Is 4GB enough?

[alienware]

First point. The C2 specs you showed are BEFORE the HD/DX11 patch, ALSO the HD/DX11 patch ONLY works in X64. In fact it's rumored that Windows 8 will ONLY be x64. x86 is out of date and it makes PERFECT sense to ditch it. Sure you can use 2gb or RAM if you want a slow as hell PC to only do web surfing. or you can use 4gb of ram for basic gaming, or you can use 6gb to 8gb for high performance. The only reason developers still make x86 is because they know there are people with slow PCs (ie less than 4gb of RAM). If anything is slowing down advanced game development its having to create programs that stay within 4gb RAM.

The reason your PC is using 1.4gb of RAM is because Windows is working around your lack of RAM. Running windows with NO program running uses 3gb of my 16gb. and Windows runs A LOT faster than it did before.

What video card/s are you using?

And Crysis 2 with the DX11 running is crap. Just as Crysis was also crap. I would strongly imagine that this is why they didn't put it in at release, because it would have made the game unplayable and hurt sales. Instead, release it so that it runs for most if not all people, then release it later.

I understand that loads of people now are rushing out to buy a game that is terribly coded and near impossible to get to an acceptable level.

Seriously. 1 game, £400 in hardware? is that really how people go about things these days?

Windows isn't working around my lack of ram. It's only using a tiny pagefile. My GPU is eating up some, and the apps and Windows bits running in the background are using the rest. I'd bet if I turned off Aero or whatever it's called now it would be fine.

Look. Let me clear this up once and for all. Over the past three days we have had "I need water cooling, it's awesome THX M8 GR8 !".

We've also had "I need 8gb ram, I need ever last mb of the stuff ! THX M8 GR8 !".

And "You need an extorionately expensive elite uber power supply..... To run a GTX 560 ti THX M8 GR8".

It's literally come down to this.

Oh crap, a guy that talks logic and sense with facts to back it up... QUICK ! INSULT HIM !

I'm not here to wind people up or belittle them. I know an awful awful lot about computers and their workings. Thirty year's worth. I also know a DAMN lot about how power supplies work and provide wattage and ampage (and waste heat and 80+ regs) and all of the other electronics at a very very low level. I would doubt that many would know as much as I. Not because I am bragging about it, but more that I am incredibly geeky about it all and spend my days reading books and learning. I'm 38, you're never too old to learn, not even me. If people know something I don't you will notice me say "Oh cool !" or something along those lines. Not -

Look you ***hole f**k off out of my thread because I am right and ur rong innit.

Facts and science don't lie. I am not a smarty pants, that's just how it is. If you go around giving bad advice and telling porkies then I will point it out. If I am wrong I will accept that, and even thank those who give me valid information on subjects I agree on.

If you're going to ignore facts and science and go ahead and do things any way? FINE. All you need to say is, on a very calm note "Look man, I have the money to burn and I want to overdo it, just because".

I have absolutely no problem with that at all but I don't expect to be insulted over it, nor told I am wrong when I am clearly right. That will then force me to prove myself which I will, and nine times out of ten I can do so.

Apologies for the *** out swear words.

 

[dugdiamond]

cry2DX11 requires 8GB (to work correctly)

x86 cannot read/write to those addresses, only x64 can.

win_x86, please move on - lol

(with today's pc-tech moving at an incredible pace, with have to keep up with it, or get left behind)

until EVERYONE HAS to use x64 PCs, we will continue to write software/games for x86 - they are about 60% of our business. not everybody has a money-tree growing in their garden!!! lol

(i predict that in less than 10yrs time, x128+ PCs will be common place)

 

[alienware]

(with today's pc-tech moving at an incredible pace, with have to keep up with it, or get left behind)

Sorry man, that just confirms what I said above. That's absolute horse crap. If you feel the compulsion to keep doing that fine. Just come out and say it, "I want to spend all my money on computer hardware and make great losses because it's my passion !".

I have a PC downstairs that cost bugger all, running Crysis 2. I could become obsessive over seeing it in DX11 and spend a bomb trying to keep up with technology. Why? I played the game when it released and played it through. I didn't like it very much. Even if I did (I liked Crysis a whole lot more, but it was still buggy and flawed) I would not spend £400 to run a single game. That is the game's fault, not technology.

Have you seen the Nvidia 5 series tech demos? Go look at them. They're fluent and smooth. They look incredible. Why? because Nvidia know how to optimise their code and make it run like crap from a proverbial digging instrument.

You know what made Crysis 2 run so badly in DX11? it's a console port. Another rotting, festering console port. THAT is why it was released in DX9. The money in getting it onto a console just laughed in the face of the money it would make on PC.

