More RAM=More CM Enjoyment

[Guest wwb_99]

Well, one great use for the ram between 256mb and 512mb is a 256mb ram disk. Great place to put your swap file.

WWB

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Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say,

Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus.

[Mannheim Tanker]

Originally posted by Doug Williams:

Hawkmek (and others),

Adding more ram is a very good thing. There are other things you can do to improve your Windows environment for gaming. Go here for some great tips:

http://www.cdmag.com/Home/home.html?article=/articles/026/077/tuning_feature.html

-Doug

Be sure to read part two "Thanks for the Memory" also...

Thanks for the great link, Doug.

Edit: HTML fix

[This message has been edited by Mannheim Tanker (edited 03-14-2001).]

[JunoReactor]

Well, one great use for the ram between 256mb and 512mb is a 256mb ram disk. Great place to put your swap file.

If the damn Windows cannot figure out that I have already more RAM that I'd need and opts not to create a swap file then... oh well, I hope Billy is putting my dollars into good use.

One OS, one people, one identity.

...and they still think we fought to protect freedom.

[Wolfe]

Originally posted by Mannheim Tanker:

can you simply substitute a stick of DDR RAM for a SDRAM stick?

No, SDRAM comes only in 168-pin DIMMs. DDR comes in 184-pin DIMMs. They're physically incompatible.

- Chris

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by vcents:

Current pricing of 128MB PC133 original:

SEK 850 (= USD 85), including VAT...

Wow..that seems a little high in USD for 128 @133. I was quoted $45US yesterday.

Maybe in the US, but for the Swedish market all prices are roughly doubled.

If you turn to eastern Europe you can double the price once more...

Cheers

Olle

[Mattias]

Olle,

I just got a stick of 128 Mb Mosel Vitelic PC133 Cas2 SDRAM from DatorButiken.com (online store)

The price was 60$ (591kr) including VAT and shipping, prepaid.

The crappy exchnage rate makes it look less appealing, but it's a good price for a fine product.

I'm running it at Cas2 with all effective BIOS memory options maxed.

And... it improves CM! I went from 128 Mb to 256 Mb and on my system it really makes a significant difference.

M.

[This message has been edited by Mattias (edited 03-15-2001).]

[Col Deadmarsh]

Yeah, I don't care what these people say, it DOES make an improvement. Why not buy a stick or two while it's so cheap? Better do it now before there's another earthquake in Tawaian.

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Youth is wasted on the young.

[Lee]

Windows 98 can address 512 meg ram, so feel free to add extra. Unless

for some reason you have multiple programs open while playing games

(I never do that), there is no point in getting more than 256 meg ram

for gaming. That's plenty, for even the most demanding games.

I'm getting a new system soon and I picked 256 meg ram for it just for

that reason.

If you're getting a new video card, it's a good idea to get one with

64 meg ram if you can. This will cover you on new games that use a ton

of textures and you won't have to upgrade for a long while.

You might want to wait just a little more and get the Kyro II card

from Hercules (3D prophet 4500) that will be out in a few weeks. For

the money, it has the best speed and it has 64 meg ram.

[Gremlin]

"Windows 98 is capable of addressing up to 2GB of memory, and most vendors ship with 128MB of memory because that's the least they can get away with on a non-budget system."

--p. 54, Maximum PC, December '00 issue. The article discusses the benefits of different amounts of RAM in Win98 and Win2K environments for different types of applications. They essentially recommend 192MB for Win98.

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I pity the fool, thug, or soul who tries to take over the world, then goes cryin' home to his momma. --Mr. T

[Skott Karlsson]

This has been talked about before here. I have spoken on it myself. Windows 98 will work and utilize 128 MB of RAM or better. The issue is cost vs performance. Tests showed that if you go from 64 MB RAM to 128 MB RAM performance goes up 45% plus. If I remember the article correctly it was like 45%-60% increase. But to go from 128 MB RAM to 256 MB RAM you will only see an icrease of another 6%-9% in performance. Now each user's pc will have some variance in performance but those numbers are the average.

So now the question to the user is this. Is it worth the cost of that extra 128 MB RAM to get that 6%-9% increase? Back when RAM modules were sky high the general theory was 'no'.

It's really up to owner of the pc as to wether he/she should or not upgrade. If you think you can't play CM joyously with 128 MB of RAM then it's my opinion you got a problem with your pc somewhere cause I'm running it on one pc with a PIII 500 MHz processor, 128MB RAM, and a 16MB 3DFX Voodoo3 video card. And I have no problems whatsoever. I've heard others here say they are running it on less than what I have and they are experiencing no problems.

