NFS: Most Wanted - questions on improving gameplay

[behemothzero]

I'm not really fond of topic hijacking, so I just made a new one even though someone made an NFS:MW thread already.

So, here goes: My system:

P4 2.4Ghz
256MB PC2700 RAM
GeForce 6600
5400RPM 40GB HDD :(

The in-game loads slowly - I set my page file to 2gigs, and it loads faster from the menu to the game, but in-between races, shops, and free roaming, it's slow (more than thirty seconds). Now, I'm thinking of adding 512MB of RAM to my PC (not only for game purposes, mind you). Will that improve loading? The game also stutters sometimes, and the intro cutscene-race-video thing (whatever happens before you *spoilers* lose your BMW) progresses veeeeery slowly.

Also, assuming I place that in Channel B's first port and add another 256mb stick to Channel A's second port, will I be able to, for lack of a better term, "use" the dual-channel capabilities of my motherboard (with two 256MB sticks in channel 1 and a single 512MB stick in channel 2)?

Thanks.

[saphalline]

Wow! Yeah, your low amount of RAM and dog-slow hard drive are seriously holding back your gaming potential! :eek: With only 256MB of RAM, your system is not gaming-worthy. It's spending a lot of its time swapping back to the page file. To add insult to injury, your hard drive is really slow, meaning that the constant use of the page file is also going really slowly. Adding RAM and getting a faster hard drive would do wonders for your gaming performance. Your CPU and vid card are quite respectable, but are being held back.

No, dual-channel only works when an even number of RAM modules are used, and each pair must be matched for capacity and configuration. My advice: buy a dual-channel kit of 1GB PC3200 (2 x 512MB) and dump the stick of 256MB PC2700. Regardless of which version of P4 2.4 you have, if your mobo is dual-channel capable, you'll want PC3200. Then you'll have an extra stick of 256MB to put into another computer or sell to someone. Or just keep it around as "test RAM" or something like that.

[behemothzero]

That's like around an equivalent of 160 dollars here :eek: The total, I mean (1GB RAM, 80GB SATA HDD)

By the way, it's pretty manageable now. It doesn't slow down that much, and I found that I could crank up the car graphics and set the resolution to 800x600 with minimal slowdown (it only loads slowly on pre-race cutscenes against Blacklist drivers). Guess I'd save the money and think if it'll still be worth upgrading then...

Thanks for the confirmation.

[saphalline]

More RAM would help more than a faster hard drive at this point. If you want an upgrade for cheap, buy just one more stick of 256MB (PC2700 or PC3200) and leave it at that. It should help considerably.

As a gaming rule of thumb, your system RAM should be at least 4x your vid card RAM. So if you've got a 128MB vid card, you should have 512MB of RAM. If you've got a 512MB vid card, then you can afford at least 2GB of RAM. ;) That's the "rule" that I follow when upgrading or building or configuring a gaming system.

[behemothzero]

Yeah, I know that rule. I intended to follow it as soon as I got the money to do so, but... oh well. If only I didn't need to change my mobo...

Well, at least when I buy a new PC, I have parts to start building two PCs solely for word processing, etc and retro gaming :)

I'll try to get rich soon, like you said :D