# No need for more than 4GB ram.



## Nick89 (Feb 25, 2009)

I see PC-gamers talking about having 6GB-8GB of ram like it makes there PC faster. I have 4GB of ram and used Win7 64bit and never used all of the ram.

I dont see a need for more than 4GB when gaming. And I dont know of any aplications that use more than 4GB of system ram. In the future maby, but until then its just a waste to have more than 4GB.

Maby some video processing programs use more than 4GB of system ram but for the average gamers its a waste.  /end rant.


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## sampofin (Feb 25, 2009)

true!


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## exodusprime1337 (Feb 25, 2009)

more then 4 isn't needed for gaming.. but for the e-peen... well that's a different story.  

i personally am using 4 gigs and i find it helps in mmo's like WoW or Warhammer online. but other then that 2 was fine for me.


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

lies  

it may not be "needed" but more then 4gb will help, + you can create a ram drive to make games load faster if u have enough ram ^^

just my opinion.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

I play WOW on 2Gigs and usually have over 1 gig or more free am i missing something or would 4 gigs really speed it up even tho it seems to use much less? ( i have a 4gig kit sitting around i never installed)


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

? i use'd to play wow, back in TBC and went thru 2GB, had all graphics up high tho and 1900x1200 reso


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## exodusprime1337 (Feb 25, 2009)

yup same here, i'm in wotlk now and in dalaran i can use almost 76% of 4gigs just to stay in town lol


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

i have wow open now all out in dual view with 2 monitors with Mozilla VLC playing a top gear episode and some little stuff open and I got 775MB left in task manager and page file is chillin, i have always been anal about fine tuning my system but does wow really take up more than the 600mb its showing the the processes window?


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

Orly would the fact you are using a similar graphics setup as mine but in SLI make a difference?


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

BTW  I'm using XP32bit
(Dalaran is the most stressful place in wow atm i believe, its the new shattrah)


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

what graphics settings are u using, and where are u in the world when you look at ram usage.

also i use'd to mod the shadows too look better, not sure if that took more ram or not tho.


Places like AV / that main city in outlands (forget name lol) take a lot more ram then say the barrens due to people and what not being around.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

Everything all the way up @ 1680x1050
the only thing turned off is full screen glow effect so i can force 8x anti-aliasing.
Crysis warhead maxes out my ram in a few spots spot on the train level because i think the 512 MB VRAM isn't enough ans spills into regular ram and that then goes into page file

thats in Dalaran btw
server = sargeras which is fully populated


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

well im not sure why yours use's so little, maybe your on a less popular realm or something who knows... or there just isnt many people around at the time in dara.

i doubt sli would use any more ram in wow. i don't see why it would need to.

other then wow or Warhead i dont think there is any other game where u  would need 4gb+, however it is still usefull to have more if u run background programs wile you play, or create ram drives, the list goes on but yes its not NEEDED to have more then 4GB but why not get more since its so cheap.

just my opinion.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

Which leads me to a new question.
I bought the kit and installed it and got a DRAM error before POSTing. ( one long Beep)
Went back to the RAM i was using and no problem.
My MoBo is set at Auto for the RAM voltage which is 1.8V.
This 4GB kit is rated at 1.8V.
Should i try it again and bump to 2.0V on the DIMM and the Northbridge by .5V? to get it to post or would that not matter?


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

did you try looser timings? diid you just install 2 sticks or all 4?


could be trying to run 4-4-4-12 and the ram is 5-5-5-15..... or maybe it wasnt pushed all the way in.

could be DOA.  maybe manualy set the volts to 1.85 or 1.82 what ever the next step up is.

(might need to start a new thred)


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

I took out the Kit in my specs and replaced it with the Gskill kit i got from newegg.
Timing are the same and since it wont POST into the BIOS i cant mess with timings unless I install the 2gig kit again so im kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I would love the 3.5GB windows XP 32bit will see since it'll increase the systems RAM by about 1.5gigs so Warhead would be 100% smooth.
Both kits are DDR800 @1.8 Volts.
I think maybe the 4gb would maybe need 1.9 or up in reality since there are twice the chips on the each DIMM/PCB. but im not sure and i dont wana take off my CPU cooler again unless i think itll help lol. ( running low on AC silver)


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

I actually RMA'ed one set and the next set did the same. its not too important since i hardly max out 2GB other than Warhead which i hardly play anymore. im running 5-5-5-5-18 right now and the 4GB kit is set for that as well i think.
i was just going to save the kit for the next build maybe it was only $45 which ill be building soon.


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

are you not able to set the settings in the bios with the old ram in, then swap to the new stuff... not sure if it will the saved settings or not tho, you could also try 1 stick at a time try them both.

also fairly sure in XP32bit the most a single application can use is 2gb, 1.5 ish left for other programs to use at the same time. but yes it should smooth it out if your running out of ram before u hit the 2gb limit. (dont quote me on that limit could be wrong but i do remember reading about it somewhere.)


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

Same DRAM error even with 1 stick of the new kit. that's why i just took it out and let it be. either way my system runs so well with what i got i think ill just save it. I built 4 systems this year for friends and never had a problem with 4GB but they were all Intel E8400 systems with P45 Mobos from gigabyte and they are all super solid so that might be what ill get this summer and use this one as a backup system.

i did research a while back about the N-Force 570 and other had problems with the DIMM voltage on these with 4Gb's so im content like i said $45 isnt a big deal.
 thanx for helping me haha i have been thinking about it for a while lol

i think my system is very well balanced


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

I'm looking into a P45/E8500/GTX280 combo BTW which seems balanced


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## Nick89 (Feb 25, 2009)

slyfox2151 said:


> lies
> 
> it may not be "needed" but more then 4gb will help, + you can create a ram drive to make games load faster if u have enough ram ^^
> 
> just my opinion.



Having more than 4GB of ram doesnt help at all unless you are using ALL 4GB of ram at which point you would need more than 4GB of ram.

I dont consider Wow a game, more like a second job. lol jk



Edit: STOP hijacking mah thread!


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## Tatty_One (Feb 25, 2009)

I have just 2gigs ATM and have absolutely no slowdown in COD4, COD5 or Fallout 3.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

Lol yeah Wow used to be like that for me but fortunately i am on a server where the entire game is pug able and i just log on a few times a week to see if i can raid in pugs since i got a really good job and have a little less time to play.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

just because its not needed for what you do, doesnt mean its not needed for everyone.

Video encoding surely uses it, some modern games do. Did you know DX9 requires your video cards ram to be duplicated into system ram? if you have 2x1GB video cards and 4GB of ram, if your cards are maxxed out, you're only getting 2GB of usable ram for your system/game.

There *are* reasons for more than 4GB of ram... they just arent for everyone (yet).


Flibolito: stop posting about something not related to this thread, or your posts will be deleted.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

Sorry


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## Fleck (Feb 25, 2009)

Almost nobody right now needs more than 2GB of RAM.


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## InnocentCriminal (Feb 25, 2009)

I posted this in another thread, very much on topic.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

Fleck said:


> Almost nobody right now needs more than 2GB of RAM.



considering the overall low power of your machine compared to modern systems, are you sure you just arent out of date? with your system your video card would be a limit long before 2GB of ram.


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## Nick89 (Feb 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> just because its not needed for what you do, doesnt mean its not needed for everyone.
> 
> Video encoding surely uses it, some modern games do. Did you know DX9 requires your video cards ram to be duplicated into system ram? if you have 2x1GB video cards and 4GB of ram, if your cards are maxxed out, you're only getting 2GB of usable ram for your system/game.
> 
> ...



