Foo - Which setup would give better performance, RAM?

So right now i have a 512stick of RAM, 400mhz in my motherboard. The motherboard supports 4GB. I am thinking about adding another stick, to have at least 1 GB. I've been telling myself I will for some time, but I found a cool looking game called VegaStrike (1st person space shooter).

So would I get better performance by getting another 512stick and running it dual channel or whatever that is called? Or, better to buy a 1GB stick and simply adding that in.

From what I heard, you run faster pairing it up. BUT that's only when the bus is your limit. If you don't have enough ram and are constantly swapping, then you might as well get more ram.

I am pretty sure it is swapping. I loaded up VegaStrike and it lags pretty badly. Not sure why, I've played other 3d graphical games before without issues.
Using a Radeon 9200 w/ 128MB
2.8ghz p4

Nothing one might call 1337, but certainly nothing awful!

Determine what's your bottleneck first. Open up the TaskManager and watch the graphs of the CPU and memory usage. If you're dealing with large files, disk-speed becomes a major factor where a RAID-0 will boost performance more than CPU or memory upgrades..

Also remind me again what motherboard you have. Some of Intel's motherboard chipsets support dual-channel, and some don't.

If it can use dual-channel, then for an Intel dual-channel system you'll want modules that have the same logical addressing scheme, not just any random pair of 512's, so the safest bet would be to buy a matched pair of 512's and then sell the old 512.

I believe the chipset is the Intel 865
My motherboard is an MSI Neo something or another. It is all red, I am almost certain it will support dual channel.

When you say matched pair, do you mean like two sticks that have been tested together and whatnot? Or, two sticks of the same model?

I would rather not sell off what I have. The motherboard has 4 slots for RAM. It is my understanding that the dual channel would mean two identical RAM sticks are in two of hte slots which are the same color.


What if I ran two identical sticks of 1GB ram in two of the color matched slots? And then, just keep my 512 in the other? Would the 512 act as a weak link?

I would rather not sell off what I have. The motherboard has 4 slots for RAM. It is my understanding that the dual channel would mean two identical RAM sticks are in two of hte slots which are the same color.


What if I ran two identical sticks of 1GB ram in two of the color matched slots? And then, just keep my 512 in the other? Would the 512 act as a weak link?To run dual-channel, you'd put a pair of modules in slots 1 & 3 on your MSI. Slot #1 is the one closest to the CPU socket. If you had a second pair of matched modules, you could add them in slots 2 & 4. For the motherboard to successfully use them in dual-channel mode, the two modules within each pair need to be logically identical (but the modules in pair 1 don't have to be the same as pair 2, although this disables Dynamic mode). Your system may not even POST with three modules installed, but if you want to try it that way, it shouldn't do any lasting harm.

So the safe bet is to use two matching modules. A surefire way to get two matching ones is to buy a dual-channel kit, such as... this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146577).

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/20-146-577-01.JPG

Oh, or if you want 2 x 1GB, then these ones (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146575). And with 2GB, you're not too likely to need the extra 512MB, right? :)

meeeh,
I read up on dual channeling and it does not sound like the difference is huge. I think I am just going to buy a stick of 400mhz 512MB like I have and install it. If it goes dual channel, great. If not, oh well, at least I have extra.
If that that does not fix this game, screw it all.

meeeh,
I read up on dual channeling and it does not sound like the difference is huge. I think I am just going to buy a stick of 400mhz 512MB like I have and install it. If it goes dual channel, great. If not, oh well, at least I have extra.
If that that does not fix this game, screw it all.If it won't run, period, when you try for dual-channel, just slap 'em into slots 1 & 2 and it should run single-channel.

Oh,
Do you think the Radeon 9200 is more or less an antique by now? I doubt it, but maybe that is the cause of my lagging.

But I've played Need for Speed underground on this game without issue, I would think that would have made it lag as well.

Oh,
Do you think the Radeon 9200 is more or less an antique by now? I doubt it, but maybe that is the cause of my lagging.

But I've played Need for Speed underground on this game without issue, I would think that would have made it lag as well.I bet you played NFS: Underground in DirectX, though, not OpenGL ;)

I was trying to find out the minimum system requirements and the recommended system requirements. They're not clear on what it takes to really run the game well. If you want to venture up the performance scale without spending tons of money on a dead-end (AGP) card, then how about a 6600GT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130059)? You want to have a decent 350W+ power supply to go with that.

I don't see why OpenGL would make a big difference though, why would it be any more taxing on components than DirectX?

Also, I think that if I was going to go for a new video card, It would probably have 256mb instead of 128.
I am not going to buy a new card though, I need to save my money for servo motor drivers.

