How much RAM is too much?

[Boboki]

I'm purchasing a DDR motherboard with 3 dimms for use with my athlon xp 1600. This system will mostly be used for 3D games like Dark age of Camelot and Everquest.

I was going to buy a single stick of 512 RAM, so I would have plenty of free slots to upgrade. But now I've read on a site or two that windows becomes unstable beyond 1 gig, and that higher ram produces reduced return. Also something about too much RAM slowing down a system given the limits of a processors L2 cache. Does anyone have any info to offer on this? What would you recomend for maximum RAM ?

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B-1

[Rick]

Unless you intend to do Photo , High End graphic editing Or video work,
512 is all you need,
If you are running an AMD 1600 your mother board is well past the days of reduced performance

[iisbob]

Interesting misinformation still being booted around.

If you run a 95 OS, then yes-you'll see problems with over 384MB's or memory on older boards.

As Rick stated, with any modern board running a modern cpu ( like the Xp athlon series ) memory problem'
s are not so prevelant, actually since window's XP is based on the NT kernel; 4 GB's is a reasonable amount of RAM.

i use 1 GB of PC2100 DDR myself ( actually it's running a little faster as i'm slightly Overclocking it ) and i keep my system kernel files in memory, so that window's responds much quicker.

Next board i purchase will have support for at least $ GB's of RAM, and i intend to put at least 3 GB's in it.

Modern games, like IL2-sturmovik recommend 512 MB's of memory, won't be long till you'll need at least a Gig just to run standard apps.

Ol Bill really put his foot into his mouth on this one! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

640K is all the memory anyone needs.




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iisbob

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.

[Boboki]

Originally posted by iisbob:
i keep my system kernel files in memory, so that window's responds much quicker.

blinks with a lack of understanding

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B-1

[ranchdog]

With the RAM price the way it is...

Think I'll keep 512MB around the Casa and call it good.





http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

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....How long is a minute... depends on which side of the Bathroom door you're on. ......
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[iisbob]

This is what i mean Boboki; i let Xp load the core system files into RAM instead of using the page file.

Go here, Regedit-OS enhancement (http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/399) to see how to do it { it only works for NT kernel system's tho }.

WARNING! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif messing with your registry can cause severe damage to your system should you do it incorrectly!, Therefore i take NO responsibility for your action's should you choose to modify your system-especially if you don't know what you are doing!

That said-be careful. Make a backup of this key should you attempt to try it, that way you can restore it if need be.



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iisbob

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.

[saphalline]

If you want to talk technical, then technically Windows becomes unstable no matter what you do! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif Haha! Sorry, had to use that one.

Anyway, the L2 cache limitation stories are actually based in fact, but only on much older machines and only when using Win 95 and earlier. What happened was that the L2 cache was on the motherboard (anyone remember those days?) so the chipset had problems accessing multiple memory modules. In other words, 3 memory modules at say 16MB each was more difficult for the chipset to count than 64MB in one module. This makes sense since having all the RAM in one place sure seems preferable than spreading it out.

Modern chipsets and mobos, however, are a lot better and a lot "smarter" when it comes to keeping track of RAM. My new mobo for instance doesn't even care where I put my RAM, first slot or third slot it makes no difference! This was literally unthinkable in past mobos.

As to the part of your question about "how much RAM is too much?", the answer is if you're running Win XP on an Athlon XP, then too much is past the max RAM of your mobo! Win XP, and the NT kernel in general, can handle 4GB of RAM. Heck, that's more than my old P166 machine's hard drive! And since games like Sturmovik and Luclin really only run well with 512MB, I don't see why you don't go for broke and just get 1GB all at once.

[iisbob]

Anyway, the L2 cache limitation stories are actually based in fact

Really?!! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

And to think i've been fooling around with these machines for better than 20 years and just never figured that out.

duh.



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iisbob

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.

[Nooyawkah]

I haven't been using computers as long as many of you, but I recall having a 486D with 4RAM. I tried to convert it from Win 3.1 to 95 and it was way to slow. The computer was something called Leading Edge and, if I recall, the mobo was distinctive to that computer and you need to buy Leading Edge parts to upgrade. And by that time the company was out of business. (And so he bought his first Dell). http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

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They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
---Edgar Allan Poe

[saphalline]

Originally posted by iisbob:
Really?!! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

And to think i've been fooling around with these machines for better than 20 years and just never figured that out.



Well, my above story isn't entirely accurate. Having a 16MB module in the first RAM slot (or bank for SIMM pairs), then 32MB in the next can cause problems, but 16MB in both shouldn't mess things up. Also, the lesser chipsets are pickier (ie 430 series wasn't as "smart" as the 440BX, etc.). Then, of course, proprietary mobos screwed things up even more! Like the above story with the company going out of business. I've had my share of proprietary crap, so nowadays if name brand RAM won't work then I don't want it!!