2gb or 3gb memory for FSX?

[Ted Striker 338]

Hi, I'm seeking a little memory upgrade advice. I have a mediocre computer that I want to hold me over until FSX dx10 patch arrives. It is a P4 3.0 HT with 1 gb of RAM, and an AGP 6800gt. FSX runs surprisingly well and does not suffer from blurries, if I do not get too aggressive with the sliders. Memstatus shows my memory usage at anywhere from 750 to 950mb depending on where I am flying and for how long. The memory usage seems to go up over time.I have an MSI 865PE based motherboard with with 4 memory slots. Installed currently are 2 sticks of Crucial 512 mb memory. I called Crucial about getting two more matched sticks of 512 memory to give me a total of 2gb. They said that I could also add two matched sticks of 1gb for a total of 3gb.My questions to the forum are:1) Will I benefit from the third gb of RAM or is 2gb sufficient? two 512s are $85, two 1gb sticks are $165. 2) Is mixing RAM capacities like this OK? Crucial says it is as long as the memory speeds are the same.3) What type of performance improvement should I expect with additional RAM?Ted

[aerdt 0]

I would say that 2GB is sufficient right now - very few consumer applications and games make use of more than 2GB right now anyway.Mixing RAM capacities/sizes is just fine, but check the manual of your motherboard.It is hard to speculate about any percentage of performance improvement, but you will see more fluid gameplay, less frequent read/writes from and to HDD and an overall more faster experience.Good luck!Pat

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

2G is way enough for XP. I bought 3G to give 1G to the "house" with Vista when I eventually get there.Gary

[scott967 62]

2 Gb is probably OK, but unless you are really strapped for cash I wouldn't waste money (IMHO) on 512 modules. Get the 2x1Gb and then in the future you can get another pair if desired. What modules are you looking at? I see some 2x1 PC-6400 ballistix for $135.scott s..

[Ted Striker 338]

I should have stated that my current memory is DDR PC3200. When I build a new machine I will probabaly want to buy all new faster memory and not use this. So it sounds like I ought to just add two more sticks of 512mb for a total of 2 gb. I was just curious if a 3rd mb would help my current system much. Thanks for the responses guys.Ted

[DescendDescend 25]

I noticed that with FSX in XP changing from 1Gb to 2Gb made a big difference to loading times. Wehn I went to Vista the loading time increased again. Conclusion: I need another Gb.

[Guest Adrian Wainer]

>I should have stated that my current memory is DDR PC3200.>When I build a new machine I will probabaly want to buy all>new faster memory and not use this. So it sounds like I ought>to just add two more sticks of 512mb for a total of 2 gb. I>was just curious if a 3rd mb would help my current system>much. Thanks for the responses guys.>>TedFSX can obtain real advantage by haveing 2 Gigabytes of RAM, I am somewhat doubtfull if adding a third Gigabyte would be any advantage, furthermore when you fill the second set of RAM sockets doing that can have a performance penalty. My suggestion would to get two 1 Gigabyte sticks and remove your present RAM sticks, I would not bother going for high speed memory [ unless you could get some sort of special price deal on it ] as both AMD and Intel boards now use DDR2 memory, whilst DDR memory which is apparently what you have on your current motherboard, uses a differeant socket to DDR2 which means you could not transfer your DDR memory to a new motherboard. Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

[jlohrenz 133]

It also depends on how may add-on's you have running as well. I'm currently at 2GB and plan on bumping up to either 3 or 4GB for my system (Yes I know ~1GB would get reserved for the 'system').When my FSX is running often times I have Radar Contact, Active Weather X, and FSC as well. The more background programs you have running the less memory available for FSX.I'd suggest if you are able to fire off all of the programs you have running when playing FSX, Ctrl-Alt-Del out of the sim and see in the task manager what your mem usage is. If you are close to the max of your physical memory go for 3GB..if not then you are OK. You just want to try to avoid hitting the swap file which will kill performance.

[Ted Striker 338]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I changed my mind...again. You convinced me to get 2 x 1mb of DDR memory. That way I can try it with 2 or 3 gb. The only other program I currently run with FSX is ASX. I'm also thinking of getting an inexpensive Asrock motherboard and overclocking a 4300 core duo to hold me over to the next generation of processors. The Asrock board only has two DDR slots and two DDR2 slots, so to have my 2gb RAM I'll need the 2 x 1mb sticks. I'm concerned about buying faster DDR2 memory as by the time I build a good DX10 system ( next year) everything will probably be DDR3 or something else. Is there a noticable performance difference between DDR and DDR2 memory?Ted