCulhaven


One thing I do find funny is how people try to make their systems very fast OCing, expensive video cards, and gangs of memory but only run one hard drive and sometimes a slow one at that.

BC

Main reason for that is that I don't entirely need a fast hard drive for a good gaming experience and I really don't have enough money for a decent (in my opinion) RAID setup (RAID 0+1). Perhaps when I have more money I'll invest into a RAID motherboard and four serial ATA hard drives. That'll be smokin'.

*edit* Oh yeah, I got some of that $34.99 Best Buy RAM. Surprisingly it is of VERY high quality. These are Samsung memory modules on a Samsung PCB, all you Samsung PC2700 overclockers know how important that is .

[BremenCulhaven]

Originally posted by jagojago12


.

*edit* Oh yeah, I got some of that $34.99 Best Buy RAM. Surprisingly it is of VERY high quality. These are Samsung memory modules on a Samsung PCB, all you Samsung PC2700 overclockers know how important that is .

Yeah, saw that deal too in the paper. BestBuy must have thought it was too good too. The flyer in this weeks paper the memory is now $45 with the rebates. Think it is PNY brand, good stuff.

BC