Need help w/ RAM from Anyone

[Dutch]

Hey,

I am looking to buy some more RAM from my computer, currently I have 768mg of PC133 RAM, the game runs fine, BUT when i enter a convoy I get around 10 fps, which is kinda unberable, I can live with it if I have to but if buying another stick of 512 would help I would do it.

Currently I have a 256 and a 512 in my PC. What could I buy (RAM) that would boost the performance, would RAM do the trick? I have a ATI Radeon Xt800 w/ 256. My COmputer is a INtel P4 1.6 Ghz with 80.Gb hd, so its nothing fancy infact its quite antiquatied (5 yrs old)

Is RAM what I need here, if so how much? I don't have a mother board that support DDR, so thats out of the question....Regular old SDPC133 RAM is all I can have.

Can anyone help me, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Dutch]

Anyone?

[Dutch]

Come on guys I need some help?

I know some of you guys out there know whats going on with computers can any help me?

[Kilamon]

More processor power. Your computer will only need ram if you see that it's swapping (look for what seems like excessive disk activity).

[VonHelsching]

10 fps sound nice with your specs. *Any* extra ram would do good for the game. But I wouldn't invest much on your PC...I agree with the previous user. More processing power is needed.

[jasonb885]

I've found my game lags on a more modern system with there are a lot of sounds going simultaneously. I think the problem is my on-board audio chipset simply sucks. I should probably get a SB Audiology or something...

It could be your machine's so old the AGP bus speed is limiting your card. Also, the earliest P4s had worse performance than the P3 at launch time.

You have sufficient memory, so something else is definitely wrong.

:doh:

[Dutch]

Its can't be "so old" I got it in 2001.

I just need a quick fix because in June I ship off for AIT and I won't really have time for computer games anymore so I can't really invest in a whole new rig because by the time I'm able to have time to spend with it, it will be "so old" again :-j :huh:

Thanks for the advice.

[Dutch]

When you say swapping, do you mean when the DVD ROM is constantly fireing up and running?

If so that happens quite often....

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I have GW, in the stock game the game ran perfect. Now that the graphics sort of got a shot in the arm thanks to the modders, it has kind slowed a bit. Just looking for a shot in the arm for the performance to level things out with the new mods.

About how much RAM do you think I need. Keep in mind its PC133 RAM. Is it true that RAM that doesn't match does not run as well ie I have a 512 and a 256, does that cause compatability problems? Would a 512 and a 512 work best togather?

[JScones]

You could replace the 256mb stick with a 512mb stick. You'd notice a difference. But that will set you back about $100, which may be more than the return. :hmm:

Personally though, I wouldn't waste any money on your rig, especially if you're only gonna use it for three more months.

If you are running Grey Wolves, have you replaced the sea floor textures with the stock sea floor textures? That will make quite a difference on your machine. And get rid of the Harbour Traffic mod as well (sorry Rubini); you just can't have all that activity in port.

I suppose what I am saying is tweak your machine rather than pour money into it.

@jasonb885: My god - get a $50 Audigy card. Your machine will thank you!

[SmokinTep]

I agree. Save your money for a better rig.

[Dutch]

I had read about the sea floor texture deal? How do I go about that? Which folders do I change, I don't use ext cam will it make that much of a differeance.

I'll certianly give it a try, thanks for the adivce!

[Dimitrius07]

Well what can i say i play the game on pice of sh....t.

I have p3 -800 386 ram radeon 9600 256 ddr. :oops: :oops:

Going to by a new hardware after about 2 month :rotfl: :rock:

but as long as can play thise fantastic game even with poore preformance when i bring the ship down to the botton of the Ocean i am a free man!!!!!!!!! :cool: :roll:

[iambecomelife]

Does quality of RAM affect frame rates very much? I'm wondering if I should get 2048 MB of generic RAM or 1024 of higher quality RAM?

[Dutch]

To my knowledge, which is very limited, I think that RAM should give you at least a marginal increase in FPS.

I would go with the HP RAM rather than the LP simply because, hey it might be alittle more, but more likely it will work and perform better.

[Dantenoc]

I upgraded from 1 Gig of RAM to 2 Gigs of RAM because of this game, and it didn't doo any noticable good. I have monitored my memory usage while in game and it will go higher than one Gig, so having 2 Gigs instead of one helps somewhat, I guess, but the terrible lags are still there, so the real solution is yet to be found.

As far as I can tell (although I may be wrong) it's just poor ineficient programming, because EVERYONE seems to have noticable lags at one point or another in the game, no matter what their computer setup is... and it's only under certain circumstances... at other times the game is lightning fast, wich means that the no care was taken to balance out the computer load throughout the playing experience (did I make myself clear?).

On the other hand, the fact that your DVD drive is working overtime is probably due to the Starforce copy protection, since memory swapping (if any) is done to the HARD DISC, not the DVD.

It's still a very good game though... just kinda of pushed out to market too early.

[JScones]

I had read about the sea floor texture deal? How do I go about that? Which folders do I change, I don't use ext cam will it make that much of a differeance.

I'll certianly give it a try, thanks for the adivce!
If you don't use external cam, then yeah, I highly recommend it going back to the stock (just look at the difference in file sizes). I have a pretty good specced machine which with GW installed took me down to around 10fps at some places. I replaced the floor textures and I'm now back over 60fps, at *all times*.

