Does system RAM affect gameplay much?

**acitone** · 07-12-08 at 11:37 AM

I play old games as well as new ones and even the older games get very choppy frame rates when I have played for over 30 minutes or so. I have a 9800GTX and while the on-board memory on it is only 512MB I feel it should be adequate. However my system RAM is old, three 1 gigabyte sticks of slow PC 5400 667Mhz RAM. I am wondering if that could have anything to do with it.

**arupian** · 07-12-08 at 12:45 PM

Well, as you say it happens after 30 minutes or so, would point towards maybe you have an over-heating problem. Is your case well ventilated ? If your graphics card gets too hot, strange things can happen including, but not limited to, framerates taking a nose dive.

**MPire** · 07-12-08 at 01:16 PM

You should be O.K. with 512 Mb video memory, but three RAM sticks are bad. Use two or four, because with three sticks you just get 64 bit RAM bandwidth (so with one), with two or four you get dual-channel performance of 128 bit. Just pull out one stick and try it.

MatthewRuddy · 07-12-08 at 04:45 PM

Well it depends what operating system you own. Obviously its not Vista, but if it's XP then really 512mb is quite low, although probably enough. It depends on the specs of the game, and how many processes are running before you start playing the game; how much RAM is being used.. If all the RAM is being used up then generally that can lead to very slow frame rates and even crashing. For instance, on The Sims 2 when I used to play it, upgrading from 512mb to 1024mb (1gb) made quite a diffrence, especially when alot was going on in the game.. Hope that helps.

**arupian** · 07-12-08 at 04:48 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by MatthewRuddy

Well it depends what operating system you own. Obviously its not Vista, but if it's XP then really 512mb is quite low, although probably enough. It depends on the specs of the game, and how many processes are running before you start playing the game; how much RAM is being used.. If all the RAM is being used up then generally that can lead to very slow frame rates and even crashing. For instance, on The Sims 2 when I used to play it, upgrading from 512mb to 1024mb (1gb) made quite a diffrence, especially when alot was going on in the game.. Hope that helps.

Don't forget that the 512MB is only his graphics card RAM, not system RAM. His system RAM is 3GB's

**acitone** · 07-12-08 at 06:14 PM

Hey thanks for the suggestions all.

I should really try my best and test the RAM and see about the over-heating factor.

My system does get pretty warm, very warm to be honest. I don't know what it is in there that makes it so but I have had to turn it off to get inside right after and fix some things and notices how hot it was. Maybe I should indeed look at better cooling options. The fans are probably not enough.

I'll also try out using the 2 sticks as opposed to 3 as suggested. That makes sense! It might work.

I'll definitely also test the memory because we we had several storms last week that caused brief power outage and when I turned the pc back on I was greeted with a "CMOS Check Sum Bad" dialogue. So I think a memory check would do certainly some good.

I am using Vista indeed. There is a noticeable difference in using 2 or 3 gigs of RAM in Vista, but for games' sake if the 2 sticks is best then that's what I'll stick with.

Thanks!

wyjeba · 07-13-08 at 12:22 AM

test this memory sticks.
I has the same problem with my old PC system. 2x 512MB DDR1 and after 40-60min system freeze or restart.
when memory use grow up for a some "hole" (it was ~600MB in my example) everyting **** up :( one of the memory stick was broken :(

MatthewRuddy · 07-13-08 at 08:05 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by arupian

Don't forget that the 512MB is only his graphics card RAM, not system RAM. His system RAM is 3GB's

Whops, my mistake.. Well then I'd say it is an overheating issue.. Whats his processor? I had an Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz a while ago which had a similar issue of slow and laggy frame rates, turned out it was a common issue with those processors, and it required a new fan.

Nuub · 07-13-08 at 08:21 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by MatthewRuddy

Whops, my mistake.. Well then I'd say it is an overheating issue.. Whats his processor? I had an Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz a while ago which had a similar issue of slow and laggy frame rates, turned out it was a common issue with those processors, and it required a new fan.

I hope u guys dont mind, but, i hav a pentium 4 @ 3.0Ghz right now and ur sayin its bad for games?

**acitone** · 07-13-08 at 11:27 AM

Pentium 4 is good for games. 3 Ghz is not bad but dual core is the way to go. Even an AMD X2 Athlon 64 6200+ is a bad boy at 3.2 Ghz. It can multitask very fast but it still can't beat a quad core that's OC'd. Some people have OC'd their quad cores up to about 3.8 Ghz or even more. Speed.

Anyway the problem I had was mainly in F.E.A.R. and it turns out that I had to disable something called HID-Complaint devices in Windows device manager and it fixed it! Now I am getting excellent & stable frame-rates. Thanks for the tips, they are still worth looking into.

**acitone** · 07-13-08 at 07:27 PM

I never knew one could use 2x1gig sticks in a twin-slot set and then 2x512MB sticks in another, but I'm probably better off just getting the 2gig set then waiting to get a duplicate set for the DIMM 3 & 4 slots in near future with a tad more money.

**acitone** · 07-14-08 at 05:46 AM

32 bit only sees 3GBs ? That's a bummer. What about 64bit Vista. If you run a 32bit app in 64bit OS that supports more than 3GB will the 32bit app use the extra RAM ?

**csabaryu** · 07-14-08 at 05:52 AM

If wanna change those modules I would suggest 2x1Gb 800Mhz,

or 4x1Gb(2x2Gb) modules. Personally using 4Gb on XP, the OS

see only 3.6Gb but I don't care. Every game at 1680x1050

runs smooth. Always use 2 or 4 modules of ram!

nvysel24 · 08-22-08 at 12:14 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Kane's Wrath

Your RAM performance in Vista is probably about 5.3 on it's performance scale. That's relevant to 667mhz RAM.

I would swap your RAM for some 800mhz PC6400 and get a dual channel 2GB kit (2x1GB sticks) and try find a suitable dual channel 1GB kit (2x512mb sticks)

If you're overclocking your computer and you're on stock cooling (or even if you're on stock cooling with poor case ventilation) then you may overheat and this would cause your processor to be throttled, giving you the lag.

Try faster RAM and more case cooling solutions.

i agree w/ the above statments?!?!?!?!!&^^^^^^^^