4GB vs 8GB

[ravensword227]

I'm thinking of upgrading from 4GB to 8GB.  I'm on Windows 7 64-bit.  With MWLL running in a window its taking about 70% of memory (no other apps running in background including virus scan).  I have stutters from time to time, esp. when creating a mech and on Death Valley, and they can be annoying.  Page file maximum set itself to 4GB on its own.  I think that may have been related to Fraps but will I see any performance gain in general?

Would I see any performance improvement if I'm not running anything but MWLL?  I came across this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3fIRK0GgvY

Seems like propaganda to me, so can anyone tell me if its true (I don't see how it could be)?

[GB-72AT Talon]

you wont notice 8Gb over 4Gb....that video is over hyped to get you to buy more memory

i run things wide open and never see it use even half my memory

[sleepysheep]

I'm thinking of upgrading from 4GB to 8GB.  I'm on Windows 7 64-bit.  With MWLL running in a window its taking about 70% of memory (no other apps running in background including virus scan).  I have stutters from time to time, esp. when creating a mech and on Death Valley, and they can be annoying.  Page file maximum set itself to 4GB on its own.  I think that may have been related to Fraps but will I see any performance gain in general?

Would I see any performance improvement if I'm not running anything but MWLL?  I came across this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3fIRK0GgvY

Seems like propaganda to me, so can anyone tell me if its true (I don't see how it could be)?

You won't notice any performance increase if your ram isn't 90%+ full. However having it at 70% usage with basically nothing running in background, doesn't give you much left to run anything you might want to in background. In my case I tend to have more than one game open at once, sometimes 3 So having more ram is very useful.

I have my page file disabled (I have SSD, and page file rapes SSD and breaks it ) So I decided to have 12gb of ram. But tbh I've never used more than 50% of it, as of yet. Unless a game has a memory leak. I can't say I get any performance increase from having it disabled, but then again I won't enable it to do proper tests

[GB-72AT Talon]

I'm thinking of upgrading from 4GB to 8GB.  I'm on Windows 7 64-bit.  With MWLL running in a window its taking about 70% of memory (no other apps running in background including virus scan).  I have stutters from time to time, esp. when creating a mech and on Death Valley, and they can be annoying.  Page file maximum set itself to 4GB on its own.  I think that may have been related to Fraps but will I see any performance gain in general?

Would I see any performance improvement if I'm not running anything but MWLL?  I came across this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3fIRK0GgvY

Seems like propaganda to me, so can anyone tell me if its true (I don't see how it could be)?

You won't notice any performance increase if your ram isn't 90%+ full. However having it at 70% usage with basically nothing running in background, doesn't give you much left to run anything you might want to in background. In my case I tend to have more than one game open at once, sometimes 3 So having more ram is very useful.

I have my page file disabled (I have SSD, and page file rapes SSD and breaks it ) So I decided to have 12gb of ram. But tbh I've never used more than 50% of it, as of yet. Unless a game has a memory leak. I can't say I get any performance increase from having it disabled, but then again I won't enable it to do proper tests

sorry but thats just ridiculous.....

for one, disabling the pagefile makes no day to day measurable difference...it can actually cause issues....i hope nobody reading this fools with it.  this essentially comes from so many people who were stuck on XP for so many years, XP was horrid when it comes to utilizing available resources compared to Windows 7, where manipulating the pagefile could actually help performance on XP, it is completely unnecessary on Windows 7.  unfortunately some people cant let go of an idea and now think they should immediately disable the pagefile on Windows 7.....which can cause problems and does nothing for performance.  i run in a circle of really really techy people that pick computers and OS'es apart for fun and disabling pagefiles ended when Windows XP got left behind

and furthermore nobody is running multiple games at once thats just ignorant sorry.....dont mean to offend, but nobody is doing that and playing them....could someone open multiple games just for the pure need to fill up over 4Gb of ram?  sure.  wow.....who cares, you cant play multiple games at once. 

like ive said many times, on a Windows 7 x64 machine with decent hardware you would be hard pressed to even see 2Gb of ram used playing MWLL at 1080 resolution with everything maxed out and i mean everything.....it will use around 1.3Gb of vram if you have it, but its not using huge amounts of system ram.  there arent any games in use today that i am aware of that would even use over 2Gb of ram........which is why i always recommend a 2x2Gb high speed kit.  a solid fast set of low latency DIMMs in dual channel config will outperform 6 or 8Gb of higher density higher latency memory and i cant recommend anyone buy 8Gb's of ram when for this use you would never even use 4Gb's

[Az]

for one, disabling the pagefile makes no day to day measurable difference...it can actually cause issues....

