RAM vs Graphics Card

By Geoff Seal

I see, on the forums, that a lot of people don't fully understand how RAM works in a PC and how it can improve the overall running of a progRAM like FS2002. This has prompted me to write an article on how RAM works and the difference between RAM and graphics cards when looking to upgrade one or the other.

Obviously the graphics card you use is going to make a big difference to how FS2002 looks, however, by today's standards any card that has 3D capability will suffice and they tend to be reasonably cheap. My advice is RAM RAM RAM.

Go for RAM every time, especially if it is stuttering that is your problem.

Reason: Random Access Memory, be it pc100 / pc133 /DDR whatever, will stop or reduce 'paging' to your hard drive. Paging is constantly swapping data from your hard drive to your RAM. This will most definately cause stuttering.

If you only have 64 mb RAM then, as your computer will use half of that just to run the operating system etc., that doesn't leave much RAM for FS2002 to use. Once your RAM is full, it will begin to look for more data from the hard drive and from then on will continually swap data to and fro. If your sim is stuttering then have a look at the hdd LED on your case and it will be flashing away like a lighthouse (due to paging). What is happening is that as the processor looks to the RAM for more data, the RAM has to ask the hard drive to swap it with some redundant data in the RAM chip. It uses an algorithm called LRU (Least Recently Used) whereby it discards least recently used data in the RAM and swaps it for the new data needed to continue to run the game.

You can see why this will slow your system down when running resource sapping games like FS2002.

If, on the other hand, you have 512 mb of RAM and 32 mb is used for the system, that leaves a lot of RAM to be filled before you start to swap data from the hdd. Also, with 512 mb of RAM filled up, there is plenty to keep you going whilst paging goes on in the background without you even noticing. No more stuttering.

RAM is definately going to make your sim run smoother. I hope that was in plain English and understandable.

The graphics card you use will determine how well the game looks and how fast the frame rates are in higher resolutions and higher detailed scenery etc. If you have enough RAM on your graphics card, this will also reduce the paging from the hard drive by the system RAM.

Today, most systems run on a minimum of 100 MHz and no longer do you have to buy RAM strips in pairs so you can put many different size RAM chips on the same board and it should work fine.

A couple of tips when buying RAM: Generally the bigger the strip, the cheaper (per mb) it is. If your system runs at 100 MHz then pc 133 will run on it but will reduce its speed to 100 MHz. The advantage of buying 133 MHz in this instance would be that 1> it's cheaper because it is more commonly used and 2> If you decide to upgrade to a 133 board it will run on it and you wont have to buy more; pc 100 won't.

One more point: the motherboard only determines how much RAM you can use by how many slots you have and by how big the RAM chips are that occupy them. How much RAM the operating system supports is the big question.

NT Systems will support 1 gb+ of RAM as they are server oriented I suppose. Windows 98 only supports 512 mb (if my memory serves me well). Windows 95 only supports 64 mb I think. These figures may be incorrect, you need to make your own enquiries on this but basically what this means is: If your operating system only supports 512 mb, then any more that, you put in, will not be used unless you change the RAM setting in your OS. (not your BIOS on your motherboard). This would involve changing the size of your page file in NT or virtual memory in Windows 98.

Don't want to get too into that as it will only be of interest to you if you run Windows 95 and if you do I suggest upgrading to, at least, Win98 if you want to run FS2000 / FS2002.

I hope this has given you a greater understanding of why RAM is always a better choice in the trade off between good graphics and the speed of your system.

Finally...you can see that, whilst a top of the range graphics card will improve the eye candy of the game you are playing coupled with 64 mb of system RAM it will be pretty useless. I have always thought that if you can understand how something works, then and only then can you figure out the best way to improve it.

I was once asked, during my MCSE training, why I was so keen to learn how to read hexidecimal code (code mainly used by hackers). I replied: No I don't want to be a hacker, I just want to understand how it works so that I know how to protect my network from it. Sorry to go on, but there has been quite a lot of posts on the forums, regarding RAM, by people that simply don't understand how it works. Hope I have helped.

Geoff Seal
geoff@shifties.freeserve.co.uk

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