I said more than 4GB is not needed for gamers, I did say it may be needed for apps like video encoding/processing.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> I said more than 4GB is not needed for gamers, I did say it may be needed for apps like video encoding/processing.



True. 4GB is the sweetspot for gamers - i certainly have games that crash if i have 2GB (or less)of ram, and run on high graphics settings. Stalker and supreme commander are the first two that come to mind.


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## Fleck (Feb 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> considering the overall low power of your machine compared to modern systems, are you sure you just arent out of date? with your system your video card would be a limit long before 2GB of ram.



I am a bit antiquated, having started my journey into computer building by upgrading my 25MHz 486SX (no FPU) to a 66MHz Pentium emulator for too much money.   I even only had an Athlon 64 3200+@3800+ until a couple of weeks ago, and two years ago I was still rocking a 2200+.  Now, does that mean that I'm wrong about most people not needing 4GB of RAM?  I don't think so.  The above-posted article from bit-tech says it all, there's only a FPS hit in games with less than 4GB of RAM when running Crysis--and it's become clearly obvious that the game's major crippler in the performance area was how poorly it was programmed.


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## InnocentCriminal (Feb 25, 2009)

In my opinion 2GB is now the minimum I'd have in any of my machines. Even if whatever I'm doing doesn't use up all my RAM I'd still prefer to have a good deal of RAM left over for other background applications.

As for games, if you look at the article I posted, 8GB actually _helps_ in some games, when with 2GB & 4GB there isn't really any difference.

I plan to start off with 2GB of DDR3 with my next rig and then upgrade to 4GB if I still feel a need.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

Fleck said:


> I am a bit antiquated, having started my journey into computer building by upgrading my 25MHz 486SX (no FPU) to a 66MHz Pentium emulator for too much money.   I even only had an Athlon 64 3200+@3800+ until a couple of weeks ago, and two years ago I was still rocking a 2200+.  Now, does that mean that I'm wrong about most people not needing 4GB of RAM?  I don't think so.  The above-posted article from bit-tech says it all, there's only a FPS hit in games with less than 4GB of RAM when running Crysis--and it's become clearly obvious that the game's major crippler in the performance area was how poorly it was programmed.



FPS is hardly an indicator.

in stalker and supreme commander with high graphics on 2GB of ram, they CRASH. your FPS is peachy until the games crash.


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## Fleck (Feb 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> FPS is hardly an indicator.
> 
> in stalker and supreme commander with high graphics on 2GB of ram, they CRASH. your FPS is peachy until the games crash.



. . . test the stability of your RAM.


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## InnocentCriminal (Feb 25, 2009)

When talking about STALKER you _do_ need a beefy system, but as you said yourself Fleck...



			
				Fleck said:
			
		

> ... game's major crippler in the performance area was how poorly it was programmed.



That rings so true for both STALKER games. However, for that I'd like to have more than 2GB. As I would with Supreme Commander if I played it.



			
				Bit-Tech's Richard Swinburne said:
			
		

> Supreme Commander, another RTS gave us some unexpected performance - 4GB of memory was a little slower here on average, but not exactly by a noticeable amount when you consider the all round frame rates. However, the game variety in Sup Com is massive because you can have an obscenely large number of units on screen, and it's well documented that those with smaller memory footprints have simply run out of space when the system had to handle thousands and thousands of units.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

Fleck said:


> . . . test the stability of your RAM.


thats almost insulting. i wouldnt be stating the lack of ram as the cause, if it wasnt tested and confirmed.


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## aCid888* (Feb 25, 2009)

Not to piss on anyone's cake, but I played Stalker, Crysis and many other titles with 2GB of ram just fine..if your experiencing crashes in any game, I doubt its a result of having 2GB of ram as opposed to 4GB.


*That being said;* 2GB is now the minimum anyone should be using and if we are all honest, with the prices of RAM (for the moment at least) you may as well get 4GB even if you run a 32-bit OS as the price vs quantity argument will play a huge roll with 4GB typically being less than 50% on top of the price of just 2GB.

I run 4GB of ram and see no issue, my fiance runs 2GB as she also has no issues....at the end of the day it all depends what you do..will the average gamer see any difference at 1680x1050 from 2GB vs 4GB+?  Doubtful.  

That being said, graphic design, rendering and other such sorts of activities will benefit from more RAM....whatever floats your boat and fit the situation I guess.  



*Edit:* I doubt Mussels should check the stability of his ram...hes more than experienced enough to know how to test stability and how to tell when things are good.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

In Warhead for example when the system has to turn to pagefile and the game slows down a bit i still never crash. Crashing is a error and running out of ram just puts  the load onto the hard drive which slows everything down but doesn't crash at all, unless you have page file disabled or something else is wrong.

I hardly ever reboot since i never see a reason to and i have crashed twice in 2008 because i was messing around with clock speeds and been solid any other time. Stalker/ World in conflict never crash with my 2Gb as a matter of fact they never even hit page file only Warhead does because Crysis is programed that way that it needs a ton of RAM.
And if I remember correctly crysis is still full of memory leaks to this day which should make it crash but it doesn't.


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## Fleck (Feb 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> thats almost insulting. i wouldnt be stating the lack of ram as the cause, if it wasnt tested and confirmed.



what's insulting is you thinking that i don't know my stuff because i run a 'low'-end system.

like the top two posters said, games don't crash when they run out of ram.  unless you turned off the pagefile and ignored windows' warnings about running out of ram, there is (was) a stability issue.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 25, 2009)

win 7 is alot more refined than Win Vista, Maybe even more than XP, Course there is an advantage of having Paging placed on a separate HD or even turned off, but with it turned off id recommend 6-8 gigs of ram, without paging the OS acts like win 98 on a Athlon XP machine or faster, Lighting quick.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

That maybe true well find out soon enough. Unless we get bombarded with Hotfixes and the usual stuff Microsoft does after releasing a more "refined operating system". In my experience XP32 is the most reliable on for my system. 

On a side note. Mussles RAM might be stable but when he hit pagefile the HD might not be, causing a crash, where as my HD's are very stable and the pagefile is on a different HD than the XP32bit installation, which in my experience has sped my computer up a little during multitasking and so on.


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## Fleck (Feb 25, 2009)

I plan to be moving onto 64GB of RAID0 Solid State goodness this summer, so the pagefile will be a laughing matter anyway 

And Windows 7 is and will be beautiful, simple and insanely fast when it comes out.

Libraries will revolutionize the way people store and access data.

(Pardon me for sounding like a commercial for MS, but the stuff kicks ass)


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

Flibolito said:


> On a side note. Mussles RAM might be stable but when he hit pagefile the HD might not be, causing a crash, where as my HD's are very stable and the pagefile is on a different HD than the XP32bit installation, which in my experience has sped my computer up a little during multitasking and so on.



a decent theory, and not something i tested at the time. Its unlikely to be my HDD or even my system, as i saw many of these crashes at LAN events. Supreme commander tended to crash in LAN games and spit a memory error, and it was always the ones with lower amounts of ram that crashed first.

As much as i WANT to argue this, my mod title insists i be nice - we should keep this more specific, about the amounts of ram and if its needed or not.

My vote is that 4GB is needed for a gaming system, due to some games crashing, and high ram video cards eating into it - i dont need to say more than that.


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## Deleted member 3 (Feb 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> just because its not needed for what you do, doesnt mean its not needed for everyone.
> 
> Video encoding surely uses it, some modern games do. Did you know DX9 requires your video cards ram to be duplicated into system ram? if you have 2x1GB video cards and 4GB of ram, if your cards are maxxed out, you're only getting 2GB of usable ram for your system/game.
> 
> ...