I once had a memory leak with an accidentally disabled page file, it was ugly...
But I think sleepysheep wasn't referring to performance issues, but fears a premature wear of his SSD due to needless swapping.

and furthermore nobody is running multiple games at once thats just ignorant sorry.....dont mean to offend, but nobody is doing that and playing them....

Never heard of multiboxing in MMOs? Sure it's a pretty niche thing, but it happens.


Anyway, to the OP: if you don't know you need those 8GB, you don't

[GB-72AT Talon]

for one, disabling the pagefile makes no day to day measurable difference...it can actually cause issues....

I once had a memory leak with an accidentally disabled page file, it was ugly...
But I think sleepysheep wasn't referring to performance issues, but fears a premature wear of his SSD due to needless swapping.

and furthermore nobody is running multiple games at once thats just ignorant sorry.....dont mean to offend, but nobody is doing that and playing them....

Never heard of multiboxing in MMOs? Sure it's a pretty niche thing, but it happens.


Anyway, to the OP: if you don't know you need those 8GB, you don't

i guess?  i dont know anything about SSD's and if his feedback is solely related to SSD's it's not relevant to the thread topic at all   i dont know anything about MMO or multiboxing....i think that is a very very niche group of people with TONS of disposable time on their hands.  they should try doing other things simultaneously like walking and talking to real people....i dunno.....but thats completely absurd if its what i think it is, which would be playing multiple MMO's in windows at the same time....how pathetic

[ravensword227]

I wish I could afford a SSD with any size to be useful more than booting into Windows.  It takes at least 15GB to install Windows 7 64bit IIRC.  I bought G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Timing 9-9-9-24-2N and it does occur to me now that I should have bought faster.  I wonder how much it bottlenecks my 3.3GHz Intel 2500K Sandy Bridge.  I sort of got overanxious because I felt my system was so slow at the time and it saved me quite a bit of money.  I sort of believe my 16/4 Crossfire setup bottlenecks me more.

[zephoid]

if you have 4gb of ram and anything over a core2 quad its going to be your GPU thats your problem in 95% of games. maybe midieval 2 or some high unit count games will need more ram/CPU, but current days the GPU bottlenecks far faster than the GPU. thats because most games run so many operations at the same time that its easier to ship them all to the GPU than offload some to the CPU and some to the GPU and have them check each other after completed.

[CHHš Aethon]

Whether or not multi-boxing in an MMO is 'niche' depends on the MMO.  It is virtually a requirement in EVE Online that you have two or more accounts if you want to actually be profitable.  There are ways around it, but not many, and they are typically not worth your time.

So, to the OP, I can tell you from personal experience, if you play EVE Online and multi-box, it is quite worth the extra 4 gigs.  It made a big difference for me.

If you do not multi-box, and you are not utilizing 90% or more of what you have under load, I would stash that cash away for when you are doing a big upgrade some time in the future.

[sleepysheep]

I don't disable the pagefile to gain any performance. I do it so my SSD doesn't die horribly. And since my SSD and PC have been running for 2 years and can still play games smoothly I can safley say disabling it does fapp all (other than save your HDD/SSD wear and tear).

Plenty of people run more than just one application at once, and alot of people run multiaple games at once. Just becuase you don't, doesn't mean noone else does.

Having more ram, won't increase your FPS in games unless it's being fully used. And since in your case it's only at 70% capacity, there will be no point. You could get faster ram, but once again no change in FPS, the only benifit to getting faster ram would to lower load times.

JF_Talon if your going to do is post nothing useful and be offencive and rude, then I think you should just not bother posting at all. I mentioned page file because he mentioned it in his post, and to show that the pagefile has no effect on fps at all unless you have very low amounts of ram (1gb -2gb). And even then, the amount you use for the pagefile is best left to whatever the OS thinks is right.

[GB-72AT Talon]

Whether or not multi-boxing in an MMO is 'niche' depends on the MMO.  It is virtually a requirement in EVE Online that you have two or more accounts if you want to actually be profitable.  There are ways around it, but not many, and they are typically not worth your time.

So, to the OP, I can tell you from personal experience, if you play EVE Online and multi-box, it is quite worth the extra 4 gigs.  It made a big difference for me.

If you do not multi-box, and you are not utilizing 90% or more of what you have under load, I would stash that cash away for when you are doing a big upgrade some time in the future.

awesome info!

