How much is enough ram - Sweet Spot

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Stephen

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Hi

I am what you call a normal gamer i.e. not an overclocker, but do like to play games with decent frame rate while playing the game at a high detail and effects.

Currently I use 2 x 2 gig ddr2 800 ang running Vista 64bit. If I go over to Windows 7 will I get better performance with 3 x 2 gig

Are there any benefits using more than 4 gig ram?

Thanks
 
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Stephen said:
Hi

I am what you call a normal gamer i.e. not an overclocker, but do like to play games with decent frame rate while playing the game at a high detail and effects.

Currently I use 2 x 2 gig ddr2 800 ang running Vista 64bit. If I go over to Windows 7 will I get better performance with 3 x 2 gig

Are there any benefits using more than 4 gig ram?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Instead of sticking in more RAM, I recommend you rather up the speed of your current sticks.
 
+1.

Start task manager, play game then check the graph when you quit. Shows RAM usage almost always less than 75%- I'm running Win 7 64bit, 4GB too. Rather put the extra kesh into GFX or a better screen :)
 
That document shows minimal increases in performance when you have more RAM. Really dont worry about it, 4gb and you'll be fine. The majority of the work in games is done by the GPU.
 
The only time i've used more than 4GBs of RAM is when running a RAMDisk software and the last stretch in Crysis
 
i often see my used meter sitting on the 4 -4.5gig mark, but i have 6 gigs.

though i think windows just abuses what you have :p
 
4cer said:
i often see my used meter sitting on the 4 -4.5gig mark, but i have 6 gigs.

though i think windows just abuses what you have :p
Click to expand...

That will not happen if you are playing one game with nothing else open. I'm guessing you have alot of stuff running at the same time
 
I'm pretty bad when it comes to abusing my computers. On average, I have 10+ applications open, which normally include several sessions of Excel and Word, Adobe Reader, Winamp, maybe Paint.Net, Pidgin, Skype, Outlook, a couple of browsers (Chrome, Firefox), Maybe a VM with 128mb RAM allocated to it, and I'm yet to see usage beyond 3gb out of a total of 4. Running Win7 64 bit.
 
On Windows 7 64-bit I upped the RAM from 4 to 8gigs and experienced no discernible difference.
 
When it comes down to gaming i feel 4gig is the sweet spot more then that is just a bit overboard.If you use your pc only for office stuff 2 gig should be ok but i still would recommend someone to try and aim for 4 gig. especially with windows vista and 7, Unless of course your heavy in multitasking between different apps then more ram might make sense but then you should also look at cpu power and not just ram.

And remb a app is not going to use more ram then required so in other words if a game only requires 1,2 gig it's only going to use 1,2 gig ram even if there is like 8 gig open for it. ram speed upgrades from 800 to 1066 is a waste there will be a diffs in
performance but not anything you going to notice.You will have to make a massive jump in ram speed to see a performance jump on your pc.
 
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4GB is about the sweet spot, faster ram is not going to make a noticeable difference either. If you want to see an increase in speed with games you have to do two things:
1. Buy a decent GPU
2. Get an SSD
 
There's a few points to consider:
(1) You're not just buying ram for today, you're probably want RAM that'll last you into the next two years or so. So having an upgrade path is important (especially one that doesn't make your current sticks redundant).
(2) Games, especially the newer ones, will use as much ram as it safely can. Just because your ram usage stays at a certain level, doesn't mean your game doesn't want more. However, until 64-bit becomes the norm, most games will not use more than 2Gb ram (32-bit applications are limited like that).
(3) As mentioned, graphics power comes before RAM. Having said that, you cant run a recent game on max settings @ 1080P and have 2 gigs of ram. You'll struggle.
 
DarkWhisperer said:
There's a few points to consider:
(1) You're not just buying ram for today, you're probably want RAM that'll last you into the next two years or so. So having an upgrade path is important (especially one that doesn't make your current sticks redundant).
(2) Games, especially the newer ones, will use as much ram as it safely can. Just because your ram usage stays at a certain level, doesn't mean your game doesn't want more. However, until 64-bit becomes the norm, most games will not use more than 2Gb ram (32-bit applications are limited like that).
(3) As mentioned, graphics power comes before RAM. Having said that, you cant run a recent game on max settings @ 1080P and have 2 gigs of ram. You'll struggle.
Click to expand...

You have some valid points, but they are not entirely correct. Any program will use the RAM it needs. If it runs out it will start to use the page file. It will not however look at your max RAM and make sure it stays within those limits. Also, the resolution you run at has very little effect on system RAM, it does however effect GPU RAM. The graphics card needs to store larger amounts of data (in GPU RAM) for larger resolutions, but the model data will stay the same. The model data usually sits in system RAM, stuff like the area of the game you are in, your characters weapons/clothes etc. Since that is constant for any given resolution, your system RAM does not need to increase for a higher resolution.

Edit: @ponder, a SSD will not make games run any faster, they will only load faster.
 
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