Actually those videocards hold the same data, so you'd still have 3GB left.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

I am excited as well. Even though i regret buying Vista 32&64bit I will be purchasing windows 7, I wish MS would give me a discount for the Vistas I never really used .


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## EviLZeD (Feb 25, 2009)

Gta 4 is the only game that got my ram usage to 87% with 4 gigs but other games are fine.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> Actually those videocards hold the same data, so you'd still have 3GB left.



Correct just like true SLI or Crossfire The VRAM in both card hold the exact same Data they just alternate frames or render in different ways to make use of the 2 GPU's


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 25, 2009)

ah yes GTA4 use's a lot of Vram thats for sure, iv never test how much ram its use'd on my system tho.. will give it a go now


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

Ladys ... windows have a program called as " Task manager "  at the "performance Tab" ,
you can clearly see  the memory usage .

This monitor is always active , so after  fresh boot , and by using your game , the monitor keeps records about highest amount of memory , ever used by the system . 

With this info at hand , you know how much ram you need . 

The first game that had use-suck my 1GB ram , forced me to upgrade to 2GB , so far the greatest memory usage that i have see,  its not more that 1250MB .



.


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

That's my deal exactly since i have 2 monitors in dual view i can see it realtime without ALT+Tab. and only Crysis really ever fills up my RAM. Nothing else has ever come close to filling my 2Gb's even when i run WOW, VLC, Windows Mediaplayer (playing a different video), Firefox (with many tabs), Explorer and downloading. I still always seem to be fine on RAM and never unstable. which is why i left the 4gb kit on my Desk and called it a day.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2009)

task manager doesnt show VRAM synced into system memory.

DX10 doesnt do this duplication, so (in theory) you should be able to run a game in DX9 and compare memory usage to DX10 - if task manager showed the difference, there would be lower ram usage, upto the amount of VRAM you have. Its transparent to the OS


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## Flibolito (Feb 25, 2009)

So if i played using DX10 the system would actually act as having the whole 2.5GB (2gbRAM+512VRAM)? as it treats them separately huh.
Maybe ill dust of that Vista 64bit disk lol and give it another shot


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## silkstone (Feb 25, 2009)

I have 4gb of use and on a daily basis is use 1.59Gg - With only IE open and 4 background tasks (CCC, kapersky, uTorrent and logitech setpoint) . if i open up Crysis it jusmps up to close to 4gb so i can see over 4gb being a real necessity within the next year.
Before, i only had 2gb, Crysis was unplayable. 4gb also helps a lot with image editing and i would put more in just for that.


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

silkstone said:


> if i open up Crysis it *jumps up to close to 4gb* so i can see over 4gb being a real necessity within the next year.



I need to see a screen shot to believe it .... or actually  two 
*"performance Tab" *
1) " Task manager "  before gaming .... 
2) " Task manager " after gaming ....


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## InnocentCriminal (Feb 25, 2009)

You mean, whilst gaming.


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## iamthewizard2 (Feb 25, 2009)

How wrong your are...

i have 12gig DDR3 1850Mhz Ram and sometimes for massive largescale 25Megapixel graphic design works ALL OF IT is used....therefore the pc has to use virtual ram.  Just because you just game doesnt mean everyone needs less than 4.  

Also, i recently installed the latest crysis warhead patch which enables 64BIT SUPPORT....allowing massive amounts of ram to be utilised for graphics.  i ran crysis with the new patch and i went from: 

average 58fps at 1680x1050, full enthusiast settings, no AA

to 

average of 64fps 1680x1050, full enthusiast settings, and a massive x4 AA!!!!!!

sure performance is no indicator of how much ram is used but ive heard countless people with 64bit vista with 4gig-8gig of ram having virtually no improvement in performance after the patch...but yet my 12 gig monster pc had a significant boost.


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## DrPepper (Feb 25, 2009)

I'd say 4gb should be standard these days, its so incredibly cheap it would be a crime not to get 4gb. I personally want to move up to 8gb. What good is it that my motherboard supports it, so does my OS but I'm not using that capability.


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## phanbuey (Feb 25, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I'd say 4gb should be standard these days, its so incredibly cheap it would be a crime not to get 4gb. I personally want to move up to 8gb. What good is it that my motherboard supports it, so does my OS but I'm not using that capability.



well depending on your NB, 8 GB can distabilise an overclock - but on the other hand, i am thinking about going 8G as well.


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## DrPepper (Feb 25, 2009)

phanbuey said:


> well depending on your NB, 8 GB can distabilise an overclock - but on the other hand, i am thinking about going 8G as well.



It wouldn't because I'd be using four sticks anyway like I am atm.


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## Nick89 (Feb 25, 2009)

iamthewizard2 said:


> How wrong your are...
> 
> i have 12gig DDR3 1850Mhz Ram and sometimes for massive largescale 25Megapixel graphic design works ALL OF IT is used....therefore the pc has to use virtual ram.  Just because you just game doesnt mean everyone needs less than 4.
> 
> ...



I said more than 4GB is not required for PC gaming, I never said there were no other apps that used more than 4GB I just said I didnt know what they were. Re-read my post I think you misread it.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 25, 2009)

Any 64-bit game with a memory leak could easily exceed 4 GiB. XD

Seriously, let's lay down the facts:
-32-bit games cannot address more than 2 GiB of virtual memory.
-Any request by 32-bit software for memory exceeding 2 GiB errors (app probably will crash).
-Most computers still run 32-bit operating systems.
-64-bit software is, for the most part, not backwards compatible with 32-bit operating systems.
-64-bit can address virtual memory exceeding 2 GiB.
-Memory requirements for games are usually pretty strictly limited (that is, there's only so much memory the game is required to use to fulfill all tasks).

So, to sum it up, you won't see many (any) games that use, let alone, exceed 2 GiB until the following conditions are met:
-The average target system must be running a 64-bit OS.
-The average target system must have at least 3 GiB system RAM (2 GiB for the game, 1 GiB for everything else).

I'll tell you right now, the possibility of that is not imminent for two reasons:
-Vista x86 is far more popular than Vista x64.
-DDR3, the successor to DDR2, is expensive.

My conclusion: 4+ GiB software won't be common until late into DDR3's lifespan or mid way into DDR4 (or whatever is DDR3's successor).  By then, 64-bit operating systems should be common place.


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

FordGT90Concept said:


> By then, 64-bit operating systems should be common place.



Nop     , you have to give away for free  64-bit CPUs


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Feb 25, 2009)

Well too bad I only use 2gb!  O wait, thats ok, cause as long as I can run everything fast,  (cause my ram is FAST!) then I am fine.  I have only had one instance when I wish I had more ram, and that was in Vista.  I use Server 2003.  So I don't have that problem anymore.  

For me, I won't upgrade my ram to 4gb till I get an i8 or Phenom III or whatever is coming out next.  By then 16gb will be standard I bet.


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## silkstone (Feb 25, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> I need to see a screen shot to believe it .... or actually  two
> *"performance Tab" *
> 1) " Task manager "  before gaming ....
> 2) " Task manager " after gaming ....



Here is a screen shot of my usage at the moment 1.8gb (not too much crap running). With crysis it jumps up to around 3pointsomething if my memeory serves me correctly. I don;t have it installed at the moment so i can;t check. but i agree that over 4gb isn;t necessary for games atm, it will be soon tho


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> For me, I won't upgrade my ram to 4gb till I get an i8 or Phenom III or whatever is coming out next.  By then 16gb will be standard I bet.



   you had bring me memories of the far past ,  when we had 486DX4 with just four megs of ram , and we was dreaming to had 16MB  ... and a SCSI HDD 340MB  ..   
With this system the universe will be ours ...  

