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Would an extra 1gb of RAM help me with games?
I have Windows 7 32bit. I currently have 3gbs of RAM on my ASUS motherboard. I have 4 slots for RAM, and I have 2 x 1gb sticks of DDR2 and 2 x 512mb sticks of DDR2.
Would it be better for gaming for me to remove the 2 x 512mb sticks and replace them with 2 x 1gb sticks? Or is 3gb of RAM going to see the same performance as 4gb?
I hope that made sense. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Comments
You've mismatched your memory channels, which does hurt your memory bandwidth. But a 32-bit version of Windows will only be able to use about 3-3.5 GB of memory, no matter how much physical memory you add. You need a 64-bit version to use 4 GB or more.
yes it would cause take wow it can use 3.5x something on a 4 gb system if you have only 3 it can only use 2.5x something
also you might have issue with the double channel (i aint sure here)technicly they should run double channel but they are probably running single channel cause each mobo have specific way to install
some it will be 1gb 1gb 512mb 512 mb,other will be 1gb,512,1gb 512mb.
having all similar memory ensure you are running dual channel and higher performance and your gaming experience will be much more joyfull
by the way forget the 64 bit idea most game arent in 64 bit so they will still only be able to access 3.5x gb of ram ,dont believe ?
ask blizzard why they re bothering to go 64 bit(they are in ptr server right now!
cause even if a lot of player have 64 bit ,wow is still 32 bit and is still topped at 3.5x gb per file whatemacallit gimmick!
Ok, so if I leave the 2 sticks of DDR2 PC 5300 memory and get 2 more DDR3 PC 5300 I should be good? What happens if I leave the 2 PC5300s and get 2 PC 6400s or 8500s? Would that matter?
Either the memory will only run at the slowest speed, your system will lock up or you will have intermittent mysterious issues that are hard to trace down.
I would either replace all your memory with the same stuff (it's pretty cheap) or make sure you've got all your memory matched up.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
#1 - Wow does not use 3.5 or 2.5. It is a 32-bit client, so it limits itself to 2G. WoW is actually fairly tame on RAM usage - on my system, running 1920x1200 with pretty well all the graphics options turned on high, it only uses about 750M.
#2 - Wow is coming out with a 64-bit client, it's on PTR now, but don't expect it to really do anything differently.
You are correct about the rest of it, most games are only 32-bit. THe only 64-bit game I can think of is an optional version of Half-Life 2.
A 32-bit program can only normally use 2G of RAM. There are some special programming tricks that can be done to get it up around 3G, but I haven't seen many games use those. Aion has been the biggest RAM hog video game I've seen lately, when it first came out it would occasionally crash because it would exceed that 2G limit, but it's been patched and is much more behaved now (but still uses a lot of RAM). Even SWTOR doesn't really come close to 2G of RAM usage across it's two processes.
Windows XP uses about 1G of RAM just by itself. Vista and Windows 7 use closer to 2G of RAM just by themselves - so subtract that out of your total RAM and that's roughly what your games have available. You want to plan on 2G (which is why most people never use more than 4G).
Your computer is probably page filing some, but not heavily. You would see a slight reduction in hiccups and pauses (the times when your computer is using the swap file), but overall it wouldn't be a huge increase in speed.
If it's DDR2 memory, and sounds like it may be, I wouldn't bother upgrading - the stuff is expensive as it is, you aren't going to be able to reuse it in your next computer, and it doesn't resell very well. I would just tough it out until it's time for your next computer.
yeah, that's the conclusion I came to today after researching this and my CPU and costs and the fact that I can still play these games, just not with everything turned up or as flawless as I would like. Plan to get a new PC soon anyway with all new/modern hardware that will make this PC look like an antique.
My opinion is that if u want to help your games run faster you should change the graphics card.
Memory upgrades are good but you are not going to see any spectacular things in fps.
Go for a graphics card and then if u want add some memory as well
I would say upgrade the whole system DDR2 will cost him so much more, depending on where he live he prob can't even get it without ordering it if the stoes will even bother.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.