[jasonsagert]

Dutch,

GW comes with a "default sea floors" option. Look in the documentation/optional mods. You should find it there.

I'm also running the game on a laptop. P4 3.2 ghz, 1 gig ram, ati mobility 9800 256 mb vid card. And the game runs great. BUT, the GW sea floors did slow it down in ports--and I never spent much time looking at the sea floor anyway :)

J

[JScones]

Does quality of RAM affect frame rates very much? I'm wondering if I should get 2048 MB of generic RAM or 1024 of higher quality RAM?
Going from less than 1024mb to 1024mb makes a difference, unless if you're running with onboard sound or video (I can't believe people do). If that's the case, then you won't get full potential no matter how much RAM you get unless you also get a sound card and/or video card.

[Kilamon]

I have an AMD Athlon X2 4400+, 2g DDR ram, 6800 GT pci express video on a DFI SLi-DR motherboard using the onboard sound with a seagate sata drive. The game is flawless at 1x TC. I can TC up to 32 even standing at the bridge and no problems. I only ever see video lag when I hit 2048 TC or when I'm at or above 512 and there's a large convoy near. I've run Prime95 on both cores in the background and the game at the same time and only seen a minor difference. Upon inspecting my cpu usage, I can tell that convoys use about 15-20% more CPU than an empty ocean, or empty as far as I know. I've also noted that both cores are being used when playing though I don't believe it's because the game is designed for it as much as windows is performing some load sharing. They both spike differently and show that the same process (sh3.exe) is the culprit of the top load. If anyone is interested, I can post screen shots.

Based upon my experience, RAM is used as you encounter more ai controlled entities, which makes sense really. The same goes for your CPU which becomes more loaded. Since I have an audio board that uses up some cpu, it's also losing performance there (though woot.com has a good deal on an audio card today). I hardly ever see any swap. I think having a top video card may be equally important for the game as much as having a good CPU behind it with ram being third. Ram will always improve performance, but never to the extent that a new cpu or video card will once you've reached 1g of ram. As low as the original poster's ram is, at 768(?) if I recall, it should be OK to play, and any video lag or low framerate would be more attributable to a poor cpu or video card than ram, though background processes would also affect this (those should be swapping causing a delay in disk and slowing performance).

To answer the previous question, what is swapping, check http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,sid9_gci213077,00.html

[razortonguekiss]

RAM on its own is usually not the solution to poor graphics quality; a good idea would be to check out your graphics card. Just because you have 256 megs of RAM on your graphics card doesn't mean a thing; on the contrair, there are several 128 MB cards that outperform the 256.

What you want to check out is the memory type, memory interface, the memory clock, and the core clock.

Memory Type - SD, DDR, DDR2, DDR3 - DDR3 is a gamers dreams. Anything less than DDR2 is wimping out.

Memory Interface - 64 Bit, 128 Bit, 256 Bit - 256 is the best, drastic performance increase.

Memory / Core Clock - important too, these are what several gamers overclock - getting something with 400 Mhz Core clock and 1 Ghz memory clock should be sufficient for most modern games.

You might also want to check out the open GL version, pixel shading capabilities, AA filtering, etc... simple things that can really make a game look better, not so performance-effecting.

Video cards are one of the fastest growing computer technologies at the moment, and so a video card even a year old can become fairly obsolete when it comes to top-notch new games.

As for the RAM - 133 is extremely slow this day and age, so you might want to consider upgrading your system... one stick of 128 DDR2 333 could match 768 MB SDRAM 133... and probably outperform. Its vital that you upgrade all aspects of the system, because leaving one piece of hardware behind will drag everything else down - it all works as one large integrated circuit, so if you have slow RAM or CPU - everything else might as well be just as slow.

Hope this is helpful.

[razortonguekiss]

Ah to add something on - yes RAM and CPU power might increase performance slightly, but they increase things that aren't graphics-card related. Usually the amount of objects displayed, etc.

If you have 768 MB of RAM and at least 1.5 Ghz processor, you shouldn't experience any problems what so ever - however, you might have spyware or programs that are running in the background.

I keep my system processes to a minumum... disabling services and things that aren't needed when booting up - this will dramatically increase the overall performance of you computer. Look into it. 1

[U-Bones]

I have never caught SH3+GW+stockseafloor using more than 40% of my 1g ram. If you have 768, you have enough for this game IMO.

My nemesis is video, and I can't figure out why. I have a gForce 5600 256mb and get 10-15 fps in a convoy, modded or stock. Not using onboard sound. I played a lot of other stuff with this rig and feel like I should be getting 50-60.

[Dutch]

Its not that the game doesn't run, it runs fine :up:

But at certain times ie convoy action or ports it slows down quite a bit.

There is no doubt that the 133 RAM is my problem, but I don't you have to have a certain type of mother board to get DDR of any kind, or are all motherboards DDR compliant?

Can't due a system rebuild, leaving in alittle over a two months, so it would be pointless.

Plan on getting a solid gaming rig once I get more time to kill :) .

[vodkajello]

PC100/133 and DDR RAM have completely different sockets and different amounts of connection pins.

So you'll need to buy what is appropriate for your system.