Well this days we are more than good , about computing power ,  paying this days for a very extreme system , its more because of hobby , than need.


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## MilkyWay (Feb 25, 2009)

running backgorund tasks and running software or games at the same time you may need 4gb, its pathetic you can get a really good set of ram dual channel 2x2gb for £40

there is no excuse people who have these speedy dual cores and quads and go "ach i dont need 4gb" like they are trying to skimp on ram when they buy expensive hardware

i have 4gb of ram vista takes up about 1gb and background tasks 400-600mb leaving about 2gb for my games to suck up

not to even mention ram can speed up boot times and system performance overall, sure you wont get better frames per second but you can run all you background task and have decreased loading time, you need at least 2gb free for modern games these days i think empires total war will use that much and gta 4 uses it and some other games

pro video editing and 3d modelling probably uses extensive amounts of ram

2gb of ram sure you can run on it but dont expect to run hundreds of background tasks and vista at the same time as a game, more than 4gb you can run practically anything you like but watch out for cpu usage, 6gb is a lot and i wouldn't go over that really a lot of ddr3 kits are 6gb


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## MilkyWay (Feb 25, 2009)

i remember that i had to upgrade from 32mb or ram to 64mb of ram because settlers wouldnt run on my machine and lots of other stuff wouldnt run either


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## rampage (Feb 25, 2009)

i have 8 gb of ram and i can sure tell when i drop it down to 4 or 2 gb,  just because windows isnt using 100% of the ram dosnt mean its not being used.  look at the ammount od ram that has been CACHED and with me every spare mb of ram is in use, this helps with load times off games and anyother software that im using at the time....   even simple things like in fall out 3 you can nitice a large difference in quick load times between using 8, 4 and 2 gb of ram

simply looking at the "performance Tab" and checking the % of ram used before during and after donst realy mean squat (this is the ram windows is activly using), as long as you are not using 100% you will be "OK" as it isnt strugeling for ram, just having more ram will enable the pc to cache things to ram that it uses often saving seek and load times off the HDD

so in theory the more ram the better, thats possibly why iamthewizzard2's pc has noticed gains with 12 gb of ram in a game such as crysis

but for any of this to even matter you will need

-64bit os
-decent cpu
-decent gfx
(a decent pc in general)


there is no point running uber ammounts of ram in a shit box running apps that are few years old

i cant wat for the day when 32bit OS's are no longer made and programers can take the full advantage of 64 bit programing, 64 bit cpu's and more then the average joe 2 gb of ram, think about it thats why we see decent games and graphics on xbox's and playstations, they can code here apps for particular hardware.  none of this one million and one combinatios of pc's out there and trying to make games run on hadware that is 3+ years old because ppl cry that "my cant play this game, this game sux" (think of crysis when it come out and how many ppl winged cos it ran like crap, thats because most of there pc's were crap"



i could go on for ever here, but at the end of it all, yes more then 4 gig of ram in a gaming pc is more then often enough and it is what i recommend to people building a pc but there are bennifits in having more, even as suttle as they may be...


- - - END RANT - - -


----------



## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

silkstone said:


> Here is a screen shot of my usage at the moment 1.8gb (not too much crap running). With crysis it jumps up to around 3pointsomething if my memeory serves me correctly. I don;t have it installed at the moment so i can;t check. but i agree that over 4gb isn;t necessary for games atm, it will be soon tho




silkstone ... because of your story , i like to say few words ... 

One fast gaming machine ,* must have running as less background process as possible*.  
By having this on mind , we save Ram and CPU cycles , and the Game runs more stable . 

Nop , its not reasonable ,  to show applications running at 2D mode , that you close them out for 3D mode .

Vista its a memory hog , and still is the exception of the rule , as the XP machines are still on very large numbers. 

Any way this is the facts , and i am not hot to start any debate about operating systems.


----------



## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

rampage said:


> then the average joe 2 gb of ram
> 
> - - - END RANT - - -



Ho ho ho , i love to be *an average joe* 2 gb    

Ok people close down your umbrellas  , the rant storm has passed .


----------



## rampage (Feb 25, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> Ho ho ho , i love to be *an average joe* 2 gb
> 
> Ok people close down your umbrellas  , the rant storm has passed .




yeah sorry, i just gets up my skirt when people cant understand that a 32 bit OS can only access 2GB of ram "PER APPLICATION" thats why many of the big games run like crap on some systems, i relaise this a little off topic and that the origonal post was about 4 gig in general and that he was running a 64 bit os


- - - end rant #2 - - -


----------



## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

Woohoo i love rants  ...  

Is that what kills you , 32bit vs 64bit for gaming ... 

What kills me , its that we spend 2000$ US for a computer , that the gaming industry do not care to make games for it .


----------



## silkstone (Feb 25, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> silkstone ... because of your story , i like to say few words ...
> 
> One fast gaming machine ,* must have running as less background process as possible*.
> By having this on mind , we save Ram and CPU cycles , and the Game runs more stable .
> ...



It was just an example of how much ram i am using at the moment and is a fair chunk for just browsing and having a 300mb video in the background. 

I generally close everything down before i run a game, although i might keep ie or winamp open. Background tasks in general don't take up many cpu cycles and barely affect performance. Amount of ram ont the other hand will effect performance when having multiple background task s open.
I think a previous point was that having extra ram will allow you to multitask even when you have games running.

Vista is a memory hog, which is why 64-bit vista needs over 2gb. In my experience vista with 4gb of ram is much better than xp with 2gb. Considering the cost of ram i don't believe it is too decedant to run large amounts of ram if you do actually notice a difference in your computing experience. This in't soley a gaming issue and winxp will run games adequately with 2gb of ram however, i don;t really want to keep worrying about what is running in the background and closing absolubtly everything to make sure i have enough ram free for the game to run smoothly.

A fast gaming machine shouldn't have to close all it's background tasks to continue to run fast IMO


----------



## Disparia (Feb 25, 2009)

Ya'll can send your extra rams to me! I'll put them to good use.


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

Jizzler said:


> Ya'll can send your extra rams to me! I'll put them to good use.



Nop i do not trust you , you gona sell them


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Feb 25, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> Woohoo i love rants  ...
> 
> Is that what kills you , 32bit vs 64bit for gaming ...
> 
> What kills me , its that we spend 2000$ US for a computer , that the gaming industry do not care to make games for it .


The market just isn't ready yet.  That is, the consumer base ready for 64-bit applications is still small.


----------



## Binge (Feb 25, 2009)

What a load of dung (not directed at FordGT)... no need for 64 bit applications?  Gaming industry not supporting the hardware?  I don't know about some people here but there is a huge market for 3D art and design.  Hell digital art in general is a huge reason to have more than enough memory to encode, render, or design.  As far as the gaming industry not being up to the pace of high end PCs I beg everyone to go back in time... sure some games really pushed the envelope and hardware took time to catch up, and once they did the market was satisfied for a while.  Then other less innovative gaming companies would employ these winning techniques and make more of the same crap until another innovation was made.  The tech market and the gaming market are two separate entities that don't ALWAYS move in sync.  That being said what really motivates us to upgrade?  Is it for the e-peen?  Whatever the reason there is no reason for there to be an argument over a statement of satisfaction by one close minded consumer.  There are consumers who honestly need all the power they can get, and wth I'm one of them.  I don't want a rendering to take me any ammount of time.  I want it to be in REAL TIME!  There will be a day.  It will be beautiful.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Feb 25, 2009)

Innovation in software usually means lower hardware requirements, not higher.  You know, do more (or the same) with less.  It's like processors.  It's not innovative to double the number of transistors to get double the performance--it is innovative to double the performance of a processor with only 50% increase in transistor count.

