Curse

dont feel no pain · Jan 14, 2008, 09:11 PM // 21:11

I have the option to upgrade my good old pc to 2gb from 1gb, my games play well but load times on some games are just boring.

I would do this to give my pc abit more life before building a new one.

Is it worth it for just £28

Ec]-[oMaN · Jan 14, 2008, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Ram only takes you so far really, the cpu and gpu are still the workhouse... Depends on current setup and what games you are playing/planning to play. Many people have 2 gigs these days and for only 30$ why not

TEB Elite · Jan 14, 2008, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Adding more ram wont help your load times, it will just give your system more of what it probably already has enough of. You will need to think about getting better, faster ram, or upgrading your motherboard so you can get with the latest technology.

Unless of course your running crappy mismatched sticks in which case buying new ram or outright replacing what you have may help you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...1GB+(2+x+512MB)

Tachyon · Jan 14, 2008, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Why are you pointing someone from the UK to newegg? They don't deliver here.

As for the original question, yeah go and drop 2GB in there. You'll definately notice a difference, I remember i did a few years back when I went from 1GB to 2GB.

Rushin Roulette · Jan 14, 2008, 10:18 PM // 22:18

Hmm, yes it will improve load times. Ive just recently upgraded from 1GB to 2GB (although it was to 2GB of faster 800MHz RAM from 1GB of 633MHz) seeing as most applications can actually fully use 2GB nowadays. You will also get a more stable system if you have a few things running at the same time. But as Ec]-[oMaN said the main work is still done by your CPU/GPU core(s). the RAM is just an (important) extension to them.

I deffinitely notice a difference in loading times after my upgrade, not dramatically like twice as fast, but still a noticable difference. Prices for RAM have dropped dramatically in the last few months (weeks) so it seemed like a good time to upgrade for me.

EDIT: Load times for games seem the same to me though. I was refering to windows load times.

dont feel no pain · Jan 14, 2008, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Hmmm i'll stick with what i've got then, besides ddr 3200 is double the price as ddr 6400 oddly.

I'll just wait till i build a new system.

thanks all.

Tachyon · Jan 14, 2008, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by dont feel no pain

Hmmm i'll stick with what i've got then, besides ddr 3200 is double the price as ddr 6400 oddly.

I'll just wait till i build a new system.

thanks all.

That's because there's a limited supply of PC3200 these days due to it being phased out of production and the faster RAM that is on the market. Personally I'd shell out the £28 and get the extra 1GB, that's not a bad price really.

TEB Elite · Jan 14, 2008, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

That's because there's a limited supply of PC3200 these days due to it being phased out of production and the faster RAM that is on the market. Personally I'd shell out the £28 and get the extra 1GB, that's not a bad price really.

and if hes running WinXp or even vista, the extra gigabyte will do nothing for his performance if he plans on buying the same speed now.

pygar · Jan 14, 2008, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Loading times for a game like GW stem from your hard drive or your network connection. GW probably does not use but a minimal amount of system RAM to make the game run, but uses the CPU, vid card RAM, network, and hard drive all the time...the hard drive being for an older PC the most likely cause for slow loads.

A new PC that runs a SATA hard drive or something even newer (like flash) is probably the real solution for you. (Although, more RAM wont hurt....especially if it's cheap.)

Tachyon · Jan 15, 2008, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by TEB Elite

and if hes running WinXp or even vista, the extra gigabyte will do nothing for his performance if he plans on buying the same speed now.

Yes it will! For instance, when I went from 1GB to 2GB in my old rig, which was running PC3200, I noticed a hell of a difference in some games. Take BF2 for example, the maps loaded completely and didn't suffer anymore microstutters when using the highest texture settings (which incidentally eat 1.5GB on their own)!

How you can say an extra GB won't help anything is beyond me!

TEB Elite · Jan 15, 2008, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Quote:

Yes it will! For instance, when I went from 1GB to 2GB in my old rig, which was running PC3200, I noticed a hell of a difference in some games. Take BF2 for example, the maps loaded completely and didn't suffer anymore microstutters when using the highest texture settings (which incidentally eat 1.5GB on their own)!

How you can say an extra GB won't help anything is beyond me!

I didn't say it wont help anything, I said it wont make his system faster. Adding more of the same speed ram wont do anything but give him more ram, not speed up load times or make his lag spikes go away.

arsie · Jan 15, 2008, 06:53 AM // 06:53

Yeah, I'll echo the consensus and say yes it'll help, but just don't expect it to half the loading times.

TreeDude · Jan 16, 2008, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Considering the is a GW forum, 2gb will not help GW at all. BF2 and BF2142 eat more that 1gb when the settings are close to high. I used to play BF2 a lot and it was the sole reason I got 2gbs of memory.

Also if you have Vista, 2gbs WILL help you. Because Vista uses a lot more RAM than XP, there is less for your games to use. I would definitely get 2gbs if you are running Vista.

Quaker · Jan 16, 2008, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Yes, 2gigs of RAM will help GW load times. Not the time it takes to load the game, but the time it takes to load into maps/areas. This may not be a direct function of "load times", but more a function of RAM usage and the ability to "page" sections of the map rather than "swap" them.
It also allows you to do things like having Ventrilo running, and you can have your browser open in the background for when you want to check wiki or whatever.
With 2gigs of RAM I can run Ventrilo, have the browser open, take screen shots in GW, and crop the the screenies with Paint Shop Pro, all at the same time.

Etta · Jan 16, 2008, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Bloody hell. Just buy the damn thing, 28 quid is as cheap as chip.

Nanood · Jan 17, 2008, 03:45 AM // 03:45

More ram will always help in an operating system that can use it. 2GB in Xp is great. 4GB in Vista is great too.