And that's how it will continue to go and has been for about five years now. Take GTAIV. Awful. Buggy, slow, crap. Their excuse? "high end graphics are reserved for future systems !". What a load of dog doos. If a console with five year old technology could play it fine looking half decent then why was it that a GTX 295 struggled to get it moving looking decent?

As I say, if you want to spunk your money away on needless indulgence do so. I've done plenty of it myself. But at least see it for what it is.

 

[dugdiamond]

Hi guys just wanting to ask whether 4gigs of ram will be enough for upcoming games or would it be worth getting 2 sticks more for 8 gigs?

as the the OP (above)....

for games at the present.....YES

for upcoming releases - i do suggest 8GB (but, 2x 4GB modules)

if there is the slightest chance that you will be rebuilding (upgrading your rig) within the next 12 months, 8GB will be better for you in the long run. saves you re-buying at a later date

 

[dugdiamond]

Sorry man, that just confirms what I said above. That's absolute horse crap. If you feel the compulsion to keep doing that fine. Just come out and say it, "I want to spend all my money on computer hardware and make great losses because it's my passion !".

I have a PC downstairs that cost bugger all, running Crysis 2. I could become obsessive over seeing it in DX11 and spend a bomb trying to keep up with technology. Why? I played the game when it released and played it through. I didn't like it very much. Even if I did (I liked Crysis a whole lot more, but it was still buggy and flawed) I would not spend £400 to run a single game. That is the game's fault, not technology.

Have you seen the Nvidia 5 series tech demos? Go look at them. They're fluent and smooth. They look incredible. Why? because Nvidia know how to optimise their code and make it run like crap from a proverbial digging instrument.

You know what made Crysis 2 run so badly in DX11? it's a console port. Another rotting, festering console port. THAT is why it was released in DX9. The money in getting it onto a console just laughed in the face of the money it would make on PC.

And that's how it will continue to go and has been for about five years now. Take GTAIV. Awful. Buggy, slow, crap. Their excuse? "high end graphics are reserved for future systems !". What a load of dog doos. If a console with five year old technology could play it fine looking half decent then why was it that a GTX 295 struggled to get it moving looking decent?

As I say, if you want to spunk your money away on needless indulgence do so. I've done plenty of it myself. But at least see it for what it is.

hi dude.

i write games for a living

take joe bloggs... he has an xbox360 (meh). he plays "I keel you! MMO" (meh).

... every xbox360 is exactly the same (people can mod them - but in general they are all the same)

... every copy of the game is exactly the same (addons excluded)

when devving the game on the PC for the console - the game is port-streamed perfectly(meh) for THAT console and no other. IE: GPU fragment shader code written on the PC-dev machine is changed specifically to run on THAT console

the "I keel you! MMO" game CAN run on the PC, and all the consoles.....BUT it is not the same code. it is compiled entirely differently.

writing a game specifically for the PC is different yet again - NOT all PCs are the same, but the same "I keel you! MMO" game has to run on them all

the same game written for the PC can be many times larger the original 'devved' game, as it has to include #fragment headers...

#ifndef nGPU_DX9

...

#else

...

#endif

etc.

it does not so this on the consoles - cos every console_type is the same

 

[alienware]

Right, so it's all about optimisation. When you have matching hardware that's all the same it's a pile of pish to get it running. When you translate that code to run on a format where every single last one will be different in a way you need to take that into account.

I'm fully aware of how it all works, I know plenty of coders. As an example a friend of mine writes emulators. He wrote one in 2001 and for me it ran like dog crap. He couldn't quite work out why, until I told him what CPUS I was running. A pair of Pentium Pros. So, he found some optimisation code for those, whacked it in and sent me "a special dev version" that utilised both of my CPUS, ran like stink.

Which, if we think about it, explains why a lot of games only support two cores still. Simply as the engines they are running on was designed to use two cores and no more. When the engines are updated (UT for example) then so will the optimisation.

You know what's funny though, that I have picked up? Firstly every one is saying you need 8gb of ram. Then, we discover that Windows will page the same amount off of your hard drive. So you end up losing 8gb off of an SSD instead of say, 4gb. I would bet SSDs cost more money per size too. But, again it's about optimising the code.

Now let's look at the most recent example - Duke Nukem Forever. Yeah yeah blah blah waffle waffle drone drone it's old code *yawn*. It *IS* old code. However, note how absolutely terrible it was when cross coded to the consoles? there's a reason for that ! it was designed, at that time, to be for PCs. No surprise at all then that on a PC a level loads in about three seconds, yet on a 360 takes about two minutes

It's also no surprise that the PC version was smooth and fast and the consoles tore and fell to bits. Gearbox even came out and said it... "If you think the game is buggy and crap then play it on a PC, we assure you it's fine". And they were completely right.