An example of innovation can be found in Black and White 2 with the sun/sky.  They made it look very realistic by using some simple rendering techniques.  They accomplished something that looked great with very little in terms of hardware requirements.




Binge said:


> That being said what really motivates us to upgrade?  Is it for the e-peen?


Most are motivated by software changes (subject A installs software B on two decade old computer C and A complains B runs slow so A upgrades C ).  There's a few that do it because their e-peen has more influence over decision making than their brain but software is still the majority.


----------



## DaveK (Feb 25, 2009)

And here I am with 2GB of PC2-4300, man I need to upgrade soon.


----------



## Silverel (Feb 25, 2009)

Nothin' like a good old chicken and egg debate.

I recommend 4gb of ram for any new 64-bit system build, regardless of what they're running on it. Mostly because ram is so cheap anyways, most people wouldn't notice. Partially because there's really no telling what the next "must-have" bit of software is going to come out. Typical users aren't going to need that extra ram for quite a while, but it sure ain't gonna hurt them. In the event that something comes out with a reason to use more, they'll be safe.

As for gamers and hardware enthusiasts (like the majority here), we're all ahead of the curve for the most part. The apps that we use are also ahead of the curve. Many games can eat up that first 2GB without really blinking an eye. Rendering 3d models, photoshop, video editing, virtual machines, even folding can utilize extra ram as well. Back in the day dual core processors were made to "DO MORE". Why should I close out my apps if I want to game? Most of the time I have a second monitor running performance monitoring, temp sensors, a web browser, and folding on my 2nd gpu. Thank GOD I have the 6GB of ram, because I watch it sneak up into the 5GB range rather often.

I understand the statement for the mainstream users of the world. No, they probably don't need 4GB of ram. But I do.


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Feb 25, 2009)

IMO, 512mb of ram is fine for most systems that browse the web and do very mild gaming.


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

Binge said:


> What a load of dung (not directed at FordGT)..



Your load of dung , does not make you superior . 

Who cares of what you have to say , if you are unable to participate in a dialog.


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Feb 25, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> Your load of dung , does not make you superior .
> 
> Who cares of what you have to say , if you are unable to participate in a dialog.



OMG, great quote.  I'm gonna use it in my sig!  Thanks!


----------



## Silverel (Feb 25, 2009)

kiriakost said:


> Your load of dung , does not make you superior .
> 
> Who cares of what you have to say , if you are unable to participate in a dialog.





Binge said:


> What a load of dung (not directed at FordGT)... no need for 64 bit applications?  Gaming industry not supporting the hardware?  I don't know about some people here but there is a huge market for 3D art and design.  Hell digital art in general is a huge reason to have more than enough memory to encode, render, or design.  As far as the gaming industry not being up to the pace of high end PCs I beg everyone to go back in time... sure some games really pushed the envelope and hardware took time to catch up, and once they did the market was satisfied for a while.  Then other less innovative gaming companies would employ these winning techniques and make more of the same crap until another innovation was made.  The tech market and the gaming market are two separate entities that don't ALWAYS move in sync.  That being said what really motivates us to upgrade?  Is it for the e-peen?  Whatever the reason there is no reason for there to be an argument over a statement of satisfaction by one close minded consumer.  There are consumers who honestly need all the power they can get, and wth I'm one of them.  I don't want a rendering to take me any ammount of time.  I want it to be in REAL TIME!  There will be a day.  It will be beautiful.



You missed the rest of the post which brings up many good arguments and contribute to the dialogue. He was insulting the idea of 4GB not being enough ram, then gave his reasons why.


----------



## Nick89 (Feb 25, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> IMO, 512mb of ram is fine for most systems that browse the web and do very mild gaming.



Umm right now my Win XP install is sucking up 544mb of memory with two internet browsers open and 34 background process's, I'd say 1GB at least for an internet machine.

EDIT: I killed steam, Tea timer, and EA Download manager and got it down to 420mb. 

EDIT#2: I killed the two internet browsers and got it down to 309mb, I'd stilll recommend 1GB though.


----------



## Silverel (Feb 25, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> Umm right now my Win XP install is sucking up 544mb of memory with two internet browsers open and 34 background process's, I'd say 1GB at least for an internet machine.
> 
> EDIT: I killed steam, Tea timer, and EA Download manager and got it down to 420mb.
> 
> EDIT#2: I killed the two internet browsers and got it down to 309mb, I'd stilll recommend 1GB though.





We don't have PC's to run as little as possible. 

I can tell ya, working on client PC's, going into their homes and whatnot, people will have more erroneous junk sitting there running that you could imagine. I've gathered the mentality that people don't like closing things.


----------



## erocker (Feb 25, 2009)

This thread is ridiculous.  Machine "A" does this, this and this and needs X amount of RAM.  Machine "B" does this, some of that, and this and needs X amount of RAM.  Blah, blah, blah.  Different strokes for different folks.  Different hardware configs for different systems.  Once again.  Blah, blah, blah.


----------



## Nick89 (Feb 25, 2009)

erocker said:


> This thread is ridiculous.  Machine "A" does this, this and this and needs X amount of RAM.  Machine "B" does this, some of that, and this and needs X amount of RAM.  Blah, blah, blah.  Different strokes for different folks.  Different hardware configs for different systems.  Once again.  Blah, blah, blah.



I know what your saying.


----------



## Silverel (Feb 25, 2009)

erocker said:


> This thread is ridiculous.  Machine "A" does this, this and this and needs X amount of RAM.  Machine "B" does this, some of that, and this and needs X amount of RAM.  Blah, blah, blah.  Different strokes for different folks.  Different hardware configs for different systems.  Once again.  Blah, blah, blah.





Nick89 said:


> I know what your saying.





But you started the thread! lolololol


----------



## erocker (Feb 25, 2009)

And he was strictly reffereing to gaming systems using Vista x64.


----------



## InnocentCriminal (Feb 25, 2009)

Silverel said:


> We don't have PC's to run as little as possible.
> 
> I can tell ya, working on client PC's, going into their homes and whatnot, people will have more erroneous junk sitting there running that you could imagine. I've gathered the mentality that people don't like closing things.



My understanding is that people _don't freaking read_ anything. They just click and expect things to work.

One girl I spoke to yesterday thought her computer was going to explode because I advised her to make a back up of her personal data and it's not my [companies] responsibility. I mean, WTF?!


----------



## Dan2312 (Feb 25, 2009)

Im getting 6 GB so ill be future proofed and don't have to worry about upgrading for the next 12-18 months.


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## AsRock (Feb 25, 2009)

Stalker takes a lot of ram according to Rivatuner as it was telling me it was going over the 4GB mark back when i used to play it..

Not sure about Supcom and i think they have fixed the memory issue that game had were it would keep taking ram till the game crashed.

So for most part i think too that 4GB is enough but 6GB is nice to have even more so as i boot from Vista x64 but mainly use XP x64.


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## kiriakost (Feb 25, 2009)

InnocentCriminal said:


> One girl I spoke to yesterday thought her computer was going to explode because I advised her to make a back up of her personal data and it's not my [companies] responsibility. I mean, WTF?!



