Want to see the numbers comparing 1GB of RAM versus 2GB of RAM in BF2?

[exocet]

Thanks to my mate Therapy from the SomethingAwful.com forums for doing the hard yards!

therapy came out of the closet to say:
Just been screwing around today a bit, putting together a few timedemos in BF2.

I finished one with a custom camera that I call "flight" demo. It's against the computer on a 16 player version of the "Operation Clean Sweep" map. I spent the entire map flying the F-15, recording about 5-6 minutes of it for timedemo purposes. Aerial combat, air-to-ground combat, and bombing runs.

I also recorded a ground combat demo, but I will post the results from that one tomorrow when I get done running it and recording a custom camera for it.


Hardware configuration:
Athlon64 FX-57
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Western Digital 250GB SATA II drive
Some cheapass DVD drive
Three different video cards. (6600 GT, 6800 GT, 7800 GTX)

The memory I used was always two sticks. First 2x512 and then 2x1024 sticks. The timings were set to 2-3-2-6 in the BIOS.

Here's my results, all video cards are PCI-Express.

Asus 6600 GT

800x600
1GB - 57.1 fps
2GB - 69.5 fps

1280x1024
1GB - 31.2 fps
2GB - 36.6 fps

BFG 6800GT OC

800x600
1GB - 95.4 fps
2GB - 99.0 fps

1280x1024
1GB - 54.5 fps
2GB - 68.4 fps

nVidia Reference 7800GTX

800x600
1GB - 126.6 fps
2GB - 136.8 fps

1280x1024
1GB - 93.9 fps
2GB - 109.1 fps


HERE IS A GRAPH COURTESY OF DR. FRED WHO IS NOT ACTUALLY A REAL DOCTOR:



This is with all options turned on, 4xAA and max AF.

I don't have SLI numbers because it would be useless for what I'm doing.

For fun, here's the numbers for a PCI-Express GeForce FX 5750:

2GB only, because I didn't want to wait two hours for a 1GB version to finish:
800x600 - 13.0 fps
1280x1024 - 6.8 fps


I don't have the patience to do fancy graphs or anything, (but Dr. Fred does, look above!) but this definitely proves that 2GB of memory helps quite a bit in BF2. It single handedly made 1280x1024 playable with everything turned on on the 6600 GT, and it made the 6800 GT smooth as silk at the same resolution.

I can post more numbers tomorrow, but these numbers prove that there is a significant performance difference. I'm going to re-run these tests again to verify everything, of course, and then try and duplicate them on an intel-based system and do some further benchmarking, but most of that will probably stay internal.

Thought you guys might be interested.

[ChopperKill]

Hey that's pretty cool thanks. That's a pretty big difference. Obviously well worth the upgrade especially for people with faster cards. I got rid of the stutter going from 1GB to 1.5GB. Now I want those extra fps.

[$G-MONEY SMITH$]

totaly agree i have a 68gt and 2 gigs of ram and run smooth as silk on high with 4xaa and 1280 res.

[supastar1568]

dont know if the 6800gt averaged 68.4 frames per second with all high at 1280 x 1024

but i still understand the idea that 2gigs is needed

ohh wait, just scrolled up. This is when flying. Ok cool

nice job!

[Snake101]

If you look at 800x600 with the 6800GT though...you'll notice that the FPS only went up 4

[DrunkenPirate]

That's because it is such a low resolution that the extra gig is not really needed since the textures loaded into memory are smaller than if you were running 1280x1024 or higher.

[Snake101]

That's because it is such a low resolution that the extra gig is not really needed since the textures loaded into memory are smaller than if you were running 1280x1024 or higher.

Ah...you are right...nevermind what I said

[Umi.Ryuuzaki]

*points to sig* gee...

But I"ve used a borrowed stick of 512. It makes a world of a difference. Going to 2 gb + a good vid card = ownage.

[NoSoup4You]

The highest I saw was a 12FPS jump. 4FPS is barely noticable in-game. So if its worth $120 for you, then I suppose, go for it.

Also note he only tested Nvidia cards. I have an ATI X850XT w/1GB DDR2-533, and my FPS are at about the same as his 6800GT OC, with 2GB of memory.

[XoC.bomber]

From my own experience, going from 1Gb to 2Gb yielded me the following:

-no more start lag
-faster map load times (almost twice as fast)
-stopped the hard system lockup (was 2+ times per night)
-no more Crash To Desktop
-smoother game play (no more "hitching" motions)
-closing the game doesn't leave a nice 60 second serenade of BF2 music
-can run higher res w/ same vid card before FPS drops
***BF2CC opens faster when you are using it while BF2 is running. **for admin's mostly**
-My whole system seems to want to thank me by running with more "pep"

So this has to be the best upgrade possible for this game, and can translate into a better running Windows XP in general. 2gb of memory is definately a sweet spot.

[Finalheaven]

2 GB with a X800 XT PE. I can't complain. It runs like the Dia.

[Snake101]

One day I will go for 2 gig...hopefully

[Hound_Dawg]

thanks for the information, that was good.