Although my PC is not at all bad - basic specs below, I am thinking of getting a new PC for FS9 (and FS10, 11 & 12!) with much more cutting edge hardware (with, in essence, 2 x NVidia 6800GTs in SLI and an AMD 64 FX55 CPU). It seems to me though that 1 GB should be more than enough of PC3200 RAM. Does anyone have 2GBs of RAM and actually find any improvement over 1 GB? An extra 1GB is not cheap these days, and I strongly suspect that I would be throwing my money away.Martin :-)

Probably not much difference in FS 2004 but perhaps for FS 2006 :). RAM requirements will go up so you may need it in the future but then it

Don't think many run FS9 with 2GB of RAM. 1GB seems to be the "sweet spot" for FS9.Future games/sims may require 2GB but there's no point in buying more RAM now because a game coming out in 2006 might need it.

On the same line, I have a mixed memory system and I suspect it might hold me back. I can't decide if the additional capacity from 512m to 1gb is worth it if the first 512m memory chip is DDR 3200 and the second is DDR 2700. If I only put in the 512 3200 chip, my guess is I can overclock more but will that be offset with the greater memory space? I have both chips in now but have occasional lockups and boot problems that could be completely unrelated. I also have a 256mb 3200 chip and my original intent after buying the 512 3200 was to go to 768 at the higher speed but the strangest thing happens when I try to combine the 512 and the 256. Only the 256 shows up. Doesn't matter what slots the chips are in. It'll combine with the 2700 512 but simply takes over if the 3200 512 is in there. Any clues as to what may be causing this?My rig is a 3.2 Athlon 64 on a Lanparty NF3 board.Thanks,Art Martin

Well generally it

The reason I posted this topic was because of problems I am having. As I use FS9.1 for long periods, the available RAM goes down and down, and after some hours the performance is visibly worse, with scenery blurred and loading slowly, aircraft liveries taking up to 30 seconds to load when you go to 'spot' view, and reduced frmae rates. Occasionally it gets to the stage where a message pops up to tell me that my PC is out of physical memeory and FS9 will close. When I look at how much memory I have left - it's almost nothing (20-30MB). If I save the flight, then restart FS9, the free memory, once flying again, is back up to 400MB or so. I have hardware tested the memory sticks (2xPC2700 DDR - each stick, same type) and it comes out as 100% OK. I rang Microsoft about the problem. They were very willing to help and spent about 30 minutes going through the problem with me, but the idea they said to try next was to take out one of the memory sticks and use 512MB instead. Not sure how this might help (assuming both sticks are performing fine), and not sure I even want to try it....Anyone else got memory leaks like this, even with the 9.1 patch installed? (And cured them??!!)...Martin

>Does anyone have 2GBs of RAM and actually find any improvement over 1 GB?Currently I have 2GB DDR400 on WinXP. Regarding FS, no improvements over 1GB.The maximum memory usage I got in FS2004 was about 700MB (measured in Windows Task Manager) with heavy FS add-ons and dense terrain mesh, and no background applications.Emerson

just a thought - why not give fsautostart a go - perhaps there are processes eating away at your resources in the background? I say this because the vast majority of us don't seem to experience the kind od degradation you describe with fs9.1.I don't, and like you I run the sim hours at a time.regards,Mark3.2HT/1GIG/X700pro256

If you have everything configured right, you should not be running out of free ram with one GB installed, particularly if you run FSAutostart. No matter what aircraft or scenery I run, I ALWAYS have 280 to 360mb of free ram available, in this 1gb system. I have read some stuff on large ram systems that aren't using the extra ram that they are actually performing every so slightly LESS with the cpu needing to address ram (that it never uses). Noel

There's a universal rule in computing: no matter how much RAM is installed, some amount won't be available due to memory fragmentation.The less RAM you have, the worst is the memory fragmentation.Additionally, more RAM provides more room for the disk cache, which can improve performance.Emerson

I haven't installed FSAutostart, although I did download it, for the simple reason that I have FS9.1 installed into its own partition on a separate hard drive, with its own XP installation. I have switched off most of the things that FSAutostart switches off, and, looking at waht is running in Task Manager, there is almost nothing using up memory. Before I start FS, I usually have about 800MB of free rAM, and about 400MBs when FS is up and running. I still can't work out why the memory sometimes drains away like it does - and why it doesn't always do it.Something I may never solve perhaps ...Martin(I'm sticking with 1GB of RAM in my new PC - can't see the point of paying