i did a experiment. i removed 1 stick of ram from my system, as to run on only 2GB of ram, to see the impact oon gaming... and when i played BF3 and BC2.. performance felt the same.. no difference that i could tell.. benchamred crysis. same thing. no drop in performance... is 2GB all we really need?
No. 2GB is not enough... How on earth are you playing BF3, on Windows 7, with only 2GB? You must have some super stripped down version. Cause the default is a little over 1GB, and BF3 uses 1.8GB for me. I'd say 6GB is about right in todays world; though with RAM being so cheap, I am going for 8, just cause. I mean it's 30$ for premium 8GB DDR3 RAM? Who would pass that up? I've hit 2GB just with a few Applications open on Windows 7, ectera...so 2GB is not enough for me, at least, or the vast majority, I'd say. 4GB is still fine; and will continue to be fine for years; but I say 6GB is the sweet spot, with 8GB being extra, but nice to have.
I have 8gb, because i donĀ“t want to worry about ram for a long time to come and it was cheap. Used to have 4gb and it was enough. 2Gb is not enough.
That's what exactly I need to know. I am plying between buying Bf3 or buying a 8 gb ddr3 1600 mhz ram. Does bf 3 consume more than 4gb at 1920x1080 high?(skype would probably be open.)
High rez will need more video ram. System ram, it won't matter (unless you're loading high rez textures to go along with the higher rez output). System ram usage in windows is tricky to read. A bit is used as system cache, which is given up for programs when they need it. So it's used, but not really used, as it's still available for your software to take as it needs - just like unused ram. Also, with a swap file, your 'rarely used' ram is on disk, so what you got in ram is mostly what you're currently doing. If that's playing BF3, then BF3 is in ram, and stuff you don't need is on disk. If you were to not use a swap file with low installed ram, then you run the risk of running out (which results in applications getting auto-killed by windows to maintain the system). But so long as you've got a good total memory amount (ram + swap), and the 'ram' portion can cover what you're actively doing, then you're not gonna have problems or slowdowns. This may make some people say "why get more ram, just use swap space on your disk". I would counter, why spend money on hard drive swap space (you have to consider that the disk space you use cost something to acquire), when today ram is cheaper than dirt and the expense of more ram is nearly inconsequential. (You can get 4 gigs of ram for 1/3 the cost of a single game : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...07611 600006050 600006067&IsNodeId=1&name=4GB) Note : 4gigs ram + 4 gigs swap is no different than 8 gigs ram + no swap. Other than one avoids using a slow hard drive. The O.S. abstracts all of it into simply "memory". Your stuff won't fail because it ran in only ram, and no swap was used. -scheherazade
Very educational, tbh more than I excepted. Thank you firstly. My mobo has two ram slots and I am using 2x2 gb Kinston, so if the answer is upgrading my ram, I have to buy 4x2 kit therefore that costs more than 20 bucks. Anyway, as far as I understand with my moderate English, 4gb ram is enough with 4gb swap file for Bf 3 or any other application. However, if the program purely uses more than system ram(without swap) windows may prevent this and close that program right? And res is totally up to my vid ram which is currently 1gb. Just one question, how come I check and adjust my swap file usage?
Your swapfile will always be used. Windows without a swapfile is not a good idea. You can turn it off but it will crash when it needs to utilize the swap file.
Not quite. You have to exceed the total memory, RAM + SWAP. If you have swap space remaining when RAM is full, you are still OK. Working Memory = RAM + SWAP. You must exceed the working memory for windows to start killing things. If your specific program exceeds only the physical RAM portion of your working memory, then you can experience slower performance. Note : 32 bit programs have a 3gig max in windows (with /3gb switch. Otherwise it's a 2gb max). If any single program exceeds 3gigs (2 without /3gb), it will fail to allocate more memory, and this usually results in a crash of that program. Note #2 : /3gb simply makes 3 gigs available for any given 32 bit program to use. The program still has to be built with a 3gb enabled flag to even use 3gb. Otherwise, it's still self-capped at 2gb. There are various always-used dynamically changing files in windows. Some pertaining to memory mapped IO, and things of that sort. In regards to usage as ram/swap, you can disable this and you will not have any issues specifically due to it being disabled. (You will have 'swap space' less effective working memory (ram), though) You also do not get a crash because something "needs to utilize the swap file". You get a crash because "something needs more memory, and there is no more available". - If total memory runs out, applications get killed by the O.S.. - If the 3gb virtual block for that specific application runs out (but the system as a whole has more), then that application usually crashes due to the repercussions of failed mallocs. The purpose of a swap file is to increase the amount of working memory (effective ram) in your system. You can also increase the amount of ram in your system... by [physically] increasing the amount of ram in your system. Example: '4gigs ram + 4 gigs swap' (8 gigs of "ram") will run out of memory and crash programs BEFORE '12 gigs ram + 0 swap' (12 gigs of ram) has any problems. -scheherazade
I just upgraded from 6GB to 12GB because I felt that Windows was starting to ration RAM usage a bit. During BF3 now I will use up to and a touch over 6GB.