She was right ... you do not know the amount of data that girls store this days     

Its enormous


----------



## h3llb3nd4 (Feb 25, 2009)

Man, my 4gigs feels like 1


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## spearman914 (Feb 25, 2009)

Not using the full 4gb's doesn't mean 6/8gb is not needed. Basically the more ram u have, the more the system will use as cache, thus speeding up ur pc. FYI, Graphics editing/Vista = 6GB-8GB is not overkill.


----------



## johnnyfiive (Feb 25, 2009)

I have 4 and wouldn't have it any other way. Multitasking is better IMO. Besides, 4GB is so cheap now why not? Same goes for 6-12GB's. Its cheap, get it while you can. E-Peen length FTMFW!


----------



## ntdouglas (Feb 25, 2009)

spearman914 said:


> Not using the full 4gb's doesn't mean 6/8gb is not needed. Basically the more ram u have, the more the system will use as cache, thus speeding up ur pc. FYI, Graphics editing/Vista = 6GB-8GB is not overkill.





Your exactly right. Everytime I've upped the amount of ram, vista uses more. Same with games. When I was playing crysis, at times it was using 5g. And plays sooooo smooth. Just because you have 4g and windows and apps are using a certain amount, doesn't mean it will use the same  amount if you double your amount of ram.


----------



## Silverel (Feb 26, 2009)

Need moar memory. It's caching 5 gigs as it is. 

Not enough until it runs out of stuff to cache, imo.


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## niko084 (Feb 26, 2009)

Eh not to burst bubbles, I stuck 8gb in my machine about 2 weeks ago and playing supcom and well it was faster...... Probably the only game in existence that would use it though.


----------



## OzzmanFloyd120 (Feb 26, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> I see PC-gamers talking about having 6GB-8GB of ram like it makes there PC faster. I have 4GB of ram and used Win7 64bit and never used all of the ram.
> 
> I dont see a need for more than 4GB when gaming. And I dont know of any aplications that use more than 4GB of system ram. In the future maby, but until then its just a waste to have more than 4GB.
> 
> Maby some video processing programs use more than 4GB of system ram but for the average gamers its a waste.  /end rant.



You've never used a 64 bit version of Avid HD, have you?
Pretty much any x64 version of HD video editing software requires retarded high amounts of ram to run real-time.


----------



## Kursah (Feb 26, 2009)

Well 4GB is the new "2GB" of a couple years ago where the gamers that could afford to do so had 2GB of DDR2 compared to 1GB. That's just how it goes, and the more we have on average, the more programs, resources, games and such will use. Along with multitasking, which it can be very helpful along with a multicore CPU. I'm using 4GB right now, but may go for 8GB in the future as I do a lot of multitasking, encoding and gaming, and even when gaming I have stuff going on in the background, but 4GB is definately the sweet spot for most that can afford to do so, which with DDR2 shouldn't be too shabby. But 2GB is still sufficient, but some larger games may slow down or stutter, and it might not even be very noticable until you upgrade to 4GB. I noticed in quite a few games a smoother overall experience in comparison to 2GB, smoother multitasking, and just overall an improved experience with what I use my PC for. I'm sure 6-8GB is nice too, but definately not required, if this thread was started to jab at those that can afford it, feel they need it or run it because they do need it, that's kind of pointless. But in reality, 2GB is still sufficient, 4GB is the current sweet spot, and you can guess that anywhere from 6-12GB will be the sweet spot of the short future within 2 years, the PC industry is growing fast enough to deem that possible, not necessary though!


----------



## mlee49 (Feb 26, 2009)

Yeah the avid gamer will probably not need more than 4GB of RAM.  Having 6+ is really overkill unless you do 3D rendering or AutoCAD(pretty much the same thing). 
Theres is absolutely no need for 12 GB of RAM in a 'gaming' machine and its a marketing ploy for companies like Alienware to rip thier customers off with.  It's all EGO man.

And btw, 5 pages in 24 hours= Uber thread!


----------



## Flibolito (Feb 26, 2009)

There is alot of info/opinions/fact in this thread 
I did make my decision from it though. I will keep my current 2GB kit in this one and keep the 4GB for the next one or just as a backup, since the only performance increase would be in Warhead and only in 3 minutes of the train level ( ill get over it ). but the new system to be built in 2-4 months will prolly sport 6GB if i go DDR3 or 4/8GB if i do DDR2. To me it comes down to price vs performance like upgrading a car.


----------



## ntdouglas (Feb 26, 2009)

The more you have, the more your system will use. If its not using all 4g that you have, its because you only have 4g. Its cheap, and it helps.


----------



## Nick89 (Feb 26, 2009)

spearman914 said:


> Not using the full 4gb's doesn't mean 6/8gb is not needed. Basically the more ram u have, the more the system will use as cache, thus speeding up ur pc. FYI, Graphics editing/Vista = 6GB-8GB is not overkill.





ntdouglas said:


> Your exactly right. Everytime I've upped the amount of ram, vista uses more. Same with games. When I was playing crysis, at times it was using 5g. And plays sooooo smooth. Just because you have 4g and windows and apps are using a certain amount, doesn't mean it will use the same  amount if you double your amount of ram.





OzzmanFloyd120 said:


> You've never used a 64 bit version of Avid HD, have you?
> Pretty much any x64 version of HD video editing software requires retarded high amounts of ram to run real-time.



OMGWTF 

I said 4GB is enough for gaming(who still plays crysis?) I said you may need more than 4GB for programs like video editing/encoding. WTF, this is about games not needing more than 4GB (except Crysis) and I dont even play crysis anymore. 

I never said that there were no other programs that used more than 4GB I said more than 4GB is a waste for gamers, I never said it was a waste for people who render,encode,edit videos, Use CAD or other graphics design software. In those case more than 4GB is good.


----------



## Flibolito (Feb 26, 2009)

I still play crysis once in a while to show off the system to friends who just don't know what's possible on modern PC's and think their consoles have good graphics (which they do for what they are). But in my honest opinion and not to be a fanboy when Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 come out i will be only playing Blizzard games which usually do well on requirements and are great games to boot. So my 2GB system will play all the new games that ill get into fine


----------



## thebeephaha (Feb 26, 2009)

I max out my 8GB easily. Try editing a couple 12MP RAW files in CS4 and doing batch processing while having iTunes going, FireFox with like 5-10 tabs, Vista being Vista, etc.

I also will game while having all those other things open in the background.

8GB+ is not "needed" but it's so cheap these days why not?


----------



## Fleck (Feb 26, 2009)

thebeephaha said:


> I max out my 8GB easily. Try editing a couple 12MP RAW files in CS4 and doing batch processing while having iTunes going, FireFox with like 5-10 tabs, Vista being Vista, etc.
> 
> I also will game while having all those other things open in the background.
> 
> 8GB+ is not "needed" but it's so cheap these days why not?



Liiike I said.. alllmost nobody needs more than 2GB of RAM.

Anyone using more is a fanboy who wanted the bigdick analogy of having 4+GB of RAM, or professionals or serious gamers like urself.


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 26, 2009)

Sorry for this massive post, I've been busy.



kiriakost said:


> Nop     , you have to give away for free  64-bit CPUs



Who doesn't have at least an A64 or P4 processor. If you don't then you shouldn't be upgrading your OS.



kiriakost said:


> silkstone ... because of your story , i like to say few words ...
> 
> One fast gaming machine ,* must have running as less background process as possible*.
> By having this on mind , we save Ram and CPU cycles , and the Game runs more stable .



I'd killing processes in the background to be pointless these days unless you are benchmarking. At best you would get 1 or 2 fps and even then the OS itself will run slower.



Silverel said:


> Need moar memory. It's caching 5 gigs as it is.
> 
> Not enough until it runs out of stuff to cache, imo.



