Ram = Huge

[Church SUBSIM]

Well, I can confirm it .... 2 gigs of RAM over 1 gig is AMAZING.

The game loads stations like it's butter now with 2 gigs of Ram installed. I have a ASUS A7N8X-E mobo with 2 matched sticks of Corsair TwinX 2048-3200CS ram. My CPU is a moblie that I have over clocked to 2.3 ghz (200 x 11.5) Ram is now in matching harmony with the mobo and I think I can see why the game under 1.2 was crashing now ....

For what its worth, if you have an old system like me ... the best upgrade you can get is the RAM .... cheap way to add a few more miles on this old bast...

[TriskettheKid]

That doesn't exactly help people like me, who built their AGP system when RDRAM was going to be the next big thing.

I've already got a gig in my system (4x256), and RDRAM is so hard to find, and so expensive, I'd be lucky to get 2 gigs (4x512) for under $800.

[IsaanRanger]

I did same thing too, went from 2x512 Mushkin to 2x1024 Kingston HyperX. I have a Socket 939, yes they dont support em anymore, but I am very happy with it and its DDR400 and I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with 2x1024 Cache I cant seem to find any for sale anymore. It must be rare now. the 2GB did help a lot. I have an ASUS A8N-E

[SUBMAN1]

That doesn't exactly help people like me, who built their AGP system when RDRAM was going to be the next big thing.

I've already got a gig in my system (4x256), and RDRAM is so hard to find, and so expensive, I'd be lucky to get 2 gigs (4x512) for under $800.

For $800 you could get 2 GB and at the same time buy a new CPU and new MB, and even a enw vid card. Not sure why you'd hang on to old tech like that.

-S

[kakemann]

Will it really help to have newer RAM?

I'm running 2 GIG PC3200 RAM. Quite old

The game runns well, most of the time :cool:

[Iceberg]

Will it really help to have newer RAM?

I'm running 2 GIG PC3200 RAM. Quite old

The game runns well, most of the time :cool:

Newer RAM (meaning faster RAM) in your system will only run as fast as your MB can go so if you bought the fastest available RAM when you bought your computer... That's it! It's as fast as it can go! I think you're quite good with 2GB of PC3200.

So to fully enjoy newer/faster RAM you'd need a new MB and then a new CPU and... Buy a new computer!! :p

[Grey_Raven75]

I've been thinking about getting some more RAM myself. My mobo can support up to 4 gigs, but I thought I read somewhere that more than 2 gigs on XP is useless. Is this true and if so, why?

[TriskettheKid]

For $800 you could get 2 GB and at the same time buy a new CPU and new MB, and even a enw vid card. Not sure why you'd hang on to old tech like that.

Several reasons:

1. It still works.
2. Games still run fine on it after a much cheaper upgrade to the PSU and GPU.
3. I see no reason to throw $800 for a low-end system with the bare essentials when I can keep saving and build a top of the line system later on.

[triangle]

I've been thinking about getting some more RAM myself. My mobo can support up to 4 gigs, but I thought I read somewhere that more than 2 gigs on XP is useless. Is this true and if so, why?

32-bit XP Pro and Home can handle up to 4gb of RAM and the 64-bit edition can handle up to 128gb, I think.

[Charlie901]

That doesn't exactly help people like me, who built their AGP system when RDRAM was going to be the next big thing.

I've already got a gig in my system (4x256), and RDRAM is so hard to find, and so expensive, I'd be lucky to get 2 gigs (4x512) for under $800.


DITTO!!!!!!

[Zantham]

I've been thinking about getting some more RAM myself. My mobo can support up to 4 gigs, but I thought I read somewhere that more than 2 gigs on XP is useless. Is this true and if so, why?

32-bit XP Pro and Home can handle up to 4gb of RAM and the 64-bit edition can handle up to 128gb, I think.

XP, both Home and Pro, 32bit, can recognise up to 4GB RAM. However, except in certain setups, you will find XP will only show around 3GB. And in fact, will not really use more than 2GB. There is a boot.ini switch you can use (/3GB) that changes how much of your RAM is used by the kernel and how much by the userspace (where your programs run), that allows userspace to use up to 3GB RAM. However, a program has to be specifically written to take advantage of this, if not it will still be limited to 2GB RAM.

In my own experience, playing various games from STALKER to Supreme Commander, SH3(GWX) and SH4, and BF2 & 2142....I have never run out of physical memory with 2GB RAM and no page file.

