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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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Hyrule19193 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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On March 30 2011 14:48 RobbybabyDTF wrote:
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?
You can't.
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You wouldn't really unless you're doing a large rendering task where speed is not as much of a priority really you only see shared ram on laptops. ATI's HyperMemory and NVIDIA's TurboCache to games not really a benefit more like a hindrance.
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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.
If you have an i7 and you are having any issues, ever, then you clearly have a problem that shouldn't be happening. It would take knowing the specs and system settings and software settings of your whole PC, but something isn't right. I have an Athlon X3, which is about a quarter of the power, and never have such issues. Ever. And I run on everything maxed. However 30fps isn't really that low. I dunno. Use fraps and see where exactly your FPS is going, because you shouldn't really notice a 'dip' to 30fps, you'd only notice if it went below 30. So your probably hitting a low of 15fps, as my guess. Either way. And I'm sure you are aware your system can handle everything at ultra with 60+fps.
2GB of RAM will run SC2 perfectly fine, as long as you don't have any programs running. If you do, you will get slowed down. 4GB should cover all multitasking except gaming + extreme applications, like maybe rendering and whatnot. Streaming should even be okay with 4GB. Also W7 64bit uses more RAM than 32bit, so if you are running at 3GB or less, use 32bit, if you are using more, use 64 bit so it can be taken advantage of. Using certain themes will use more RAM but it shouldn't matter if you have 4GB or more.
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I never seem to be able to go above 4GB of RAM usage unless I am purposefully trying to do so.
That being said, I saw DDR3-1600 RAM was available for $30 / 4GB last week on newegg (corsair XMS). I mean, at $30, why not stick it in and at least fill out all your ram slots.
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^ Because theres no reason to? I mean damn, why don't you donate the $30? I'm sure someone can appreciate it. Can't you just take your girl out to dinner or something?
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On March 31 2011 00:14 Belial88 wrote:
^ Because theres no reason to? I mean damn, why don't you donate the $30? I'm sure someone can appreciate it. Can't you just take your girl out to dinner or something?
Yeah, he can appreciate it if it makes one app a little bit more efficient. Don't make me hold up a crucifix made of X58 motherboards and chant "Triple channel DDR3" until you go back from whence you came.
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^ he hasn't made any comments indicating he could appreciate it, and given this is a SC2 forum, in the tech support section of that very forum, I'm makin a completely out the ass guess this is for Starcraft 2, in which case going over 4GB is goofy.
dont make me hold up a bunch of sad pictures of japan and tell you to donate now. too late
![[image loading]](http://www.antiquated.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Donate-to-japan1.jpg)
User was temp banned for this post.
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Unless you're h to the usking and the likes, put the money towards a SSD 
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On March 31 2011 02:43 Belial88 wrote:^ he hasn't made any comments indicating he could appreciate it, and given this is a SC2 forum, in the tech support section of that very forum, I'm makin a completely out the ass guess this is for Starcraft 2, in which case going over 4GB is goofy. + Show Spoiler +dont make me hold up a bunch of sad pictures of japan and tell you to donate now. too late
This isn't your budget SC2 PC thread, and you certainly didn't like people coming to the original version of that pointing out the misleading or inaccurate parts that you ended up needing to remove. Read the article in the OP, and see why the question was asked.
As it turns out, someone wanting to spend more than $400 on a PC isn't a crime, and people use this particular forum for lots of questions not directly pertaining to SC2. If you don't want other people questioning your thread (I know for a fact you don't), don't go jumping on people for reasonable questions, with a solid basis, that might involve spending a few more dollars on small performance gains.
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I read that article in OP before and I was a bit surpised as well. Always thought 4gb would be fine for a normal user. I thought it was pretty stupid for someone who was a normal user to get 8gb...
But since 4gb RAM is like $40 it may very well turn out be useful for at least some things, and future games. Could that $40 be spent on something better like charity? Yes, but I don't see how that is relevant here.
Anyway I'm not going to rush out and buy more RAM just yet myself though. I think most games are fine with 4gb. But I guess getting 8gb can be better than I thought.
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Belial, this isn't your stupid budget SC2 PC thread where you get to crap over anyone who wants to spend more money on things.
Maybe I bought it already before I realized I wouldn't need it and my time is important to me and it's not worth $30 to take a trip to the Post Office and return it.
Maybe I like seeing all 4 RAM slots filled, since it gives me satisfaction knowing that I'm operating at closer to 100% of my board's efficiency. Maybe I think it just looks pretty?
or maybe, just maybe, at some point, I'll need 4GB more of RAM and I think that DDR3 is about as low as it's ever going to get. When DDR4 comes out, DDR3 production will stop and prices will actually RISE, like it did with DDR2, so I'm actually *saving* money by buying it now instead of later.
