What performance chgs can I expect from more RAM

Factual Questions
1

I have a 450mhz 128meg computer and im thinking about doubling the ram. I play alot of 3d graphic intensive games, but im curious to know the effects on my overall system. Will everything go faster? I guess that depends to what extent i utilize existing ram right? Anyway will ju splain plee. tanks

2

You’re on the right track, it depends on how much you’re using RAM. For games, I would guess that the limit would be memory on your video card, and whether you have an accelerator. Based on your computer spec and the fact you’re a gamer, I would guess you’re adequate on that score. You might get some minimal bump in speed by adding RAM but then again you might not even notice. You might be better off upgrading your video card.

3

ditto. The single most important piece of hardware for 3d-gaming is the video card. Going from 128 to 256 in main memory is probably not going to help you all that much, unless you play main-memory hungry games like Diablo II. The only time things will go faster is if you’re using more than 128 megs of ram (and you frequently hear the system “swapping out” to the swap file on your hard drive).

(BTW, after video card, the processor and the motherboard start to become important.) I’ll give a cheap plug to http://www.tomshardware.com, for being one of the best hardware-testing sites on the web.

-Vor

4
      • I second all that. On my PII-350Mhx/64 megs RAM I added 256 megs. Result in Quake + UT: it got rid of the big “skips” I had to suffer through. One thing it didn’t help is that my framerate drops pretty badly when (for example) I spin around fast in a 3-D game. That’s the videocard’s fault, but it’s an OEM-lamer 3 yrs old. (-shame-)
  • I do have one program that I know is RAM-dependent, and that is Paint Shop Pro 7. With it, you are limited in the size of images you can process, because the PSP program and the image file both have to fit in your RAM at all times; PSP doesn’t use a swap file like Photoshop. -So PSP doesn’t run any faster with more RAM, it just lets you do larger images.
  • Everything else, it made very little or no difference. - MC