This isn't helped AT ALL by buttholes like Nvidia and AMD relying on, no offense, people like you. The "Apple Ipad" crowd who have the compulsion like Pokemon to buy them all. The amazing irony is, however, that if you didn't rush out and, well, buy them all then the developers of the software for it would actually have more than ten bloody seconds to figure out how it works and make the most of that hardware. But with it changing every ten bleeding seconds what chance do they have?

DX9 is now being utilised to the full. I'm sure doing what you do you can understand that surely? DX10.. ROFLMFAO what a frigging epic fail. Yet, every one jumped up and said "OMFG A SINGLE GAME OUT ON DX10 GOTTAHAVVVITGOTTAHAVVIT !". How many games? about two? lmfao.

See also - Direct x 11. All of these swaggy demos by Nvidia, all of this bravado.. Wet curry pump IMO of course. How many games? about five? how many of them are smooth enough to be playable? three? lmfao.

It's not about being on the cutting edge of technology AT ALL. It's about not being a fool and forcing people to actually sit down and figure crap out properly and then use it properly. Crysis, in honesty, was a DX10 fail. If you want to see how it's done then load up Gears of War on your PC. Absolutely stunning IMO. I still see people struggling to run Crysis and using it as some masochistic kind of benchmark now. Erm, hello, it's terrible and sloppily coded. Nothing is going to change there unless they sit down and rewrite it all, which they did, for Crysis 2. Cryengine three or something.

I've ran both Dirt 2 and Dirt 3 across both of my gaming systems now. One in DX11, one in DX9. I've ran F1 2010 in the same way. All three are close to impossible to make the differences out of, especially not when you are hurtling through a dusty track at 130 mph.

To conclude, look at the games NOW on the 360, then look at them when the 360 came out. I remember playing NFS MW on a 360 at its launch and the PC version destroyed it. The console version had no FSAA and was glitchy and stuttered. At that time I had a Athlon XP lmao. Now? ffs, you can't even get a £1000 PC to run a game at the same framerates.

It's obvious where the loyalty has gone and hint - it ain't on the PC. Microsoft want the licensing fees onto the Xbox, and because people are so dependant on Windows THEY forced them off of it and onto the 360. They make it awkward for coders to put games out on PC because, quote microsoft "it is not in our best interests to have big titles released on both formats "

No, of course it bloody isn't. A 360 game costs £50 at launch. A PC game can be had, the same game, for £30. And the reason is simple, there's no licensing fee cut in it for microsoft.

Oh believe me they've tried, but it isn't legal on windows to charge and dev team to release software on it. They get nothing out of it.

 

[SieB]

This news just in... my 8GB Mushkin Blackline arrived about an hour ago, took my 4GB out put the 8GB in and guess what......?

"There is no difference in terms of speed or performance" non that is noticeable anyway apart from in Photoshop and programs like that.

And I also don't notice any difference using 8GB of RAM in Crysis 2 compared to when I was using 4GB.

 

[dugdiamond]

until the consoles evolve into !PS4! and !xbox720!, DX11 will be a stepping stone until DX12+, (and openGL3+) etc...

for gaming, consoles will always lead the way, as a console is designed purely for gaming, and all the bells and whistles have been taken off them.

sony made the mistake with "other OS"... fail!

....

as a dev, I must keep up with all the new techniques (hardware and software). it is my ball and chain

but, my job, means i can afford it

 

[dugdiamond]

This news just in... my 8GB Mushkin Blackline arrived about an hour ago, took my 4GB out put the 8GB in and guess what......?

"There is no difference in terms of speed or performance" non that is noticeable anyway apart from in Photoshop and programs like that.

And I also don't notice any difference using 8GB of RAM in Crysis 2 compared to when I was using 4GB.

reinstall crysis2 may fix this. (your saves will be kept)

upon installing, the installer checks the amount of ram, and only installs what it needs to, and writes to the *.ini files the specs of your rig. crysis then uses that info upon launch

 

[alienware]

until the consoles evolve into !PS4! and !xbox720!, DX11 will be a stepping stone until DX12+, (and openGL3+) etc...

for gaming, consoles will always lead the way, as a console is designed purely for gaming, and all the bells and whistles have been taken off them.

sony made the mistake with "other OS"... fail!

