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Does 8 gig of ram help for games?

pdabb38pdabb38 Member Posts: 43

Just wondering since I have 4 gigs of DDR2 and Windows 7 64 bit version. Would upgrading to 8 gigs make games run faster.

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Comments

  • Azen77Azen77 Member UncommonPosts: 125

    With 4 gig you have plenty and are better off going video card upgrade if you have a problem running games.

    UO,AC1&2,EQ1&2,DAOC,SB,SWG,FFXI, Horizons,EvE,E&B,AO,WoW,VG, Lineage,GW,TR,LotR,AoC,CoH,DDO a myriad of FtP...and still looking...

  • Daffid011Daffid011 Member UncommonPosts: 7,945

    It will help if you run lots of programs in the background.  If you can load an entire game into ram it will help alot.  =)

  • LasastardLasastard Member Posts: 604

    I suppose you wouldn't see a big improvement. 4GB is suficient for most games, afaik. If you want to boost performance, a SSD Drive, faster processor and gfx card are perhaps a better investment.

  • MikeBMikeB Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555

    4GB DDR2 / 6GB DDR3 is all you need.

  • PoopyStuffPoopyStuff Member Posts: 297

    I have 12 in my machine

    and it honestly doesn't make a different when running just the game.

     

    mainly because things like the xbox have been slowing down the progression of how big a game is into memory.

    when you have a console that only has 512 megs of ram and it has so many PC ports, its hard to move the industry forward on things.

    PC games SHOULD be at 64 bit by now, but most of them aren't.   its sad really

  • viddsterviddster Member UncommonPosts: 220

    Mike B is correct, 8GB is overkill and 6GB will give only a small increase over 4GB, certainly not worth the money anyway.

    image
  • KenaoshiKenaoshi Member UncommonPosts: 1,022

    Only if you wanna multi-box

    now: GW2 (11 80s).
    Dark Souls 2.
    future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
    "Bro, do your even fractal?"
    Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,414

    Until companies progress into 64-bit, they are artificially capped at 2GB ram.  Even then most engines do not utilize the 2GB even though it would be easy for some games that are under 2GB to be loaded entirely into memory to avoid loading.

  • raistalin69raistalin69 Member Posts: 575

    why more ram for ddr3? isnt ddr 3 faster (so you would need less?) pardon my ignorance but im curious as to that.

    IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME

  • bezadobezado Member UncommonPosts: 1,127

    Originally posted by raistalinraistalin69

    why moreddrm fisntddrddr 3isnt ddr 3 faster (so you would need less?) pardon my igimrance but im curious as to that.

    Because speed isn't a factor in deciding if a program will use less memory.  If you have 2 gigs DDR3 it would still be a slower system overall compared to the same system with 4gigs, just an example.

    The speed factor comes into play when you run apps or games that need to offload data faster, refresh rates. It doesn't scale the same for all apps for performance memory that has tight timings and faster speed. The faster memory will act the same as conventional lower memory for certain apps, not noticeable by the average user.

    You want fast memory and about 4gigs of it if you run WIN7 or Vista and are playing heavy graphics games such as AOC or FPScrysis like crysis, there are more to that list but you get the point.

     

    Edit:  OP 8 gigs does nothing for MMORPG's unless your running a ton apps in background or your doing heavy graphical work, but your video card is the one that would benefit with a upgrade over all that memory. Get a decent card with 256mb, 512 mb or higher if you game at above 1440 x 900 screen resolutions. Video cards are some what confusing for people who don't know performance from each model types, so I suggest looking at hardware sites to help you see the scaling of each cards processing powers for each game benchmarks.  Try www.anandtech.com for starters.

  • raistalin69raistalin69 Member Posts: 575

    thx for the response bez, and i get the scaling thing, but why more of ddr3? 4g of scaled down ddr3 is the same as 4g of dd2 isnt it? (assuming the ddr3 is scaled down to the ddr2's speed) maybe i missed something, but why 6g of ddr3 and 4g of ddr2?

    IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME

  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004

    Originally posted by PoopyStuff

    I have 12 in my machine

    and it honestly doesn't make a different when running just the game.

     

    mainly because things like the xbox have been slowing down the progression of how big a game is into memory.

    when you have a console that only has 512 megs of ram and it has so many PC ports, its hard to move the industry forward on things.

    PC games SHOULD be at 64 bit by now, but most of them aren't.   its sad really

    the PS3 is even worse, it only has 256mb of ram..  but basically if you have a win 32 system then 3.4 gb is the 'max'  if you have a win 64 then whatever your system can handle, there are limits on how much the Mobo can handle after all, and you'll have to check out the manual to see what that is.

  • cukimungacukimunga Member UncommonPosts: 2,258

    Well some ddr3 ram is triple channel so maybe thats why they said 6gigs, three 2gig sticks.

  • raistalin69raistalin69 Member Posts: 575

    ahhh, i think i see the light now, thx cukimunga.

    IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME

  • bezadobezado Member UncommonPosts: 1,127

    Originally posted by raistalin69

    thx for the response bez, and i get the scaling thing, but why more of ddr3? 4g of scaled down ddr3 is the same as 4g of dd2 isnt it? (assuming the ddr3 is scaled down to the ddr2's speed) maybe i missed something, but why 6g of ddr3 and 4g of ddr2?