None of that changes the fact that $30 for 4GB of RAM is stupidly cheap at its current price point.
And for the record, I *agree* that getting more than 4GB of RAM is unnecessary and that's why I was explaining that I rarely, if ever go above 4GB of RAM usage. But you are being a jackass with the tone of your posts.
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I still get annoyed over the over-the-counter PCs being sold with totally crap hardware and tons of RAM though. A bit OT but.. people who don't know PCs seem to assume RAM = performance.
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On March 31 2011 04:03 Sablar wrote:
I still get annoyed over the over-the-counter PCs being sold with totally crap hardware and tons of RAM though. A bit OT but.. people who don't know PCs seem to assume RAM = performance.
Better than when Vista first came out, and people selling it on PCs with 1GB or less RAM. That should have been criminal. But yeah, RAM can only help so much, which should be taken into consideration by anyone reading this thread. If in doubt, ask.
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RAM is always helpful, but there is a certain point where a Gig will be less helpful than it would have been before. I have 6 gigs right now, and I am comfortably playing sc2 on low settings. you don't need a lot. If I added another gig, it would help, but less so than adding the 6th gig was. It all depends on what you use your computer for. You usually don't need more than 5.
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On March 31 2011 04:09 exploding.godhand wrote:
RAM is always helpful, but there is a certain point where a Gig will be less helpful than it would have been before. I have 6 gigs right now, and I am comfortably playing sc2 on low settings. you don't need a lot. If I added another gig, it would help, but less so than adding the 6th gig was. It all depends on what you use your computer for. You usually don't need more than 5.
RTFA. Also, I'm curious how much you think RAM is helping if your graphics card is weak enough that you're on low settings. This thread is originally about using RAM to speed up page file access.
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5930 Posts
Honestly speaking if you've got Windows 7 (which you should by now if you've got a good enough computer for 8GB of RAM) you shouldn't be needing to fiddle around with anything. In fact you shouldn't even be touching your page file or whatever because chances are that Microsoft knows best.
8GB won't help you but with prices as low as they are, its a bit of a "why not" situation. It gets you ready for Windows 8 when 2012 pops around I guess.
The only time I've gotten into the issue of needing 8GB of RAM is with Mac OS and that's because it sticks recently used programs into RAM and I don't think its quite as efficient as Windows 7 is (superfetch and all that). I do photoediting, GIS work, and light video work and the only problem I've ever got were I/O bottlenecks.
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Say i have 4 gb of ram on 1 stick, can i add 2 additional 2gb sticks that are the same, but different to the first one?
I would like to grab some more ram, I dont mind paying for 2x4gb but im just wondering.
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On March 31 2011 10:31 please wrote:
Say i have 4 gb of ram on 1 stick, can i add 2 additional 2gb sticks that are the same, but different to the first one?
I would like to grab some more ram, I dont mind paying for 2x4gb but im just wondering.
Can't imagine that would be anywhere near as ideal as each channel having matching RAM of the same quantity, with the same number of modules. Depending on how mismatched you ended up being, you could probably even end up a bit slower.
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On March 31 2011 10:37 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 10:31 please wrote:
Say i have 4 gb of ram on 1 stick, can i add 2 additional 2gb sticks that are the same, but different to the first one?
I would like to grab some more ram, I dont mind paying for 2x4gb but im just wondering. Can't imagine that would be anywhere near as ideal as each channel having matching RAM of the same quantity, with the same number of modules. Depending on how mismatched you ended up being, you could probably even end up a bit slower.
thanks for the advice =) I have noticed im getting close to maxing my ram at 4gb, just to add to the thread, i think getting 6-8 will be a worthy investment.
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On March 31 2011 02:43 Belial88 wrote:^ he hasn't made any comments indicating he could appreciate it, and given this is a SC2 forum, in the tech support section of that very forum, I'm makin a completely out the ass guess this is for Starcraft 2, in which case going over 4GB is goofy. dont make me hold up a bunch of sad pictures of japan and tell you to donate now. too late User was temp banned for this post.
1) not solely a sc2 forum
2) tech section is not in the sc2 forum
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On March 31 2011 04:14 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 04:09 exploding.godhand wrote:
RAM is always helpful, but there is a certain point where a Gig will be less helpful than it would have been before. I have 6 gigs right now, and I am comfortably playing sc2 on low settings. you don't need a lot. If I added another gig, it would help, but less so than adding the 6th gig was. It all depends on what you use your computer for. You usually don't need more than 5. RTFA. Also, I'm curious how much you think RAM is helping if your graphics card is weak enough that you're on low settings. This thread is originally about using RAM to speed up page file access.
I did. This was my insight on adding more ram and how helpful it might be for the average gamer.
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