....

as a dev, I must keep up with all the new techniques (hardware and software). it is my ball and chain

but, my job, means i can afford it

Yup. And DX11 was just a simple way to get aging idiots like us to 'guinea pig' it for M$ to whack into the next console they make. DX10 was the same, only difference was when they got to laugh at how poo the PS3 was they didn't need it and got more breathing room.

I mean seriously as much as I hate bloody consoles with all of my being and how they have ruined PC gaming and can't bring myself to get one I really wish I could. I wish I could just give up the ghost, use a cack PC and get one of these crappy consoles to make my life easier.

What makes me angry at myself is that I hate Sony so much that I was cheering on the Xbox (original). I cheered as it was ever so slightly better, then cheered as the 360 demolished the PS3 in sales. And then I realised that it was going to destroy PC gaming

Wish I wasn't so stubborn, but I just refuse to pay £50+ for any game.

So I've had to learn to do PC gaming on the "As cheap as I can". And tbh? it's actually working rather well

I'll take a shot in the dark and stick my neck out here.. I think that when the next console releases DX11 will all of a sudden get a lot better

reinstall crysis2 may fix this. (your saves will be kept)

upon installing, the installer checks the amount of ram, and only installs what it needs to, and writes to the *.ini files the specs of your rig. crysis then uses that info upon launch

Crysis 2, from observation, seems to be offering wildy different performance on systems here on OC3D. And that is leading me to conclude that like Crysis it just seems to suit some computers more than others.

Which is why (old boring fart mode on again) I don't think it's a good idea to start throwing money at it.

 

[SieB]

reinstall crysis2 may fix this. (your saves will be kept)

upon installing, the installer checks the amount of ram, and only installs what it needs to, and writes to the *.ini files the specs of your rig. crysis then uses that info upon launch

I'll try but performance is good anyway i'm not getting any probs as it is, same as when I was using 4GB everything is running smooth averaging 30-40 FPS during action and around 57 when there isn't any in 720p with a 6850.

 

[Ya93sin]

I think Crysis 2 likes nVidia cards, responded to my GPU overclock nicely too.

Now in my opinion, what's ruining PC gaming is rushed games, poor coding and the like.

People like Activision rushing out games faster than a Formula1 car, in it for the money and so on-I can't blame them, but they are a business.

What happened to the games which were well written and a joy to play out of the box? I remember playing so many games, no patches, no stupid DLC, I just got the CD and installed, hey presto I was good to go.

Nowadays we have everything being rushed out at stupid rates. I mean, a Call of Duty title every year? No wonder they are still stuck on the old, visually crap engine that powers a game I can play on a netbook. But can I play Call of Duty on a netbook? Hell to the no, it has all these "graphical enhancements". I was playing Black Ops on the PC, it looks awful. In fact it is awful. If Infinity Ward had been given time, or whoever, to re-write a new engine, just for Call of Duty, I guarantee there wouldn't be all this hate.

One good example of stupid coding is Metro 2033, go online and see how many poor people couldn't even get the game running! I say this, without a word of a lie, Metro 2033 is the second most demanding game on my system, behind.....no, not Crysis2, but Napoleon Total War. And that's because its optimised awfully. (Tbf Napoleon is too, but then I'm playing with tens of thousands of soldiers on a battlefield at the same time, all have individual animations, then I have atmospheric effects, terrain damage and so on). I was speaking to a mate the other day, he can run Napoleon fine, because it has Shader Model 2. Shogun2, the sequel to Napoleon, uses exactly the same engine, but they took out the Shader Model 2 support option (I bet the support is still there somewhere). And the sick joke is, on Shader Model 3 (Low), grass is black! I mean wtf.

One of the reasons I look forward to Battlefield 3 and engines like Unreal Engine 3, is because they are going to look stunning, yet not require so much, and the reason that is is because a group somewhere sat down and took the time to properly get this thing right. BF3 alpha runs at about 70fps constant, and this is the alpha stage. Yet it still looks good.

Its the same thing on Windows too, I mean when Vista came out? Goddamn, I almost cried. Gone was the dependability of XP, replaced by this OS that could crash opening Internet Explorer. Not only that, initially it gained some strange affinity to viruses, and registry f*** ups, and I gave the laptop to my sister (she's actually begging the parents to get her something new now

). Then look at Windows 7, which although it's not perfect, I would feel semi-confident running that without AVG or the like. Let's hope Windows 8 isn't like Vista. But it has support for these Arm-powered computers, so theoretically, it should be able to utilise your system better than Windows 7, in which case AlienALX can keep his setup, and get even better fps

When it comes to consoles, I actually really liked PS3, its a great thing for watching movies on the big screen, but I don't think I could ever go to consoles. One of the biggest issues is, they can't keep releasing new consoles, simply because, with new hardware coding might go wrong, and the more often you upgrade, the more similar it becomes to owning and running a PC. IMO, we will see the end of consoles as we know them within a couple decades, it will just be PCs again, like the good ol' days, and we might get decent coding once more. Consoles is where the cash is though, so it would be a struggle.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

I understood it to more on the lines of PCI bandwidth. So for the sake of explanation, we'll use a hypothetical PCIe slot layout of 4 slots in one row. They are pinned from top to bottom for 16x, 8x, 16x, 8x; and your Northbridge/CPU has now 32 lanes of bandwidth between all the slots.

