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[Biff Hardbody]

I had originally planned on 1024 of PC3200 crucial RAM. But then I remembered hearing people saying that 1024 was expected for some games to perform at their level today. So, I decided why not get 2048 of PC 3200 crucial RAM. It seemed like overkill, but the price at newegg.com wasn't bad.

Some people told me thats a bad move though, that it could actually cause a performance hit in my system. Now I'm confused. Should I get 1 gig of ram or 2?

 

[Matlock]

Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!

 

[Outlaw Pro Mod]

1 gigabyte is enough I guess. RAM is expensive nowadays. :/

 

[ChrisReid]

There were some inefficiencies with how earlier Windowses handled large amounts of RAM.. I think that's mostly cleared up by XP now though. I've got a gig now, and I can't wait to go to 2 gigs. I do large photo work though (sorting through thousands of pictures for events), so the RAM could probably help me.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Yeah, I'm going to go for two gigs. I don't see any reason why not...that is unless someone lists one. Thanks.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

512 should be standard for XP.

Resource hungry games like Farcry want a gig.

If you had two gigs, you wouldn't have to worry. Faster RAM would prolly come out before the size became inadequate.

 

[xsarien]

Resource hungry games like Farcry want a gig.

Christ, fucking spoiled gamers today. I remember thinking "Man, they're crazy. They want 16MB of upper memory available? For a *DOS* game?"

/get off my lawn, I have a boot disk to make.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

Christ, fucking spoiled gamers today. I remember thinking "Man, they're crazy. They want 16MB of upper memory available? For a *DOS* game?"

/get off my lawn

At least we can just go out and buy more RAM cheaply nowdays, instead of having to make boot disks to contort our systems so we could play Crusader: No Remorse or Rebel Assault.




Whoa, did you see my response coming? You're spooky, old man.

 

[xsarien]

Blame the limitations of DOS, not the expense of memory for that. Most games came with a program whose name I've long since forgotten that helped them punch through the 640k ceiling.

EMM386/Memsys also helped, but what always screwed things up was Microsoft's insistence that the Drivespace software load into memory, even if you didn't use it.

 

[TAJ]

>>>There were some inefficiencies with how earlier Windowses handled large amounts of RAM.. I think that's mostly cleared up by XP now though. I've got a gig now, and I can't wait to go to 2 gigs. I do large photo work though (sorting through thousands of pictures for events), so the RAM could probably help me.<<<

You'd need two gigs of RAM just to open this one photo:
http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

And there's no such thing as enough RAM when it comes to 3D rendering, but 2 gigs is overkill for most applications.

 

[xsarien]

And there's no such thing as enough RAM when it comes to 3D rendering, but 2 gigs is overkill for most applications.

There's no such thing as "too much memory," it's the part of the computer building process that - if you have the money - should get as much investment as possible, arguably over the CPU.

 

[ChrisReid]

EMM386/Memsys also helped, but what always screwed things up was Microsoft's insistence that the Drivespace software load into memory, even if you didn't use it.

You could take that out though.. took a little tweaking. I forget how now, I recall it being slightly more complicated than altering the config.sys.

 

[xsarien]

You could take that out though.. took a little tweaking. I forget how now, I recall it being slightly more complicated than altering the config.sys.

It involved a boot disk, fairly explicit CLI switches for EMM386.EXE in the autoexec, equally specific DEVICE lines in the config.sys, a Polynesian virgin, a mountain goat, a pit of fire, and a drop of blood into the 5.25" drive.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I just want to play games well. If 2 gigs is better then 1, I'll buy it. Sounds like common sense, but then I have people telling me not to do it.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

It involved a boot disk, fairly explicit CLI switches for EMM386.EXE in the autoexec, equally specific DEVICE lines in the config.sys, a Polynesian virgin, a mountain goat, a pit of fire, and a drop of blood into the 5.25" drive.

And that shit would still crash when I configured my Sound Blaster

 

[xsarien]

And that shit would still crash when I configured my Sound Blaster

Oh, yeah. Too much blood will do that.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

I just want to play games well. If 2 gigs is better then 1, I'll buy it. Sounds like common sense, but then I have people telling me not to do it.

Priced right, better to have too much

 

[Mrbob]

I think you are wasting your money right now buying 2GB of ram.

1GB is plenty.

Farcry runs fine on my system and I have 512MB of ram. Adding another 512MB soon.

 

[FortNinety]

You can NEVER have too much ram. Don't let anyone tell you any different.

 

[ChrisReid]

It involved a boot disk, fairly explicit CLI switches for EMM386.EXE in the autoexec, equally specific DEVICE lines in the config.sys, a Polynesian virgin, a mountain goat, a pit of fire, and a drop of blood into the 5.25" drive.

I think I tried all that and it didn't work.. Solution was something simple like finding the hidden invisible .sys or .com or whatever was being loaded into memory at boot (drvspace.sys or something) and deleting/renaming it.

 

[Pellham]

4 gigs? it's the max on 32-bit operating systems anyway

 

[Fifty]

Biffo: I highly recommend two pounds of ram.

 

[xsarien]

I think I tried all that and it didn't work.. Solution was something simple like finding the hidden invisible .sys or .com or whatever was being loaded into memory at boot (drvspace.sys or something) and deleting/renaming it.

Sure, if you don't have a 5.25" inch drive, that'll work too.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Alright, thanks fellahs. 2 gigs it is!

