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The common recommendation to people building/buying a new pc has for several years been that you don't need more that 4gb of ram unless you are going to use memory demanding applications. I also have given this same advice many times. After reading an article on Tom's Hardware, Memory Upgrade: Is It Time To Add More RAM?, It got me thinking a bit more about that advice.
Although the use of a ram disk on a 32-bit OS was interesting, the part that got my attention the most was about the allocation of system memory for the video card. An increase like this may not increase your fps, but should help in other areas (loading textures and details, artifacts, etc.) In SC2 the only real boost I would expect from it is in loading the match itself, especially when the game isn't really all that memory limited. However, I do know of many other games which would get a nice benefit.
So what do you all think? Is it time to push the basic recommendations to the next level, especially with the prices of memory where they are, or should this idea wait until more applications make direct use of the higher memory?
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If you have a 64bit OS I don't see why you wouldn't have 8gb
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If you have the money lying around then go for it imo.
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I use 12 gigs right now and I still max it out sometimes (keeping in mind that I play sc2, record, render, livestream and upload all at the same time sometimes).
The 4 gigs thing is just for 32 bit operating systems like Windows XP. Really no reason not to get a nice 8 gigs if you have the mobo/slots for it and the ram is matching (as well as having a 64 bit OS). I'm going to be upgrading past 12 soon but again I beat the hell out of it.
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Anything you adjusted at the settings on Win7x64 husky?
Got 12 gigs as well and wonder if I can adjust if graphic card ram (only 512) can be supported with settings i don´t know of, or disabling swap file is recommended or other stuff i dont think of.
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most people dont need more then 4 gb... even when they are running tons of applications and a game... but people who use their computer for more heavy tasks do need more... but being that memory has droped in price recently i think the 4gb rule needs some updating as you can now get 8 gb of ram for cheaper then you could get 4 gb a year ago i see no reason not to go with 8 gb on a standard build(why not for <75$) ofc the exception would be budget builds
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After years of running - with extreme caution! - on 4GB with no system swap file in WinXP 32bit, I recently bit the bullet and enabled a swap file (SC2 was glitching/crashing when it ran out or texture memory). I can run more stuff now but the performance of application switching leaves much to be desired, and though my computer is plenty fast you know what a bottleneck those platter HDDs are.
I would give anything to upgrade to 8GB or 12GB to avoid having to use any swap (though my next PC will have an SSD for sure). The only thing to be careful of is matching the RAM and motherboard carefully. The more slots you use, the trickier the voltage and timing settings can be. Faster timings may also not be supported with all slots populated, but I take it you know that.
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Well, i look at this this way, you might not notice any special difference unless you are looking for it, it speeds up minimizing, maximizing etc and stuff like that. But at the same time, getting 4 moore GB of ram, aint really that expensive.
I just purchased 8GB 1600mhz ram along with my new i7 2600k. They were 821 SEK wich is around 115-120 dollars? 7SEK is 1 dollar.
My point is, that it is not alot of money, no reason not to get more RAM.
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Hyrule19189 Posts
8gb is pretty much standard for 64-bit machines these days. You probably won't notice the difference between 8 and 12 or 8 and 16 unless you have specific tasks to do (like stupid amounts of mathematical operations for some algorithm, or you're Husky and do everything at the same time).
You might notice 4 to 8, though again it depends on what you do. Odds are you won't, but RAM is cheap enough that I say "why not?"
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Still running on 4gb DDR3 and I've never come close to maxing it. Not gonna buy extra RAM until games start asking 8gb in their recommended requirements.
All I do is surf, check youtube, write some e-mails and play some video games. No heavy rendering, streaming or anything like that.
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Since i dont know too much about any of this stuff, i need to ask.
Will upgrading from 4gb ddr3 ram to 8gb improve my FPS?
Ive got a i7 clocked to 3.7 Ghz, gtx 470 and 4gb ddr3 and im kinda experiencing fps issues. If the screen is full of a maxed out moving ling/bane army engaging a maxed out terran army, my fps goes as low as 25-30. Is this normal for my kind of hardware? Its still playable but i absolutely notice the diference in fps and it anoys me. Ive got everything on the lowest in options.
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On March 30 2011 12:57 Babru wrote:
Since i dont know too much about any of this stuff, i need to ask.
Will upgrading from 4gb ddr3 ram to 8gb improve my FPS?
No since SC2 doesn't use more than 2gb.
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So where could my problem lie?
Considering my hardware, do my fps dropping seem strange or normal?
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On March 30 2011 12:57 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2011 12:57 Babru wrote:
Since i dont know too much about any of this stuff, i need to ask.
Will upgrading from 4gb ddr3 ram to 8gb improve my FPS? No since SC2 doesn't use more than 2gb.
Lies. 2GB of ram for sc2 will give you random screen freezes, long loading time, and a pain in the ass when multiasking.
I used to have 2gb of ddr2ram and the screen freezing was fucking bad, especially when i just started a game, random times during midgame, and lag the shits and freeze when i was moving around units.
4GB ddr3 wont hurt, they're about fourty bucks and its worth a try, because i actually bought a new graphics card while i still had ddr2 2gb ram, and it still did those random screen freezes, my new 4 gb ddr3 ram definetely helped me out =). Adding more ram i guess wont help much, and i mean 8gb+ for average users like meeee
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I said SC2 uses no more than 2GB.... I never said that you should use 2GB for your PC.
And the FPS drop is abnormal.
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Even though SC2 only uses up to 2 GB, that is in addition to everything else running (Windows, AV, etc). This leaves very little room for the memory set aside for the video card caching textures. (think of it as a, image swap file in system memory). This is where you see an improvement from 4gb to 8gb even if it does not speed up your fps, your texture loading may be quicker, and alt-tabbing definitely should be.
As for the issues with the 470, check for driver updates. Also see if you can get a measure of how much of the ram is being used while in game. You might also check temps during those situations (a lot of baneling explosions is a lot to render and it may cause hiccups if you are already stressing the system.)
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On March 30 2011 12:57 Babru wrote:
Since i dont know too much about any of this stuff, i need to ask.
Will upgrading from 4gb ddr3 ram to 8gb improve my FPS?
Ive got a i7 clocked to 3.7 Ghz, gtx 470 and 4gb ddr3 and im kinda experiencing fps issues. If the screen is full of a maxed out moving ling/bane army engaging a maxed out terran army, my fps goes as low as 25-30. Is this normal for my kind of hardware? Its still playable but i absolutely notice the diference in fps and it anoys me. Ive got everything on the lowest in options.
4gb ram with an i7 seems strange... they are built for triple channel memory aren't they?
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i7 exists on 3 different sockets. Only socket 1366 supports triple channel.
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ah ok. either way, having 4gb ram is plenty and will not cause you to fps drop during games. the only thing more ram will do is improve map load times really...
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I got win7 64 bit and 8 gigs, is it possible to allot some of my ram to graphics? If so how? or would it even have a benefit?
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EPT
