RAM

Hey I have a quick question for you guys. Right now i'm running 2 gigs of ram in my system. Would I notice some substantial benefits by upgrading to 4 gigs? I have 2 free ram slots on my Mobo. Might it lead to issues with instability? What would you recommend.

Right now with Supreme Commander I notice it gets slow when there are a shitload of units on the map. I'm not sure if that is my connection, processor or ram. I'll probably run a test tonight and just fill the map with units while I am offline and see if it still lags.

I don't think you would notice enough to matter at this point. At some point you will want it. Also if you are running XP, there is a threshold where ram can actually be a drain on your system, I though it was 3Gb and up

on XP you can only effectively use around 3gbs.. some mobos up to 3.5 but mainly just 3gb with only 4gb total available to map. Now if you are running vista.. your mobo's limit is the only limit to worry about.

ah k thanks for the help guys

I remember posting something about Vista and memory. I think it is capped at 4GB's as well, however the big problem it has is it allocates RAM equal to the amount of Video Ram you have. So, if you SLI two 768 Cards, you only get 2.5GB of actual RAM.

You could also have a caching problem. Might try a defrag.

I have 4GB RAM in my system and I get 3GB. XP or Vista 32bit OS will only see 3 usually. You need to run a 64bit OS to see 4+

As for having 3 versus 2, I say why not 🙂 Hey an extra gig is an extra gig. 50% more is 50% more man. It is cheap so go for it. 🙂

Since I am running SLI I guess it helps though I do not see any real difference. My system runs really really well so I have no complains. My best advice is get good solid fast memory, that will make a difference.

Ok, here's another question, does all of your ram have to be exactly the same? I understand it all needs to correspond with what the motherboard supports but can I have 2 patriot sticks and a corsair stick?

Thanks

Fknrambo wrote:
Ok, here's another question, does all of your ram have to be exactly the same? I understand it all

needs to correspond with what the motherboard supports but can I have 2 patriot sticks and a

corsair stick?

Thanks

This advice is for running in DUAL Channel mode:
Dual-Channel DDR allows two sticks of DDR RAM to work together to effectively double the available bandwidth. Performance gains usually range from 15%-20% over standard single channel setups.

So it does not have to be the same except for each bank. There are usually 2 banks of two and you need (should) to match the same memory in each bank. So you could have one bank set with one type of RAM then add another set later that do not match the first set but must match each other. Did I explain that correctly?

For single channel mode you can pop them in as you said.

The main thing to remember is no matter if you are running Dual or single channel, the entire system will clock down to the speed and performance of your slowest RAM so beware of that.

I always recommend a Dual channel setup and for all 4 to be the same when asked, but it is not a "have to" as I said.

ummm
👈

Paladin said it perfectly!

If you don't know what it looks like, you should find something called timing and it will have some numbers like this 3-3-3-12.

Lower is better. Just keep in mind, when it tries to clock to the slower speed, some memory has been known not to function. I found this out the hard way.

I guess you see why we changed this to Geeks 'R' Us.... :-)

I do, You guys are an untapped resource when it comes to knowledge about tech stuff.

ooo believe me... i am tapped resource!! ;-)

I see alot of heresay on the web saying over 3Gb of ram will actually slow down your machine, but I don't see any solid info about that.

I do see that the max XP can actually use is 3Gb. It will support up to 4Gb.

I noticed though from MS that you need to change a bootup setting to deal with more than 2Gb of ram, see below:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...PAE/PAEmem.mspx

Bubbaspanky wrote:
ooo believe me... i am tapped resource!! ;-)
I see alot of heresay on the web saying over 3Gb of ram will actually slow down your machine, but I don't see any solid info about that.

I do see that the max XP can actually use is 3Gb. It will support up to 4Gb.

I noticed though from MS that you need to change a bootup setting to deal with more than 2Gb of ram, see below:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...PAE/PAEmem.mspx

I read that before but never did that at home. I have 4 GB installed and my system sees or reports 3 GB. I did not do anything special with the boot.ini file.

I also do not see any slowdown so far with my 4GB than I did when I only had 2 in it. I went a few months with only 2. All my RAM is matched though so maybe that helps.

I believe the problem with 4GB's in standard systems becomes an issue of disk caching. At a certain point, it's taking longer to cache than it should and things slow down because of this.

Either way, I'm happy with my 2GB right now.

I beleive you are 100% accurate.