I don't disable the pagefile to gain any performance. I do it so my SSD doesn't die horribly. And since my SSD and PC have been running for 2 years and can still play games smoothly I can safley say disabling it does fapp all (other than save your HDD/SSD wear and tear).

Plenty of people run more than just one application at once, and alot of people run multiaple games at once. Just becuase you don't, doesn't mean noone else does.

Having more ram, won't increase your FPS in games unless it's being fully used. And since in your case it's only at 70% capacity, there will be no point. You could get faster ram, but once again no change in FPS, the only benifit to getting faster ram would to lower load times.

JF_Talon if your going to do is post nothing useful and be offencive and rude, then I think you should just not bother posting at all. I mentioned page file because he mentioned it in his post, and to show that the pagefile has no effect on fps at all unless you have very low amounts of ram (1gb -2gb). And even then, the amount you use for the pagefile is best left to whatever the OS thinks is right.

pray tell why is it the page file isn't raping my hard drive?  im on Windows 7 x64, nothing out of the ordinary, 4Gb of DDR3 ram.......and my hard drives dont get hammered.....

sorry if you're offended but the things you are talking about, SSD's, disabling pagefiles, going with 8Gb of ram etc.....is all very very out of the norm stuff.  99% of people wont need or even be able to benefit from a SSD, disabling a pagefile or 8Gb of ram......im just trying to make that clear because you talk about these so casually....

you're probably one of one maybe two people here with a SSD......he isnt asking about SSD's, so talking about disabling pagefile in that context just convolutes the thread with information best left for other discussions.  in the context of a typical pc setup with a typical hard drive disabling the pagefile is a terrible idea.  typical pc setup running typical games or more specifically MWLL would not benefit from 8GB of ram over 4Gb, which was the question

i apologize if you feel somehow offended by those facts

[Az]

You could get faster ram, but once again no change in FPS, the only benefit to getting faster ram would to lower load times.

That's not true if you're, like me, CPU and RAM bound. But improving your RAM speed and timings won't give you as much results as overclocking the CPU in the same proportions (or GPU if it's limiting you).

Try to slightly worsen your RAM settings and see how much of a "deprovement" you get . Not really a reliable test but it can give you a rough idea of how much a bottleneck your RAM is (or isn't at all).

[zephoid]

your hard drive is getting hammered, but its built to take billions of read/writes in its lifetime and can take that. SSDs are built on flash technology that has about 2 million write cycles in each piece of memory. caching to the disk uses a LOT of writing in the background of normal usage, so it shortens the lifespan of SSDs considerably.

SSDs are not as rare as you make them out to be. Almost anyone building a PC these days will consider SSDs, though most will forgo them on price concerns. It is quite plausible that the OP may have one/plan on getting one so the mention that 8gb helps extend SSDs was relevant

[sleepysheep]

your hard drive is getting hammered, but its built to take billions of read/writes in its lifetime and can take that. SSDs are built on flash technology that has about 2 million write cycles in each piece of memory. caching to the disk uses a LOT of writing in the background of normal usage, so it shortens the lifespan of SSDs considerably.

SSDs are not as rare as you make them out to be. Almost anyone building a PC these days will consider SSDs, though most will forgo them on price concerns. It is quite plausible that the OP may have one/plan on getting one so the mention that 8gb helps extend SSDs was relevant

What he said. And SSD are not as expencive as they used to be. HDD can take more of a beating than SSD, when you have something that costs that much you look after it. (I brought mine 2 years ago so it cost alot more back then ^^)

I have OCed my ram, and messed around with it, I don't notice any FPS change, sometimes I get 1fps difference, but not enough to warrant it. However if the RAM in your PC was the bottleneck it would effect performance. Generally speaking it isn't and its the graphic card, or the CPU when playing games.

You should always try to get max performance out of your ram however, just like any other hardware in your PC so you get your moneys worth.

@Talon : I think you will find ALOT of people have more than 4gb of ram, and as already stated SSD are not rare at all. Almost noone messes with their pagefile, unless they have a SSD, but that doesn't mean everyone knows if they should mess with it.

[Threesan]

Steam's hardware survey puts 16% at 5+GB.

Performance is a tricky thing to get right just by thinking about it. I only watched part of the video, but the first graph was a 7% boost -- that's really not all that much. And it is a solid number. If you think this is misleading, there would either be a problem in the methodology or outright falsification (the latter I am not particularly inclined to believe..). Without a deeper understanding of the algorithms used for memory allocation, are you so sure that some system doesn't perform slightly better on some task with access to more and larger contiguous blocks of memory?