1GB vs. 2GB RAM

[megawhompertoo]

Re: 1GB vs. 2GB RAM

(Iv'e virtually confused myself now.

But surely it's pysical because you pysically have 2 gigs of memory. Virtual
because of the space in your hard drive.

I wait to be corrected by someone who hasn't drunk a quarter bottle of irsish whiskey.
(someone look it up. I can't be ar**ed)

virtual memory = windows swapfile = windows pagefile = space on your hd where winderz stores info not high enough in priority (or important info that is not currently necessary) to warrant an allocation in random access memory (RAM)

whereas,

physical memory = system memory = main memory = dynamic memory = a stick of ram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

edit: popquiz: now does anyone remember what a RAMdrive is?

[jdrou]

Re: 1GB vs. 2GB RAM

edit: popquiz: now does anyone remember what a RAMdrive is?

a.k.a. "virtual disk" which is a clearer term I think. MS called their version "ramdrive.sys" so everyone started calling it a ramdrive. IBM used the more logical "vdisk.sys" for their version of DOS.

I didn't notice any difference in-game going from 768 MB to 1.5 GB but there was a huge improvement in map load time. My system is limited by video though (128MB mobile Radeon 9700). I normally run all low except terrain medium, no AA.

[QWFreak]

Re: 1GB vs. 2GB RAM

Battlefield 2 is a beautiful game in terms of graphics. Don't expect though, that 2GB of RAM will boost your frame rate in-game. For higher frame rate, you MUST upgrade your CPU. You can run the game with a P4 2.8GHz (478 socket) and a FX-5900 128MB video card at Low settings you still get over 60 FPS across all maps.

According to my knowledge, all computational processing will be done by the CPU. And only when those are done, the system wakes up GPU and ask it to do the rendering. The RAM does not play a significant role UNTIL, the 128MB or even 256MB of video RAM onboard the video card starts running out, because you chaps fancy better textures. The AGP Aperture which is adjustable in the BIOS tells the system how much RAM the video card can "borrow" to help doing the rendering.

I am able to give you a figure because I have 2GB of RAM. At peak after 2 hours of playing, about 1.1GB of RAM is consumed. No matter you have 1.5GB, 2GB or 3GB of RAM, at peak, Battlefield 2 will consume only 1.1GB of RAM. In my case, I have the followings:

CPU = P4 D 805 2.66GHz (overclocked to 3.00GHz without voltage modification)
GPU = GeForce 6800XT 128MB (quite low end compared to 7 series)
RAM = 2 x Supertalent 1GB DDR400 kits, Dual Channel enabled
MOBO = ASUS P5P800 SE

Before I added 1GB of RAM to the system, I experienced "jerking" or choppiness more precisely. Now having 2GB running, the game never jerks and the hard disk will no longer blinks meaning the game now never uses swapfile because of memory shortage. I now set AGP Aperture to 128MB which effectively makes my video card 256MB enabled and the game runs admirably at Medium setting with frame rate always over 30. On some maps, it goes as high as 50FPS.

As a conclusion, BF2 is CPU and GPU bound. Compared to Ghost Recon 3, it is more all round because Ghost Recon 3 is GPU bound.

It worths the money to upgrade to 2GB though the game pushes to the end of the envelope at 1.1GB. The remaining memory helps to run other games at the same time. Go for it, you won't miss anyhting!

[UltrAdamSki]

Re: 1GB vs. 2GB RAM

I now set AGP Aperture to 128MB which effectively makes my video card 256MB enabled

do explain, i dont quite understand how setting the aperture to 128 for your 128 card makes it in effect a 256 card.

do you mean you now set aperture to 256?

adam

[kenof2142]

Re: 1GB vs. 2GB RAM

At first I upgraded from 1 gig to 2gig and then I added another, now I have 3gig total....huge difference imho, faster load times, more stability and typically better performance. The biggest difference I noticed was the 3 gig AFTER a fresh xp install, this thing hauls!