Game Testing 2GB versus 4GB of Memory on Vista 64-bit

[IdolEyes787]

Just found this on another site and found it interesting so I thought I'd post it here.


Legit Reviews tested the gaming performance of 2GB versus 4GB of Memory on Vista 64-bit. Here's a taster:

Inspired by the Corsair Performance Analysis of 4GB versus 2GB of memory we figured it would be fun to see for ourselves how gaming performance is impacted by adding more system memory. Corsair did a great job on memory usage and the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, so instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, we suggest that you check out their report. The Corsair performance analysis only used three games so our goal was to use a wider selection of games and see how much, if at all, the average framerate improved. Our findings, based on nine game titles, have shown that 4GB of memory does offer framerate improvements over using 2GB of memory. The observed difference was so small it would be hard to notice while gaming. Synthetic testing was also a wash since 3DMark 2006 gained performance while 3DMark Vantage seemed to take a slight performance hit.

Our average framerate increase of 1.6% in nine games was slightly higher than the 1.1% shown by Corsair in the three games they tested, but our test system was a little newer and we were running Vista SP1. Something else that we noted while running the benchmarks is that game loading times were also significantly enhanced by installing 4GB of system memory. While that was not the focus of this article (framerates was) we noted that Crysis v1.21 loaded 54.1% faster (14.28s versus 22.00s) on the initial level load. After the level was loaded and then restarted (as if one died and started over) the load times were within a hundredth of a second. Obviously, having more memory will also help other areas and at the end of the day it helps performance. If you're going to be building a new gaming PC then by all means use 4GB as it does help performance, but don't expect a night and day difference in the gaming benchmarks.

[central2rbay]

Interesting... I appreciate the post. I believe I read a similar article on Guru3d, referencing quantitatively the impact of such an upgrade in memory. I'll try to dig it up and post the link.

While we're on the subject of benchmarking, happen to see anything out there on frame rate impact caused by having dual monitors setup? Granted, I'm sure performance can be dramatically different on a video card by video card basis... but still would be interesting.

Regardless, thanks again.

[S!X]

I just installed Vista X64 and it seems to eat more ram then the X86 version. I'm barely getting by with 1GB here, I may just go back to xp pro.

[clocker]

I just installed Vista X64 and it seems to eat more ram then the X86 version. I'm barely getting by with 1GB here, I may just go back to xp pro.

Vista deals with system memory in a completely different manner than XP- some say more efficiently, some say less- but certainly requires more than XP ever did.

I consider 2GB to be the absolute minimum for a Vista install and four to be about average.
Your install, with only 1GB of RAM, must be hitting the page file constantly- obviously, not a good situation.

Either belly up to the bar and get some more memory or go back to XP.

[kaiweiler]

The reason why Vista uses so much more RAM than XP is because Vista actually learns the manner in which you use your computer and loads your commonly opened programs into the RAM at the times they are most accessed.
If you want more details, research SuperFetch.
In summary, unused RAM is wasted RAM.

I do agree with clocker, 2gb should be the minimum on a Vista system, and if it's possible I recommend 4gb.