How Much RAM Should I Have?

[Danielzxzx]

So which dedicated graphics card will work on my computer?

 

[Danielzxzx]

new question: It looks like my computer can hold up to a total of 8GB. I found a compatible package to get 8GB of RAM. I do think 8GB of RAM will make a difference from 3GB. Will it? Will it increase the performance of games?

 

[Little Darwin]

new question: It looks like my computer can hold up to a total of 8GB. I found a compatible package to get 8GB of RAM. I do think 8GB of RAM will make a difference from 3GB. Will it? Will it increase the performance of games?

As others have stated, it may not help.

I don't game much, but I upgraded my system from 2GB to 4GB, and I use less than 1.6GB of memory. So in effect, the 2GB I added is ALMOST ALWAYS sitting there doing nothing.

Upgrading the video will:

1) Give you better performance for video

2) Free up a little available RAM

3) Free up CPU cycles slightly, since some video functions will be performed by the GPU on the card instead of your CPU

Even a modest video card (like an ATI Radeon 43xx) will definitely give you some improvement, going higher end (if possible with your power supply) will provide even better improvements.

Extra memory can decrease paging etc, but at 3GB you have a reasonable amount of RAM already. More might help a little, but no guarantees...

 

[whs]

the 2GB I added is ALMOST ALWAYS sitting there doing nothing.

That is not so. It is used for caching and that speeds up the system considerably. Have a look in Resource Monitor > Memory tab. The dark blue is the cached part.

 

[Little Darwin]

the 2GB I added is ALMOST ALWAYS sitting there doing nothing.

That is not so. It is used for caching and that speeds up the system considerably. Have a look in Resource Monitor > Memory tab. The dark blue is the cached part.

I love learning something every day... I'll have to check this when I get home.

 

[whs]

the 2GB I added is ALMOST ALWAYS sitting there doing nothing.

That is not so. It is used for caching and that speeds up the system considerably. Have a look in Resource Monitor > Memory tab. The dark blue is the cached part.

I love learning something every day... I'll have to check this when I get home.

Check the Resource Manager after you boot, and then check again after you ran the system for a couple of hours. Let me know what you saw.

Ideally you will see something like this = all RAM is used:

 

[Zepher]

new question: It looks like my computer can hold up to a total of 8GB. I found a compatible package to get 8GB of RAM. I do think 8GB of RAM will make a difference from 3GB. Will it? Will it increase the performance of games?

My system routinely uses 4-5GB (have 3GB free of my 8GB) when I am playing some games, like Just Cause 2, Borderlands, and Crysis.

If you don't upgrade your video card and your PSU, then the extra ram may not benefit you.

 

[Danielzxzx]

How do I get to the resource manager?

 

[whs]

E.g. via Task Manager > Performance tab. There is a button. Btw: My bad, the exact name is Resource Monitor - you can also put it into the start/search field.

 

[Danielzxzx]

Well it seems to be balanced. I have more gray than you though. Wehn I have a game launched it kind of goes out of balance. There is 2MB of free as average. If I play a wii game on my dolphin emulator it goes to 0MB of free and the game kind of lags. So that is what it is. If you want to see a picture I don't know how to put pictures in this forum so you would have to tell me.

 

[DocBrown]

Post a screen shot

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-how-post-screenshot-seven-forums.html

 

[whs]

Picture posting is easy. Just click on the paper clip on top right of the message window, then browse to your pic, double click on it and click on upload. Then the pic will appear in the posting. But you have to post a couple of words too, else the system will not accept the posting.

 

[Danielzxzx]

Ok here it is without any game running.

 

[Danielzxzx]

Here is is with a game running: Unreal Tournament 2004. I don't feel like making one with a game running on the dolphin wii emulator so I will describe it. It is like the one for a game running except there is 0MB of free left and the game find of lags.

 

[pparks1]

new question: It looks like my computer can hold up to a total of 8GB. I found a compatible package to get 8GB of RAM. I do think 8GB of RAM will make a difference from 3GB. Will it? Will it increase the performance of games?

Moving to 8GB of RAM is not going to help. Your best bet is your video card. There is no game out there which is going to use 8GB of RAM...and even if there was...your integrated graphics card would not cut it. Anything over 4GB of RAM is super neato...but will not benefit gaming.

 

[cluberti]

I would have to concur - your free memory goes down to ~200MB, but you still have over a GB on the standby list that is basically free, because those pages have been marked to be paged out if your system needs that memory. Given you have ~200MB actually on the free list, they probably aren't needed when UT2K4 is running, although the dolphin Wii emulator is a memory hog (for legit reasons), so memory would help in that scenario. I would have to say that overall, though, memory is not really a problem here. In most gaming scenarios, it's going to be a CPU or video card bottleneck, and given we're talking about gaming, the latter is even more likely. However, the ATI Radeon 3200 in your system would indicate you're on a laptop, so unless it's a gaming laptop or an upgradeable one (not just RAM) you might not have many options at all to make the system play games better.

 

[Danielzxzx]

cluberti, It is not a laptop, it is a desktop so that might give more options.

 

[Petey7]

It being a desktop gives you all the options in the world. After looking at your specs I'd say you need to read up on the specs of your video card, and invest in something that is a all-around better card. Doesn't have to be by much. If you find something you can write back to us and have one of us look over the card for you.

 

[Danielzxzx]

I will update my system specs soon as I got the answer to most of my questions in my system specs.

Anyway, I'll look for a graphics card that is not too expensive but I think is compatible for my computer and will improve graphics and performance.

 

[cluberti]

Wow, I had never seen a Radeon 3200 anywhere but a laptop - I stand corrected (the 3200 is the IGP on the AMD780g chipset, which is usually on laptop motherboards, but a quick search did turn up some desktop motherboards from 2008). A desktop does indeed give you many more options, although the Radeon 3200 is really just a Radeon 2400 in disguise with some additional features bolted on (none of which increase it's performance in DirectX, so no real gaming increase).