I don't see why OpenGL would make a big difference though, why would it be any more taxing on components than DirectX?

Also, I think that if I was going to go for a new video card, It would probably have 256mb instead of 128.
I am not going to buy a new card though, I need to save my money for servo motor drivers.I've found that DirectX gets me better performance in Windows than OpenGL does (on consumer-level video cards), to the extent that I've been able to compare using the same apps, such as trueSpace 4.3 (http://freepages.thesecretlabs.com/~mechbgon/ts43_uv_mapping.gif) and good ol' Unreal Tournament. :)

A 128MB 6600GT would still run circles around your 9200 (the card's memory bandwidth is important, not just the amount of it), but if you can't afford one, it's a moot point. Too bad I just gave my 6600GT to a co-worker or I would've offered you a very hot buy :(

If I were you I wouldn't bother with the ram.

It's your video card.......not to bash you, but your 9200 is the problem. It was near (if not at) the bottom when it came out several years ago.

"Using a Radeon 9200 w/ 128MB 2.8ghz p4 Nothing one might call 1337, but certainly nothing awful!"

I respectfully disagree ;) a 9200 is an integrated graphics level chipset.


If you want to do anything, upgrade the graphics, if you don't want to drop that kind of cash, don't waste it on ram. It won't improve your gaming performance by anything noticable.

edit...I agree with mech, you'd be better off getting a 6600GT. It would be a huge difference compared to the 9200.

edit #2, I see 6600Gt going for ~120 CDN and 7600 for 150 CDN, seems relatively cheap..........that would be my route.

Good luck.

So you do think that 6600 would make a significant improvement then?
PCS2, do you think so as well?

I am willing to buy a new card if I dont need to buy ram. 110 would probably be the most I would be willing to spend. I've never found myself using over 350MB of RAM, ever. Even then, I had A LOT of firefox tabs open. Typically it is around the 250ish mark.

What about some of the higher end Radeons? 9800?

I like to buy on ebay because I can use paypal, so I am looking for similar things to that link you sent me MechBgon, how about this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/nVIDIA-GeForce-FX6600-256MB-6600-256-AGP-video-Card-V49_W0QQitemZ220041811316QQihZ012QQcategoryZ40161QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

So you do think that 6600 would make a significant improvement then?
PCS2, do you think so as well?

I am willing to buy a new card if I dont need to buy ram. 110 would probably be the most I would be willing to spend. I've never found myself using over 350MB of RAM, ever. Even then, I had A LOT of firefox tabs open. Typically it is around the 250ish mark.

What about some of the higher end Radeons? 9800?

I like to buy on ebay because I can use paypal, so I am looking for similar things to that link you sent me MechBgon, how about this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/nVIDIA-GeForce-FX6600-256MB-6600-256-AGP-video-Card-V49_W0QQitemZ220041811316QQihZ012QQcategoryZ40161QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItemThe 6600GT has about twice the performance of a Radeon 9800 Pro, IIRC. Although I don't know if that's the case in Linux/OpenGL. But historically I think nVidia has been the better OpenGL performer, not ATI. Notice that the card in that auction is a "vanilla" 6600, not a 6600GT.

What resolution and color depth are you using in the game, by the way?

buy newegg.

32bit
aand 1024x768

I am tempted to just grab that one you linked me to, going to look for some reviews.

So you do think that 6600 would make a significant improvement then?
PCS2, do you think so as well?

I am willing to buy a new card if I dont need to buy ram. 110 would probably be the most I would be willing to spend. I've never found myself using over 350MB of RAM, ever. Even then, I had A LOT of firefox tabs open. Typically it is around the 250ish mark.

What about some of the higher end Radeons? 9800?

I like to buy on ebay because I can use paypal, so I am looking for similar things to that link you sent me MechBgon, how about this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/nVIDIA-GeForce-FX6600-256MB-6600-256-AGP-video-Card-V49_W0QQitemZ220041811316QQihZ012QQcategoryZ40161QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I have a 9800 pro in my machine right now. It's not so good on today's games, luckily I don't game anymore or I would have probably bought something else by now.

I wouldn't bother buying a 9800 now though, just too outdated, unless it was for 25$. As mech stated, a 6600GT would be a much better option, which qould clobber a 9800 which in turns clobbers a 9200 ;).

As to the ebay link you gave, I don't see a brand, just a generic nVidia card, unless I missed it somewhere. I'd be wary of buying something that wasn't a major name. I'd look for eVGA, or BFG nvidia cards.....I forget who else though....it's been awhile.

here's (http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=13575&vpn=128-A8-N350-TX&manufacture=eVGA) a 6600gt for 125 CDN

so you should be able to find something on newegg for cheaper than that in the states.

Good Luck!