Again the choice is up to you. Is it worth it to you to pay the extra money to get that few more percent or are you happy with it as is? I'm not trying to talk anyone out of buying more RAM but know the facts before you do plunk down that money. Hardcore gamers tend to paying anything for just a little more performance but it comes with a price.

Also be aware that today's video cards with their own onboard RAM are now taking the work off the Intel/AMD processors and allowing your processor to do even more without bogging down.

Happy Gaming,

~Skott~

[Maximus]

OK, I did a little bit of motherboard research this morning and I have found only a few motherboards that support DDR memory.

Here's a one: http://www.bzboyz.com/product876.html

And here's another:

http://www.micropro.com/tbl/mbiwka266.htm

DDR memory runs on boths sides of the Hertz cycle. In other words a 100MHz DDR DIMM actually runs at 200MHz or a 133MHz DDR DIMM runs at 266MHz. DDR memory numbers are PC1600/2100.

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For a Close Encounter click here.

Hey look! I can see my house!

And for all you Hamster Lovers out there, check this out! Kitty, this one's for you!

[Doug Williams]

Skott Karlsson wrote:

This has been talked about before here. I have spoken on it myself. Windows 98 will work and utilize 128 MB of RAM or better. The issue is cost vs performance. Tests showed that if you go from 64 MB RAM to 128 MB RAM performance goes up 45% plus. If I remember the article correctly it was like 5%-60% increase. But to go from 128 MB RAM to 256 MB RAM you will only see an icrease of another 6%-9% in performance. Now each user's pc will have some variance in performance but those numbers are the average.

Skott,

The performance of what? Microsoft Word? Excel? Explorer? Games, especially 3D games, utilize much more system resources than most "real world" applications. Gamers will see more benefit from additional ram than your average non-gamer PC user.

More ram good. Less ram bad.

-Doug

[Lee]

Good to see that win98 can handle 2 gig of ram, I thought that 512 meg

figure I heard sounded low. Well, feel free to add in all the ram

you like.

Seriously though, 256 meg is more than enough for any gaming with no

big junk programs running in the background.

[Capt Canuck]

I know this is a little off topic but yesterday I just bought a Geforce 2 MX Video Card with 32 MB VRAM,... are there any know issues with CM and so on,...so far it's fine, and I'm finally able to get the translucent smoke and such! I love it! I've also downloaded the latest drivers....Anyways, thank you very much for any responses...

Many thanks,

Dave

[GriffinCheng+]

My history of playing CMBO all involves with nVida GeForce chips. Both GeForce DDR and GeForce 2GTS are very good for CMBO. Even though they are not exactly GeForce 2MX, I think they are close.

Griffin.

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"When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI."

"Can't get enough Tank?"

Come to my Combat Missing Command Post (CMCP) at http://www.angelfire.com/games3/CMCP/

[Schrullenhaft]

Lee - though it probably doesn't matter to you since 256Mb is enough (and generally it should be). Windows 9x/ME maxes out at using 512Mb. Theoretically it can address 2Gb, but that doesn't happen in the real world. Windows 2000 doesn't have this limitation.

Here's the Microsoft Knowledgebase article that details some of the reasoning for the memory addressing limitation (vcache):

Knowledgebase Article Q253912

[This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 03-15-2001).]

[:USERNAME:]

I think the Athlon/MB combos that are selling for 250-275 are the way to go for people that have a PII and below and want to keep as much memory/hardware as possible.

I am buying a 1GHZ and a FIC MB that accepts all my old memory and allows expansion into the future for ATA100 hard drives as well as PC133 mem modules, AGP4X, etc.

I am still going to have enough parts left over to put together a PII windows NT machine for just engineering tasks. I still have a vid card with 16MB that I had upgraded from because of CM. My 32MB Cougar vid card should work better with the faster processor.

The price of PIV machines and the DDR/Athlon MB prices are just too much. Ive never been a new car man and take my performance within my budget.

[Lee]

Schrullenhaft: So I was right all along, it seems. Oh well, in any case

it's of no signifigance for gaming, as you mentioned. 256 meg will run

any game, no problem. As long as there aren't other programs running in

the background wasting a bunch of memory (and CPU power, for that matter),

you'll have no trouble with 256 meg of memory.