Does RAM make a difference?

[Moezter]

Do I need another gig? The game runs about 37 FPS but sometimes it chockes at 27 for a couple of seconds while playing every now and then and when it saves during the game.

3.0 p4 1 gig ram and x850xt

[fedayn]

I recommend to you 2gb

[Moezter]

what will this do for me?

[BornToKill]

what will this do for me?

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Lighten your wallet

[panDE]

what will this do for me?

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Lighten your wallet

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And will also make game loading times shorter.

[ROCO*AFZ*]

This is a good question... will more ram help smoothen out 1280 x 1024? i can run it but it's a little laggy for the 1st 4 seconds. i have a 6800GS, p4 3.0ghz and 1gb of ram dual channel. has anyone done a comparison? (opinions not wanted, facts through testing are)

[Cookie]

It will get rid of some of that lag at first. As far as I know, though, RAM will not affect you're framerate much at higher resolutions unless it's video RAM. If you are capped at say 20 fps at both 1024x768 and 1280x1024, than yes, more RAM will help. From what I can see, though your bottle cap is your graphics card. A way to test whether more RAM would help is to lower the ammount of RAM you are using. Go into your task manager and kill all the processes you can (DO NOT KILL ANYTING NAMED svchost, System, or System Idle process) check your RAM usage, if you've lowered it by 50 MB than load up GRAW and see if you get an improvement. If you only get 1 fps, more RAM probably won't help, if you get an improvement of 4 or more, I'd give it a shot. Again, also test to see if 1280x1024 is the same as 1024x768, if it is than more RAM will definately help.

[Aaronson]

Unless the full version magicly uses up more ram... Not sure on this subject. I would say if things are smooth and you don;t get random hicup's (Auto save does not count) one gig should be fine. And 1 gig has faster timings for better frames.

[Logos]

If you already have 1GB, will an extra GB of memory increase your framerates?

Sort of.

An extra GB of memory is not going to increase your framerates on the top end. What it will do is dramatically reduce the frequency that your framerates drop sharply as a result of your processor not feeding your GPU fast enough for the GPU to run at its full potential.

[Moezter]

so in short, ram will stabilize my FPS

[Logos]

so in short, ram will stabilize my FPS

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Correct. Assuming you have a decent proc, the extra RAM will make your videocard the limiting factor, which is what you want.

[=warcloud=]

Do I need another gig? The game runs about 37 FPS but sometimes it chockes at 27 for a couple of seconds while playing every now and then and when it saves during the game.

3.0 p4 1 gig ram and x850xt

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I got x1800xt 512mb and 2gbyte of 3200 in dual channel and i have simular frames as you, so no, more memory does not allways increase framerate.

[KRP 56]

what will this do for me?

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Lighten your wallet

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How true! I've tried both using my Corsair XMS series and all I can tell is a slight decrease in load time with 2GB. If you have a good 1GB set already save your money.

[ROCO*AFZ*]

thanks for the replys... i knew there would be faster load time but i wasn't sure about better fps. Frame rate is stable, just not as much with 1280... i am also wandering about the aspect ratio. at 1280x1024 you are susposed to run 5:4 from some reading i saw. going to test it.

[Logos]

thanks for the replys... i knew there would be faster load time but i wasn't sure about better fps.  Frame rate is stable, just not as much with 1280... i am also wandering about the aspect ratio.  at 1280x1024 you are susposed to run 5:4 from some reading i saw.  going to test it.

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1280x1024 is 5:4.

Every CRT monitor is also 4:3, so you would probably run 1024x768 or 1280x960 on a CRT.

LCD monitors should run at their native res. If you have a 17" or 19" LCD, your LCD's native res is 1280x1024, which is an aspect ratio of 5:4.

If you have a 20" or bigger LCD, your native res is 1600x1200, which is 4:3.

You shouldn't have to set the aspect ratio in a game. That should be taken care of by setting the res. I know what setting you're talking about in the render_settings file, and that might be something the game sets to match your resolution, OR that might be something that the game sets if the resolution you're playing at does NOT match your monitor's native res. I don't know. It could go either way.

What type of monitor are you using? What does the demo's auto-detect set your resolution and aspect ratio at?

[Spoudazo]

More RAM (2gb) can give you better FPS, but mainly, like in BF2 on highest settings, it'll cause the "chugging" to go away, or in F.E.A.R. it'll allow you to run higher textures w/o chugging, though the FPS may be the same.

[Logos]

More RAM (2gb) can give you better FPS, but mainly, like in BF2 on highest settings, it'll cause the "chugging" to go away, or in F.E.A.R. it'll allow you to run higher textures w/o chugging, though the FPS may be the same.

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Exactly. It's not going to increase your max framerates, but it will dramatically reduce framerate drops.

[SillyHalfMexican]

I know a friend of mine had 512MB total memory in his laptop.

He could not play at all.

He upgraded to 1GB (Making it 1.25GB) and it ran smooth as could be.

Granted it was still on low/medium settings on his ATi mobile 9600.

But still, the extra RAM helped a lot.

2GB of RAM fixes 99% of the hiccups you notice with 1GB of RAM.

However, if you are overclocked and you have 2GB with 4 sticks of RAM in it, forget your overclocking.

I'd go with 2x1GB sticks.

[Logos]

However, if you are overclocked and you have 2GB with 4 sticks of RAM in it, forget your overclocking.

I'd go with 2x1GB sticks.

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Truth.

You will not be able to overclock as far with 4 slots populated. How much depends largely on your mem-controller, so how much is basically luck. One proc might get 90% as far with four slots used vs. two, another of the same model only 50% as far. It's a crap-shoot.

You're always better with 2 sticks only when overclocking. It doesn't negate OCing to use four, but it hurts it. Also, if you go with four, buy sticks identical to the first two.

[Moezter]

i've been messing around with different settings for the game both low and high and my frame rates are pretty much the same they drop just as much and peak just as much. Does this mean the bottle neck is the ram?

Edited May 4, 2006 by Moezter

[ROCO*AFZ*]

turn your dynamic shadows from high to low. I couldn't see much difference but this stablized 1280x1024 for me with my 6800GS

It seemed to stop the slowdown and initial lag, so i guess ram is more important just for load time (this was on the demo though, not sure with the final release)

[Logos]

Does this mean the bottle neck is the ram?

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Different components can be bottlenecks at different times based on what the game is asking your system to do. Having only 1GB of system memory is NOT going to be a bottleneck most of the time, but it will be sometimes, such as moments when you have several opponents on screen, in action, and with lots of physics calculations simultaneously. Going up to 2GB will eliminate your system memory as a bottleneck in almost all scenarios.

I read a review at XBitlabs where performance levels with 1GB and 2GB were compared in F.E.A.R. 1GB and 2GB actually had very similar average framerates -- about 45-50 f/s, but the minimum framerates were MUCH better for 2GB. With 1GB, the framerates dipped below 20f/s 8% of the time, but with 2GB, that only happened less than 1% of the time, and almost every single time it happened with 2GB, it was during auto-saves, where the HD becomes the bottleneck anyway.

Basically, as I said, going from 1GB to 2GB isn't going to increase your max framerates (not much anyway), but it will reduce almost to zero those times when your framerates drop sharply because the proc isn't feeding the GPU fast enough. It makes your GPU the limiting factor in almost all scenarios, which is what you want.