 

[Hitokage]

Ah, the days of juggling EMS and XMS, and then the asshole game that'll want main memory too.

Yes, I remember making my own boot disks rather well.

 

[Hitokage]

Speaking of which, does anyone else remember when they tried selling programs that claimed to increase your ram capacity?

 

[teepo]

Ah, the days of juggling EMS and XMS, and then the asshole game that'll want main memory too.

Yes, I remember making my own boot disks rather well.

oh man i miss those days getting system shock to run was a bitch on my system.

and i remeber those programs quiet well. never bought one myself. i remeber they had programs that claimed to make your 486 a pentium.

 

[Manders]

512 is all you need. i've had that much for the last 3-4 years, and i can still play the latest games.

 

[Hitokage]

and i remeber those programs quiet well. never bought one myself. i remeber they had programs that claimed to make your 486 a pentium.

They were a scam. Didn't do anything.

 

[miyuru]

486 = Pentium 90 or something I thought. Then again, I was only 9.

 

[Late Stage Marxist]

Speaking of which, does anyone else remember when they tried selling programs that claimed to increase your ram capacity?

I remember people using RAM Doubler on the Macs at school to play Doom.

 

[Neo_ZX]

Ahh the DOS days... with my 4MB of RAM I still managed to play a lot of games.

As for today, get 2x 512MB modules. That enables dual channel, if you need more in the future grab another 1GB stick and it still gives you dual channel with more memory.

You probably don't have any games that benefit from the extra RAM right now assuming that's what you want it for.

 

[Kseutron]

512 is ok

1 gig is pretty nice

more than 1 gig = to be flashy

 

[Shogmaster]

512 is ok

1 gig is pretty nice

more than 1 gig = to be flashy

Unless you need it for Photoshop or Maya.

I have 2 GB PC3200 for my workstation and 512MB PC2700 for my ghettobox. I might take it up to a gig when I get decent enough vid card for it. Right now, I don't see a reason to go a gig with a GF2MX in it. It's got a decent CPU though (2600+ Barton).

 

[NotMSRP]

4GB is definitely the maximum size for a 32-bit system. You can install more RAM but will be completely unaccessible.

 

[Shogmaster]

4GB is definitely the maximum size for a 32-bit system.

Out of that, I think windows only see 3GB, even though 32bit OS can theoretically access 4GB. I read that somewhere but forgot the details.

 

[NotMSRP]

OS is irrelevant. It's the size of the instruction, which is determined by the hardware. Most common computers today use 32 bits in length instructions.

 

[Shogmaster]

OS is irrelevant. It's the size of the instruction, which is determined by the hardware. Most common computers today use 32 bits in length instructions.

I know all that. But what I'm saying is that Windows has additional limitations that won't let you use the whole 4GB you installed in the machine. I not sure if it's 3GB it's sees or some other figure, but I read about the windows limitation in some article, and that's why I decided to get four 512MB sticks instead of 1024MB sticks for my workstation.

 

[Slurpy]

For 99% of people, 1GIG is more than enough today. I wouldn't spend money on 2, as by the time it becomes used the memory you buy today will be obsolete.

 

[Limedust]

486 = Pentium 90 or something I thought. Then again, I was only 9.

The original Pentiums were Pentium 60's (60 MHz).
The 486's before that ran slower.

 

[teh_pwn]

Some mobos don't like 2 GB even though they're supposed to work with it.

And if you're going to overclock, 2 GB is a no no. Though, with Crucial PC3200, you'll be able to only get to FSB 210 anyway. That would OC a 3 GHz to 3.15.

"512 is all you need. i've had that much for the last 3-4 years, and i can still play the latest games."

I've noticed some big differences with some games and apps with 1 GB over 512.

 

[Phoenix]

1GB is what you can consider 'enough' these days. 512 running on XP should be considered the realistic minimum. Anything less than that and you will have noticable performance problems on XP (but 256 will be fine for Windows 2000).

 

[Buggy Loop]

Isnt there a trick to assign a memory slot for HDD offloading? Panajev was talking about that to me the other day, apparently it saves a lot of virtual memory, faster loading speeds, etc.

If its possible, i would put 1 gig for standard ram, 1 gig for virtual memory/hdd loading

 

[DJ Sl4m]

Buggy, are you talking about making a 1.5 gig partition and creating a 1 gig pagefile to be read from that partition with nothing else on that partition ?

 

[Shogmaster]

Buggy, are you talking about making a 1.5 gig partition and creating a 1 gig pagefile to be read from that partition with nothing else on that partition ?

I do that with all of my installs. But I think he's talking about somethig else.

 

[DJ Sl4m]

Yea, same here, but I wasn't sure if that's what he meant or not.

If not I'm interested in hearing the idea considering all the memory needed to remix music with some of the programs I use.

 

[Ecrofirt]

I'm buying the new Dell XPS 3rd Edition soon, and I was looking at getting this:
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x1GB) [add $440 or $13/month1]

 

[Buggy Loop]

Im not sure.. Asking panajev would be a good idea, he'll explain it all, in great details as usual

 

[Shogmaster]

Im not sure.. Asking panajev would be a good idea, he'll explain it all, in great details as usual

I think it's basically using the RAM as a RAM disk, and using it for all the necessary Windows cache functions that would be using the hard drive normally I think.

edit: I found this