My current machine has 3GB RAM in it, and I have ran different games with 2GB and 3GB RAM installed, with no difference at all (unlike going from 1GB to 2GB which can be huge performance gains). Generally I allocate 1GB as a RAM drive, leaving 2GB to my system. Then I copy part of the game installation into RAM to greatly improve loading times (note this has no effect on framerate). I did this with Sh3 GWX as well as with Battlefield 2.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

I recently upgraded from my old custom desktop - 3ghz, 1gb ram and 256mb NX6600 to a Dell XPS 1710 with dual 2.16, 2gb ram and a 512mb 9750 GTX ... and my god what a difference. I noticed that my system was using 512 just to run windows, do upgrading from 1 to 2 is effectively tripling what you have available.

[pocatellodave]

I'm running 4 Gigs Corsair Dominator,and if it doesn't help,than it sure don'hurt anything!?Plus when I finally get forced to Vista,I'll be ready;)
Pocatellodave

[nfitzsimmons]

Upgrading from 1 to 2 GB will always halp. Beyond that (with XP) probably not. Vista, yes, once they get the memory handlers fixed.

[U-Bones]

SH4 on 1Gb will always have to use swap a lot.
For XP Pro, the memory footprint of SH4 is ~1.2GB
So jumping from 1GB to 1.5GB will also be a dramatic difference.

This info may help someone with a machine that has expensive ram...

[Zantham]

I'm running 4 Gigs Corsair Dominator,and if it doesn't help,than it sure don'hurt anything!?Plus when I finally get forced to Vista,I'll be ready;)
Pocatellodave
Actually....

Depending on your system, it may adversely affect performance, both in Vista and XP...

There is a RAM specification called the Command Rate. Normally it is set to 1T. However, when you add 2 more sticks in, it will set to 2T. If you have an Intel processor its not quite as big of a deal....but for AMD systems it can be, and can make a difference of 15% (I've read up to 30% in some games). Basically this is the amount of time it takes from when a RAM chip is selected, to the amount of time it can process the command. AMD has always benefitted less from actual RAM throughput (FSB) than it has from better timings (RAS, CAS, etc). Intel is opposite, you are better off upping your FSB and loosening your timings a bit, which is why the command rate affects it less. This is still true of the Core 2 Duo.

This also affects people that may have had 1GB RAM (2x512MB) and upgraded to 2GB by adding two more 512MB sticks....its actually better to remove the 512's and replace them with 2x1GB.

Currently I have not enountered any dual channel 4GB kits (2x2GB) that have decent timings and a 1T command rate....tho they may already be out there.

[macky]

I have 1.5g corsair ram in mine, would I see much improvement going to 2G?

[Quillan]

Mushkin has a 4 gig kit (2x 2 gig sticks) that's CAS 4, runs at 4-3-3-10 timings, but I can't find the command rate listed anyplace.

[Zantham]

Mushkin has a 4 gig kit (2x 2 gig sticks) that's CAS 4, runs at 4-3-3-10 timings, but I can't find the command rate listed anyplace.

Yeah they also have 2x2GB PC-8500 (runs at 1066FSB) that goes at 5-4-4-12, but again dont list the command rate.

According to Bjorn3d.com both the PC-6400 and 8500 run at 2T command rate...

[U-Bones]

I have 1.5g corsair ram in mine, would I see much improvement going to 2G?
If all you are running is SH4, you should not be swapping to disk and would not gain much if anything.
SH4 on XP Pro uses ~1.2

[NEON DEON]

Oh man I am getting a headache!;)

If my MB runs at fsb 266 and supports 2 gig of ddr ram, Can I put 2 gig of PC 3200 in it?

Right now I have 1 gig of PC 2100 (266 fsb).

I cant find 1 gig sticks of pc 2100 that come with a decent price.

[Bilge_Rat]

very few current games ever require more than 1 gig and currently over 2 gigs for games would probably be a waste. There was a test of this on SIMHQ a while back:

http://www.simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=124711&page=1#Post124711

[Zantham]

Oh man I am getting a headache!;)

If my MB runs at fsb 266 and supports 2 gig of ddr ram, Can I put 2 gig of PC 3200 in it?

Right now I have 1 gig of PC 2100 (266 fsb).

I cant find 1 gig sticks of pc 2100 that come with a decent price.

Yes. DDR-400 (PC-3200) is backward compatible with DDR-333 and 266. However, DDR2 is not compatible with DDR.

[NEON DEON]

Oh man I am getting a headache!;)

If my MB runs at fsb 266 and supports 2 gig of ddr ram, Can I put 2 gig of PC 3200 in it?

Right now I have 1 gig of PC 2100 (266 fsb).