Are you going to get so much ram you might as well stick the whole OS on it 



niko084 said:


> Eh not to burst bubbles, I stuck 8gb in my machine about 2 weeks ago and playing supcom and well it was faster...... Probably the only game in existence that would use it though.



Exactly supcom whores up tons of RAM and processors.



mlee49 said:


> Yeah the avid gamer will probably not need more than 4GB of RAM.  Having 6+ is really overkill unless you do 3D rendering or AutoCAD(pretty much the same thing).
> Theres is absolutely no need for 12 GB of RAM in a 'gaming' machine and its a marketing ploy for companies like Alienware to rip thier customers off with.  It's all EGO man.
> 
> And btw, 5 pages in 24 hours= Uber thread!



Avid gamers would want more than 4gb of ram. If an avid gamer wouldn't want more ram then why would they want a dual core, SLI and xfire etc.



Nick89 said:


> OMGWTF
> 
> I said 4GB is enough for gaming(who still plays crysis?) I said you may need more than 4GB for programs like video editing/encoding. WTF, this is about games not needing more than 4GB (except Crysis) and I dont even play crysis anymore.
> 
> I never said that there were no other programs that used more than 4GB I said more than 4GB is a waste for gamers, I never said it was a waste for people who render,encode,edit videos, Use CAD or other graphics design software. In those case more than 4GB is good.



I still play crysis regularly and games like supcom use up alot of RAM and still run slow.



Fleck said:


> Liiike I said.. alllmost nobody needs more than 2GB of RAM.



I bet you'd get a 20% increase in performance if you added another 2gb on top of that and another 10% if you got 8gb. Large increases in performance which are very cheap.


----------



## phanbuey (Feb 26, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> ....



Well... after reading all that... im thinkin of buyin another 4gB


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 26, 2009)

phanbuey said:


> Well... after reading all that... im thinkin of buyin another 4gB



Well if I had a core i7 system I'd get as much RAM as I could for it. Saves me having to get more later on.


----------



## Silverel (Feb 26, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Are you going to get so much ram you might as well stick the whole OS on it



YES

I can handle 32GB of ram in my board. If I cache the whole OS that'd be FREAKING SWEET.

Plus, it makes for yet another asinine point in this thread that can irritate the few 2GB lovers that won't pony up 20$ for 4GB. 


Really though guys, do what ya like. If 2 is enough, have at it. I just don't think anyone with 4+ will be satisfied moving back down to 2. Main reason being (placebo or not), performance losses.


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 26, 2009)

Silverel said:


> YES
> 
> I can handle 32GB of ram in my board. If I cache the whole OS that'd be FREAKING SWEET.



I'd totally do the same  If you could have the OS on the RAM at startup it would be sweet.


----------



## InnocentCriminal (Feb 26, 2009)

I always wanted a Gigabyte RAM disk.


----------



## r9 (Feb 26, 2009)

There is no doubt that one day we all are going to have 8GB but it is not today. I`m talking from perspective of game and casual computer user. Yes there are ways to use that much RAM. 
The point is if you know that you need that much ram that is it but if you are not to sure than provable you ain`t going to need it.
But it is not not too big of a mistake taking it to consideration low RAM prices.
4GB@4GB cashed and 8GB@4GB cashed I think that loading process would go faster on 8GB because of less time needed to find place to alocate memory.


----------



## Fleck (Feb 26, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I bet you'd get a 20% increase in performance if you added another 2gb on top of that and another 10% if you got 8gb. Large increases in performance which are very cheap.



Why would I get a performance increase from RAM that my system wouldn't be using?  The benchmarks themselves show like a 1% performance increase from unused RAM.  Hell some stuff even goes lower, the processor has to do work to sort all that RAM too, ya know.


----------



## r9 (Feb 26, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I'd totally do the same  If you could have the OS on the RAM at startup it would be sweet.



The OS would load 5 min.


----------



## DrPepper (Feb 26, 2009)

Fleck said:


> Why would I get a performance increase from RAM that my system wouldn't be using?  The benchmarks themselves show like a 1% performance increase from unused RAM.  Hell some stuff even goes lower, the processor has to do work to sort all that RAM too, ya know.



Why would you get a performance increase from anything that isn't being used ? Of course you won't but the RAM is being used all the time for caching and for applications that are open. I've always been ahead of times by having more ram than needed E.g when everyone thought 512 was enough I got 1gb and when 1gb was standard I got 2 but recently I've fell out the loop and I'm stuck with 4gb until I can afford an i7 where I will get as much ram as that will allow.



r9 said:


> The OS would load 5 min.



Don't turn it off then


----------



## Fleck (Feb 26, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Why would you get a performance increase from anything that isn't being used ? Of course you won't but the RAM is being used all the time for caching and for applications that are open.



Bah, mIRC, Pidgin, uTorrent and Firefox, maybe the occasional 720p movie/show.  None of it gets close to needing more than 2GB of space.  Hell 1GB was fine until I upgraded to Vista and COD4 had problems.

Will I buy 2 more sticks down the line?  Yeah, shortly after trading in my piece of crap mobo with 2 slots at single channel to boot.  I'll have 4GB soon, I'm just saying most people don't _need_ it.  Neither do I, but I wanna see what its like to roll with no pagefile.


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## Silverel (Feb 26, 2009)

Fleck said:


> Bah, mIRC, Pidgin, uTorrent and Firefox, maybe the occasional 720p movie/show.  None of it gets close to needing more than 2GB of space.  Hell 1GB was fine until I upgraded to Vista and COD4 had problems.
> 
> Will I buy 2 more sticks down the line?  Yeah, shortly after trading in my piece of crap mobo with 2 slots at single channel to boot.  I'll have 4GB soon, I'm just saying most people don't _need_ it.  Neither do I, but I wanna see what its like to roll with no pagefile.



You'll want to keep a minimal pagefile. Mine is 300MB... There's a good handful of programs that will freak out if there's no pagefile set, regardless of how much they use it.

Also, figure the recommended pagefile is 2x your RAM, you should have ~6GB of vRam now to run "properly". One of the reasons I'm at 6GB of physical ram now.


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## silkstone (Feb 26, 2009)

Slightly OT but someone mentioned it before  so those Gigabye ram disks actually work well? They have them dirt cheap near where i live.


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## Fleck (Feb 26, 2009)

Silverel said:


> You'll want to keep a minimal pagefile. Mine is 300MB... There's a good handful of programs that will freak out if there's no pagefile set, regardless of how much they use it.
> 
> Also, figure the recommended pagefile is 2x your RAM, you should have ~6GB of vRam now to run "properly". One of the reasons I'm at 6GB of physical ram now.



Oh yeah that's right, Photoshop will be like "WTF WTF!!!" LOL


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## sweeper (Feb 26, 2009)

well crap.... heck I might jump up to 4GB to see what the fuss is all about. Throw in a few games, apps, photo editing, etc. and see if I get a bit more performance. But, I'm on an older PC and 2 more GB is more expensive than 99% of the users here. LOL.


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## frankie827 (Feb 26, 2009)

i think 4gb+ ram is necessary if you want to play games like GTAIV.   i was playing on Vista HP 32bit and i had lower fps than i did with windows 7 64bit.  same thing with benchmarks such as 3dmark06 and vantage.


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## spearman914 (Feb 26, 2009)

Fleck said:


> Liiike I said.. alllmost nobody needs more than 2GB of RAM.
> 
> Anyone using more is a fanboy who wanted the bigdick analogy of having 4+GB of RAM, or professionals or serious gamers like urself.



