Originally Posted by frau kaleun

The patch makes it possible for the game to use up to 4 gigs RAM *if* the RAM is available.

Without the patch, the most it will ever use is 2 gigs - even if you've got 4 onboard and 3 gigs of it is sitting around doing nothing.

It won't make the game take RAM away from your OS or other necessary functions, it will just make it use more of whatever RAM is free at the moment.

I assume you're running a 32-bit OS, even so you could still see an improvement with the patch - especially if you shut down any unnecessary functions while you run the game, thus freeing up as much RAM for it as possible.