I cant find 1 gig sticks of pc 2100 that come with a decent price.

Yes. DDR-400 (PC-3200) is backward compatible with DDR-333 and 266. However, DDR2 is not compatible with DDR.

Kewl!:D

Thanks Zantham.

[Quillan]

Oh man I am getting a headache!;)

If my MB runs at fsb 266 and supports 2 gig of ddr ram, Can I put 2 gig of PC 3200 in it?

Right now I have 1 gig of PC 2100 (266 fsb).

I cant find 1 gig sticks of pc 2100 that come with a decent price.
I did that a while back. It was an advance purchase on my upgrade. I bought PC3200 ram, used it in the PC2100 application, then just moved it over to the new board once I got it. In this case you can't do that, because everything is moving towards DDR-2, which has a different slot configuration, but it works just fine. The D in SD-RAM stands for Dynamic; it'll slow down if you plug it into a slot that doesn't run at the memory's full capable speed.

[TheBrauerHour]

Recently I went and picked up 3GB of DDR2 RAM and was going to make a post about how much I recommend more RAM, and POOF!!!, there was a post about it already here! :cool:

[Richard Zapp]

Well I used to hate this game but I was trying to run it on my old system which was an AMD XP 2400+ with 1.5 gigs of PC3200 ram and an Evga 6600GT AGP video card. It sucked big time. I would get maybe 10 fps in port with medium/low settings in the game.:roll:

I upgraded to a Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 motherboard. An AMD 64 X2 (dual core) 4600 2.4ghz processor. 2 gigs of PC6400 Dual Channel ram (running at 800mhz) and one Evga 7900 GS KO video card. Wow! I get 35 fps in port the all the settings maxed out. Unbelieveable! It looks so nice....Now I love this game.:D

Cost me approx $450.00 and man was it worth it.

Oops, almost forgot to say.....it also runs FEAR on maximum settings and
Stalker on high settings with no lag.....

[jmop]

I've been thinking about getting some more RAM myself. My mobo can support up to 4 gigs, but I thought I read somewhere that more than 2 gigs on XP is useless. Is this true and if so, why?
32-bit XP Pro and Home can handle up to 4gb of RAM and the 64-bit edition can handle up to 128gb, I think.
32 bit Xp Pro can only address 2.75 GB RAM, only the 64 bit edition can handle more memory and then it can be unreliable above 4gb.

[minsc_tdp]

I've played this game on my system with 1 GB and 2 GB, two different brands of memory, and my Core2 E6600 clocked as low as 2.4 GHz to as high as 3.6 GHz.

I can say without hesitation that 1.) going to 2 GB from one gig certainly has a noticable effect, as stated earlier since it is using ~1.2 GB. But, if you have really fast hard disks, the time lost to swapping is negligible (I have four SATA Hitachi 7K80s in a RAID-0 stripe, which is pretty insane but it's mighty fast.)

2.) CPU MHz is everything. Upgrade your CPU to the fastest your board supports, buy a new cooler and overclock until your house burns down, do what you have to do to get that CPU MHz as high as possible with the most modern CPU you can possibly work with. Of course if you OC be prepared to blow something up and replace multiple parts if necessary, but depending on the CPU you can get +200 MHz to +1 GHz without too much effort.

If you're curious how good your CPU is for this game, run SuperPi. If you can do 1M in < 18 seconds, you're doing well. >30, start OCing or bust out that credit card.

A better test, in SH4 just go to the map in Career near your home base, start moving and multiply time until the clock hand starts to lag and move in a choppy fashion. If your clock hand still moves smooth over 4096x then you're doing pretty well. If it's still perfectly smooth at 6000x+ then you're doing great. If it's perfectly smooth at 8192x for any reasonable length of time, then you've beaten me and you're doing phenominally. If it lags at 2048x then your system is probably old. Note that this depends somewhat on the amount of traffic, if there are multiple ships nearby it's going to lag much earlier. Get a little bit of distance from Pearl so friendly traffic is mostly gone and test from there.

3.) Video does help but primarily if all the effects are cranked up.

[minsc_tdp]

Oops, almost forgot to say.....it also runs FEAR on maximum settings and
Stalker on high settings with no lag.....

Hard to compare Stalker to this game. I've done a lot of tweaking work for Stalker and SH4 - the big difference was that CPU MHz affect SH4 most, while graphic card overclocking was the most noticable boost for Stalker. I'm also playing Stalker with settings cranked and getting 70 FPS nearly everywhere, but I had to OC the 8800 GTS card to 630 MHz to get it to really smooth out. Yet this had little noticable effect on SH4.