 2GB is enough??? When u add more ram, the game uses more memory so..... there is no limit to overkill.


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## frankie827 (Feb 26, 2009)

sweeper said:


> well crap.... heck I might jump up to 4GB to see what the fuss is all about. Throw in a few games, apps, photo editing, etc. and see if I get a bit more performance. But, I'm on an older PC and 2 more GB is more expensive than 99% of the users here. LOL.



i'm still using RDRAM in my torrent box.  RDRAM is really expensive now haha


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## spearman914 (Feb 26, 2009)

frankie827 said:


> i'm still using RDRAM in my torrent box.  RDRAM is really expensive now haha



For the price of two sticks of RDRAM, u could buy a cheapy G31 mobo, E2180, and 4GB's of DDR2 800 ram.


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## frankie827 (Feb 26, 2009)

spearman914 said:


> For the price of two sticks of RDRAM, u could buy a cheapy G31 mobo, E2180, and 4GB's of DDR2 800 ram.



hahaha exactly!


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## sweeper (Feb 26, 2009)

It's going to cost me $79.00 to get 2 more gigs of matching sticks for my system .. compaired to DDR2... that's twice as much.


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## spearman914 (Feb 26, 2009)

sweeper said:


> It's going to cost me $79.00 to get 2 more gigs of matching sticks for my system .. compaired to DDR2... that's twice as much.



$80 for 2GB DDR WTF??



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211356
LMAO!!


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## TheMailMan78 (Feb 26, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> I see PC-gamers talking about having 6GB-8GB of ram like it makes there PC faster. I have 4GB of ram and used Win7 64bit and never used all of the ram.
> 
> I dont see a need for more than 4GB when gaming. And I dont know of any aplications that use more than 4GB of system ram. In the future maby, but until then its just a waste to have more than 4GB.
> 
> Maby some video processing programs use more than 4GB of system ram but for the average gamers its a waste.  /end rant.



I can answer you with one word.....Photoshop.

I agree games do not see any real benefit from 4+ gigs but for professional users 4 gigs is the minimum. Some of my Illustrations alone are almost a gig in size while in progress and thats not even open.


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## h3llb3nd4 (Feb 26, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> I can answer you with one word.....Photoshop.
> 
> I agree games do not see any real benefit from 4+ gigs but for professional users 4 gigs is the minimum. Some of my Illustrations alone are almost a gig in size while in progress and thats not even open.



yep thats right, I use Ps myself and it lags at our scholl because our school pcs only have 512mb


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## sweeper (Feb 26, 2009)

spearman914 said:


> $80 for 2GB DDR WTF??
> 
> 
> 
> ...



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220079


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## mlee49 (Feb 26, 2009)

I know DDR prices jumped recently due to somthing a while back(news article explained it here).  Good news for selling that old DDR 400 in your back up rig, but bad news for upgrading your system.

DDR2 though is pennies on the dollar, you can get a 1GB stick for $12 online.  Whats up with that?!


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## cdawall (Feb 26, 2009)

i have personally maxed out 6GB running some HD rendering with revit and a house design


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## Fleck (Feb 26, 2009)

cdawall said:


> i have personally maxed out 6GB running some HD rendering with revit and a house design



REALLY!?!?  WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT TAKES A LOT OF RAM TO RENDER HIGH DEF!!!


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## cdawall (Feb 26, 2009)

Fleck said:


> REALLY!?!?  WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT TAKES A LOT OF RAM TO RENDER HIGH DEF!!!



i was just pointing it out there are instances that actually use more than 4GB. that was with dual 8800GTS 512s rendering as well.

oh and if you want to be an ass just to point it out that was a beyond stupid comment


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## Nick89 (Feb 27, 2009)

cdawall said:


> i was just pointing it out there are instances that actually use more than 4GB. that was with dual 8800GTS 512s rendering as well.
> 
> oh and if you want to be an ass just to point it out that was a beyond stupid comment



Did you read my post? I said more than 4GB is really not needed for 99% of games. I never said more than 4GB doesnt have a use for other programs.


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## DrPepper (Feb 27, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> Did you read my post? I said more than 4GB is really not needed for 99% of games. I never said more than 4GB doesnt have a use for other programs.



Still 99% of games don't need sli to run but we still do it  I'd rather be excessive than the bare minimum.


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## ntdouglas (Feb 28, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> Did you read my post? I said more than 4GB is really not needed for 99% of games. I never said more than 4GB doesnt have a use for other programs.




How do you know most games don't need more than 4GB of ram. You only have 4GB. Games know how much total system ram you have and adjust accordingly. A game is not going to use 4GB of ram when total system ram is 4GB. I have observed crysis using over 5GB of ram on my system. If you don't have more than 4GB of of total system ram you have no business posting that games don't use more than 4GB of ram. Don't believe me? Upgrade to  8GB of ram, then observe ram usage. Then stfu!!!!!! GAMES AND CERTAIN APPS WILL HOG AS MUCH RAM AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT CAUSING SYSTEM INSTABILITY. Shutup or upgrade and see for yourself if you don't believe us. God wtf!!!!


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## cdawall (Feb 28, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> Did you read my post? I said more than 4GB is really not needed for 99% of games. I never said more than 4GB doesnt have a use for other programs.



when i had 6GB in i watched 5GB get used in a couple games.


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## dna1x (Feb 28, 2009)

cdawall said:


> when i had 6GB in i watched 5GB get used in a couple games.



What were they? Crysis and Crysis Warhead?


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## Tau (Feb 28, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> I can answer you with one word.....Photoshop.
> 
> I agree games do not see any real benefit from 4+ gigs but for professional users 4 gigs is the minimum. Some of my Illustrations alone are almost a gig in size while in progress and thats not even open.




I can chew up 4GBs of ram pretty fast and bring a machine to its knees.

SQL Server uses alot of ram.... i have seen it use upwards of 4GBs on some of my servers.

For my main workstation i have 8GBs in it, and find i would like more... as alot of times im working with 5+GB files....


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 28, 2009)

well its one to be a Desktop Role and then a Server Role, Servers that use Win Servers tend to be heavier on the hardware side, aka 2way processing or higher, and no 1366 is not server just as much as the Xeon 1 ways were.


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## slyfox2151 (Feb 28, 2009)

why do people keep posting about graphic/movie editing programs that use more then 4gb of ram when this thred is about gaming -.- wish people would read the 1st post.


anyway, i want 1 TB of ram to install my games on , see what i did there, ram drives are related to gaming ^^. FASTOR LOADZZZ SPEDZZEEEEEE ZO I CAN OWN ZEEE NNEEEWWWEEEBBZZZ !! WIT MA 1337 HAXORS!

 /end nerd mode


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## CDdude55 (Feb 28, 2009)

Over 4GB(pushing 8GB) is overkill gaming wise, i could understand for something like a folding farm for something, or do a whole lot of photoshopping and video encoding.


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## J-Man (Feb 28, 2009)

i agree. it's like core i7 owners... most or almost everyone get 6gb and that's fine for core i7 owners.


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## ste2425 (Feb 28, 2009)

4 gigs will come in handy for allot of music producers using program like Reason and Logic also a decent sound card lol


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## InnocentCriminal (Feb 28, 2009)

Games....


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## Nick89 (Mar 24, 2009)

InnocentCriminal said:


> Games....



lol some people didnt read my first post. 

GAMES. There are none that use more than 4GB(maby wow dunno).


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## CDdude55 (Mar 24, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> lol some people didnt read my first post.
> 
> GAMES. There are none that use more than 4GB(maby wow dunno).



And Crysis, and maybe Fallout 3.


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