    Well for DDR3 if you go 6gig it's because you are runing a core i7 system that uses tripple channel memory meaning 3 memory modules only.  So this is for the high end system only and core i7 intel, but if you got a normal mobo and not using i7 you can use 4gig DDR3, sorry for the confusion, the other poster forgot that 6gig DDR3 is only possible if you run i7 intel. Also for the high end system i7 you want to be at 6gig max since the more you go in size the less the performance you get off the ram, slower timings needed.

    Comparing a DDR2 to DDR3 system both using 4gigs, the DDR3 is faster of course in most benchmarks using near same timings.

    Remember that DDR3 comes in 2 flavors, standard and tripple channel thats for i7 intel CPU.

  • bezadobezado Member UncommonPosts: 1,127

    Originally posted by Phry

    Originally posted by PoopyStuff

    I have 12 in my machine

    and it honestly doesn't make a different when running just the game.

     

    mainly because things like the xbox have been slowing down the progression of how big a game is into memory.

    when you have a console that only has 512 megs of ram and it has so many PC ports, its hard to move the industry forward on things.

    PC games SHOULD be at 64 bit by now, but most of them aren't.   its sad really

    the PS3 is even worse, it only has 256mb of ram..  but basically if you have a win 32 system then 3.4 gb is the 'max'  if you have a win 64 then whatever your system can handle, there are limits on how much the Mobo can handle after all, and you'll have to check out the manual to see what that is.

    You guys can't compare console systems to PC's in how they operate though, even if the consoles use PC parts.  This has something to do with how the consoles video processor uses textures and data instructions and threads for the cpu. To make a long post short, consoles are built to do one thing only, while a PC is built to do many things.

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,414

    DDR3 is wider, not really faster.  Its like a 4 lane road opposed to a 2 lane road.  For instance DDR3-1600 sends data as fast as DDR-400.  The difference is in how much it sends at a time.  So if the program doesn't utilize enough bandwidth, it will be similar.  DDR3 is also not meant to be triple channel memory, its meant to be quad channel.  However, Intel and AMD really couldn't pull that off in a consumer memory chip.  Increasing channels will increase speed since it simultaneously loads data off memory.  Dual Channel is twice as fast, Triple Channel is three times as fast, and Quad CHannel is four times as fast.

    When talking about Memory on consoles, it is problematic for the PS3 to only have 256MB of ram.  Textures take up space.  The larger the detail in the texture the larger it will be in memory.  This is why PC games tend to have higher resolution textures as opposed to consoles.  There is no magical image formate between consoles and PCs that makes a console load textures better.

  • drbaltazardrbaltazar Member UncommonPosts: 7,856

    op it depend!did you deactivate paging file then yes in that situation it will help .eq2 does climb close to 4 gig very often so if your os is stock

    6 gig is the best ballpark(for now)

    no i didnt play totalwar.com napoleon or rusegame.com .both title are one of the very limited few game that will take advantage of

    hypertreading (4 core or more anyone .)so in those game you might need 8 gig since i never played those game i really dont know.but for the average game player(wow)4 gig is plenty.

  • docminusdocminus Member Posts: 717

    you would notice a difference on an advanced system in really high resolutions, say eye-finity on 3 screens since your app needs o/c much more memory - having said that, if your gfx card sucks, it won't help.

    another scenario is if you want to multibox - say 2 or 3 times the same mmo, as some people like to do, be the reasons whatever they may be.

    imageimage

  • pdabb38pdabb38 Member Posts: 43

    Well from the response is seems it would be a lot better  to put the $100 towards a better video card upgrade. Thats what im going to do then.

  • ShastraShastra Member Posts: 1,061

    Nope it doesn't help. Only thing it helps for is, if you multi task and run some heavy graphic, editing softwares. Otherwise 4 gig is all you need for gaming.

  • eyeswideopeneyeswideopen Member Posts: 2,414

    If the game you're playing has gigantic memory leaks, it'll take you slightly longer to crash than everyone else.

    Outside of that, no. It won't help you.

    -Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
    -And on the 8th day, man created God.-

  • bronecarbronecar Member Posts: 685

    Originally posted by eyeswideopen

    If the game you're playing has gigantic memory leaks, it'll take you slightly longer to crash than everyone else.

    Outside of that, no. It won't help you.

     

    Offtopic: can't stop wondering whether you are reffering to a specific game or not image

  • LeFantomeLeFantome Member RarePosts: 698

    Originally posted by Shastra

    Nope it doesn't help. Only thing it helps for is, if you multi task and run some heavy graphic, editing softwares. Otherwise 4 gig is all you need for gaming.

     

     

    Agreed.

    image
  • eyeswideopeneyeswideopen Member Posts: 2,414

    Originally posted by bronecar

    Originally posted by eyeswideopen

    If the game you're playing has gigantic memory leaks, it'll take you slightly longer to crash than everyone else.

    Outside of that, no. It won't help you.

     

    Offtopic: can't stop wondering whether you are reffering to a specific game or not image

    lol no, not in this case.

    -Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
    -And on the 8th day, man created God.-

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