Let's talk turkey...BF2 and system RAM

[Doglike]

I sure know 512 isn't enough :). Need min 1 gig extra. 5 min loading times on 32 server, first 20 second very laggy gameplay. Sometimes a match is already done when I arrive . Only if a map runs min. 3 rounds I'll connect or it isn't worth it.

[NoSoup4You]

Not true, 1.5 gigs is enough to run the game completely stutter free.

Not true, 1gig is enough. I have 1 gig, and I laugh at all these people claiming you need 1.5-2.0 gigs. I have a constant 60FPS in game with everything maxed, and AA on 6x.

[Solid Snake.pt]

Not true, 1gig is enough. I have 1 gig, and I laugh at all these people claiming you need 1.5-2.0 gigs. I have a constant 60FPS in game with everything maxed, and AA on 6x.

1 - What are FPS rates and AA supposed to mean here? Absolutely nothing, considering RAM quantity will only affect stuttering (not FPS directly) nor will it directly impact graphics quality. AA won't mess with loading times/RAM issues either.

2 - I have 1024 MB of PC3200 modules, dual-channeled. The game does stutter if I set textures at high.

Textures are the main hogging thing. I have everything at the highest settings, minus textures (at medium).

Laugh all you want, your PC is great, good for you, others stutter with 1 gigabyte and textures on high, myself included. We all need to consider something here as well -- graphics card RAM quantity. My 6800 NU is a minor 128 MB version, whereas some members around here will have high-end cards with 256 MB or even 512 MB.

1.5 gigabytes assures you won't have any stuttering. 1 Gigabyte will work on some systems.

[imported_StormForce]

ya, but what are your other system specs? I think I might upgrade to 4 gigs no problems then right?:laugh:

[Gulf_War_Syndrome]

Nobody has made a specific mention of this about level load times... Hard disk speed. Everyone knows it's the "Verifying Client Data" that takes up the most of the load time. What's going on in the background is a MD5 hash of a shirtload of BF2 data being read from your hard disk. Notice in the thread:

http://forums.totalbf2.com/showthread.php?t=19717

The people with bragging rights to load times have 10KRPM Raptors (in RAID preferably). My RAID0 36GB Raptors make a huge improvement over similarly specced machines with a 7200RPM drive. (I like the sound of jnk's 4x 74GB Raptors tho...)

Yes, you can never have too much RAM... but if you have a slow HD, the rest of your system is going to be waiting for it during level loads.

[NoSoup4You]

1 - What are FPS rates and AA supposed to mean here? Absolutely nothing, considering RAM quantity will only affect stuttering (not FPS directly) nor will it directly impact graphics quality. AA won't mess with loading times/RAM issues either.

What do you think "stuttering" is? Its an FPS drop, duh.

[Solid Snake.pt]

Far from it. Stuttering isn't directly related to FPS. How would it be? Stuttering is caused by HDD swapping most of the times. It will affect gameplay itself, but your PC is only bottlenecked by the swapping, not by your GPU and/or processor.

My point being, your mentioning of AA was completely useless. AA on or off, be it 60 or 30 FPS constant, you'll get the same amount of stuttering.

Also, yes, HDD speed is important. But mostly during the loading time. I had a craptastic 5200 RPM UATA 100 disc which recentely died and I swapped it for a 7200 RPM SATA-I. Made a world of a difference in loading times and there isn't minor stuttering at the beginning of the level.

[Nitemare]

Far from it. Stuttering isn't directly related to FPS. How would it be? Stuttering is caused by HDD swapping. It will affect gameplay itself, but your PC is only bottlenecked by the swapping, not by your GPU and/or processor.

My point being, your mentioning of AA was completely useless. AA on or off, be it 60 or 30 FPS constant, you'll get the same amount of stuttering.

That's not true, when I'm getting a good 40 fps and it studders, fps drops to below 20. (this isnt with the pc in my sig, im still waitin on that to come, this is on a p4 3.4, 512 ram, geforce fx go5700)

[Solid Snake.pt]

Stuttering caused by (lack of) RAM will be small blockings. My FPS rate isn't affected by RAM stutters, it drops to an unplayable level and immediately back up. It won't affect how FPS constantely flow in a fire fight. It'll pure and simply drop and it's independent from your processor speed and GPU (minus GPU RAM clocks, type and capacity). My FPS rate isn't constant, but I don't get any stuttering, minus one map for some obscure reason (Daqing Oilfields).

Also, you didn't get the point. Stuttering is the same amount. Your PC is blocked for the same amount of time, with the same amount of bottlenecking caused by virtual page memory. It's the same amount of information (unless you mess with the graphical settings, mainly with textures) which isn't affected by AA being on or not, nor is it affected by how high AF might be (AA and AF, both settings which mess around with FPS rates).

I'm talking about these kind of stutters. I've suffered from all kinds -- from Vsync stutters to overheating stutters.

[Propeck]

There are different kinds of stuttering problems, that's for sure. I've alleviated my prolems with the swap file stuttering issue by increasing my ram from 1.0 to 1.5 Gig, but I still get the other stutter issue from time to time.

When it does happen, it's usually when I first join and spawn into a server, or sometimes when I respawn in a different area of the map, but sometimes, more infrequently, I can just be running along somewhere in the map and it hits. Maybe I've just entered into another "graphical block" of the map and it's loading stuff from my ram onto the card, maybe it's Punkbuster deciding that now is a good time to take some screenies (but then I'd think that I'd see HDD activity, which I've watched for and don't see happening), maybe it's the fix for the CTD's in action that I used to see, but don't anymore, I don't know. But I think we can agree that when this stutter happens, that it's not a gradual thing, it's immediate, and when it's over, it's as if it never happened and everything is as smooth as it was before.

Whatever it is, I'd like to see a fix for it sometime soon. I'd hate to be in a match and this bug show up.

[Varhalla]

For the most part, I think from 512MB to 1GB of RAM you will see the biggest improvment, and the margin is smaller from 1GB to 2GB or even from the 1GB to 1.5GB, compared to the 512MB to 1GB jump. Just my thoughts.

[HavanaAffair]

I have 2 gigs and load maps and verify data in under 30 sec. The only time I have to wait is when "Optimizing Shaders". I load in 10-15 sec and verify in 15. It also reduced my initial studder when entering the game. It's usually non-existant now but if I do get it, it'll last only a sec or 2.

Thats probably because you have a really good computer generally, I've got 2 gigs of RAM and it takes me a few minutes to load not 15 seconds :-\, but I don't have any shudders anymore esspecially when the game starts. Oh and when I had 512MB it took ages for the "join" button to highlight so I could click it. Now with 2GB it highlights straight away. Its nice :- )