• So we'll start building the pressure, one card in top slot, running at 16x.
• Add a second card in the third slot, the chipset or secondary controller allows now split to 16x-16x (think dual channel RAM doing what dual channel does best).
• Now add in a sound card in the second slot, oh flippity, we've got no more spare lanes, now the controller halves the existing bandwidth to feed the new slot(s). The slots are now running at 8x, 1x, 8x, with 15 spares lanes of bandwidth doing jack all.
• Add in a RevoDrive-like device, now we get 8x, 1x, 8x, 4x, with 11 lanes being wasted.

• Now using the same slot-filling kit, let's try a board where the CPU-chipset maker was being a dick for this hypothetical and only 16 lanes total. So it becomes 4x, 1x, 4x, 4x, with 3x lanes usable.
• So using the 32 lane example, think quad channel; and the 16 lane example as dual channel. Performance for your GPU (also think RAM), will not suffer just two slots populated in that 16 lane board. But once you add in more cards (RAM), you are forced to split the bandwidth beyond ideal conditions.
• So with GPUs, PCIe bandwidth is up to pace with what the best cards can generate. But for RAM, like high end SSDs being able overwhelm SATA 3Gbps; the speed of data able to pass through means we need the bandwidth without pushed beyond comfortably splitting for dual channel.

Getit, get it? (your eyes must also be spinning at that text maze above.)

---

Anyways for the OP, 4GB is fine for now. There is no need for 8GB, but if you're buying new RAM, 2x 4GB would be dandy if you want, or if you need it for stupidly big rendering or like me multitasking the s* out of the 4GB I have for use.

Oh shhiii.... did someone just use idle load and minimal boot requirements to prop up a case for a heavy workload?

---

Ishbosh a herp a lolwut?

 

[Lollipop]

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

I think it's going to take a company of real humans and not money seeking androids straight outta frankensteins closet, to make a game not for the money but primarily to please the fans of the series, and because of the fact they put so much effort into it, that will be how they'll make their money - not through crooked marketing witchcraft and corperate wizardry but through adding the secret ingredient (aplogies for sounding ___) love. When you go into a bakery which loaf do you pick, the nasty battered up loaf full of e-numbers and raising agents made deep in the urban jungles of China or the loaf that has been baked with care and attention by a friendly baker who always greets his customers warmly? Will that baker not see his effort and passion for his work reflected in sales? Ofcourse. The same thing will happen if companies (some mentioned) can stop being greedy devious rats and make money through simple honest hearted elbow grease. Eventually they'll eclipse the sales of a certain company we all have in mind and wipe their rodential droppings off the slate of PC gaming - all gaming infact.

 

[alienware]

It's actually really bad for you. Full of carbohydrates.

Ed. Yes games are all about money now, with the creators carrying on like rock stars.

See also - the exception to the rule, and read my Fallout 3 review

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

It's actually really bad for you. Full of carbohydrates.

AlienALX and dugdiamond, co inventors of the first food replicators

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

Definately go 8GB, it's like when you ask people how many cores you need and they say 'oh only two, that's all that's supported' and in six months time you have to upgrade to a quad. Just get the better product and have it last you longer. If you can only afford 4GB get it in 2x2GB rather than 1x4GB, unless you plan to upgrade to 2x4GB straight after, in which case make do with 1x4GB until you can afford the second dimm

Definately go 8GB, it's like at any time you ask people how different cores you need plus they say 'oh only two, that's all that's supported' and in 6 weeks time you need to upgrade to some quad.

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Sounds familiar?

 

[TicTac]

lol thanks for the amazing amount of reply!

i decided awhile back that it shouldnt be the first thing on my upgrade list because i thought getting my 570

was a better upgrade. Anyways now that i have it i think im gonna get 2 new sticks of 4GB because awhile back somone said that i could mess up my OC having all slots filled?

Thanks Anyway

 

[Natashaful]

I can't say i can tell the difference between 6Gb adn 12Gb, But is it really worth taking 4Gb over 8gb for £20?.