More RAM Questions

**jsalvador** · 07-22-2002, 02:39 AM

Today I ordered 512megs of PC100 memory to upgrade from 192megs. I've got two questions:

1.)How will this affect my performance overall? Not only in FS2002, but in Windows itself and say...Il-2?

2.)I have 2 DIMMs, one of them has 64megs the other 128. If i replace the 64 will windows detect 640megs of RAM or not detect the other 128? I have heard stories of Windows not detecting anything more than 512megs.

System specs are as follows:
700mhz Celeron
192megs RAM
Geforce4 MX420 PCI

Thanks in advance,
Julian

Simon Evans · 07-22-2002, 04:12 AM

Assuming you are using W98SE:

1: FS will load much faster, you'll see fewer stutters and the overall impression will be much smoother flying. Elsewhere I am not aware of any software using W98SE that can taken full advantage of 512 meg RAM (in fact, even FS2002, just about the most RAM-intensive app I've ever seen only uses about 180 meg), however you should see almost no swap file activity and therefore again, things should load quicker.

2: It is not a good idea to install more than 512 meg RAM into W98SE. Windows 98SE cannot use more than 512 meg RAM and you may find that the extra RAM causes problems...
http://www.aumha.org/a/memmgmtz.htm

Hope this helps.

Simon Evans

**jsalvador** · 07-22-2002, 03:11 PM

Sorry, I should of told this in the system specs. I am using Windows ME.

Simon Evans · 07-22-2002, 04:09 PM

http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/memory/vcache.html

Might have something relevant

Simon Evans

**Bigshot** · 07-22-2002, 04:10 PM

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-22-02 AT 04:14PM (EDT)[/font][p]Check your motherboard specs. It may not even run that much ram. I have an asus board that takes PC100 ram. The machine came with a single 128 mg stick. I added a second 128mg stick. Then came FS2002 and I added a third 128mg stick which maxed out my motherboard which only handles 384mgs of ram. Or three 128mg sticks of ram. My motherboard is topped out. I run Win98 and FS2002 while running windows and it uses most of that. Any more is kind of a waste unless your running XP. My experience has been an overall smoother running machine with 384mgs of ram. FS2002 doesn't load any faster; but it does exit immediately and nice and clean now with no waiting for the next window after exit. Going from 256 to 384 stopped that annoying harddrive activity while running the sim but it won't increase your framerate and probably won't do anything for your stutters. You're running an MX card. That's the culprit that's causing your stutters. At least that'd be my guess. A GF4MX card is a very expensive GF2 card. With your rig, if you're planning on keeping it for a while; you might consider buying a full GF2 card with 64mgs of ram on board and returning that GF4MX if you still can. They're really cheap nowadays. I run the GF2GTS64 with no stutters. It was well worth the $33 I spent for that third stick of ram. I run a PIII800 with frames locked at 20 with no problems at all.

**jsalvador** · 07-22-2002, 05:20 PM

The problem with the video cards is that I dont have an AGP slot. PCI cards are very limited in the amount of choices.

**Bigshot** · 07-22-2002, 05:27 PM

Oh; you're really limited then. I see why you picked that pci card. Keep checking them prices on the new Dells. They're really reasonable.

**jsalvador** · 07-22-2002, 10:22 PM

I am not really sure what to believe here, one person is telling me the stuttering will be lower, the other telling me that it won't affect much and that it is my MX420 that's causing the stuttering.

No mean to be rude but who am I supposed to believe? Or will I have to just wait and see?

A friend of mine told me that upgrading my RAM will help my FPS because it can allocate more to the video card (or something along those lines). Is this true?

Once again, thanks for any help
-Julian

tjkotula · 07-22-2002, 10:41 PM

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-22-02 AT 10:43PM (EDT)[/font][p]"A friend of mine told me that upgrading my RAM will help my FPS because it can allocate more to the video card (or something along those lines). Is this true?"

Actually, adding more RAM won't improve your FPS much. I went from 64 to 128 two years ago and again from 128 to 384 (my max) last year, because my FS2000 FPS were terrible and I saw very little difference in performace other than applications and windows in Flightsim loading faster and the game exiting faster. With a graphics card, all it can use is it own onboard memory to connect with the processor, do the calculations, and process the graphics into useable images for your screen. Your main system memory's primary concern is to hook up with and locate information in your drives and ship that over to the processor for calculation. It doesn't bother with the video because that has it's own memory. So no, having more system memory won't make much difference in FPS as it cannot really just ship some over to the card. Now if you've got room to add VRAM, that might be another story.

Simon Evans · 07-23-2002, 04:04 AM

>Or will I have
>to just wait and see?

Yes, you will just have to wait and see.

Stuttering can be caused by several different and/or unrelated factors. If your bottleneck is in the RAM then you might solve by adding more, if it's in the PCI card (which is possible) then it might not, if it's in the MOBO/CPU (which is also possible) then no amount of extra RAM will fix it. Experts all over have tried to `solve` the problem of stuttering and there is still no consensus as to what causes it on one system and not another.

Simon Evans