Dear Simmers, Is it worth to upgrade from 2 Gb to 4Gb under XP to get more FPS?I have a average system Pentium DualCore D930, ( 3.0Ghz over clocked to 3.3 Ghz) Gigabyte 8I945Pro, Nvidia 7600GT 256 Mb and 2Gb DDR2 533 Mhz Ram. Clocking the CPU to 3.4 or even 3.6Ghz give me not so much extra FPS so I think the CPU/system is running at his max capacity.The system is running average ( 12 to 20 FPS) with FSX SP1 as long there is not to much AI traffic loaded with MyTraffic X say a 20%. I have done the Affinity Mask setting in FSX.cfg as 3 and load my additional add-ons like, FSinn/or/ VoxATC, FDC Live Cockpit and Track-IR to the second core. I also have done the 3Gb tweak(with only 2Gb) to give FSX more memory as mentioned in other topics but wondering, do I get more performance/FPS when adding a additional 2Gb.I also want to know what the best setting will be with my memory setup in the Bios.I have now running 4-4-4-12 but also can set all to Auto.Cheers

The simple answer is no...The long answer is...The amount of memory within a computer does not effect (directly)the fps of the program - which is how fast the cpu can build andsend each frame of view and then how fast the GPU can render this.The only time the amount of cpu will effect the fps is when theamount of memory taken by the application exceeds the physical memory of the computer. In this case you will get one big stutter.When you don't have enough memory then some of the data in memoryis pushed to disk, and then there is space to bring more data in. Thiseffects scenery textures in FS. When this happens, then the diskwhich is 100x slower than memory has to provide the data and weget an IO block (see my comments on hyperthreading and multiple CPU)and we get a stutter.Lastly, any single application cannot use more than 2G of memoryon a 32bit windows computer (if you don't know what yours is, thenyou have 32bit windows). It is generally recommended not to botherwith more than 3G of memory on any 32bit computer - you will wasteyour money.So you have 2G, you are unlikely ever to need to page data out to disk,and if the application needs to do this you are sailing close to the 2G application limit - when you will get an OOM. (Of course, theOS will need some space, but not a lot is needed for the kernal during FS).You could spend you money on checking whether the memory in yourcomputer is fast enough, and buy faster RAM to match the clockspeed of your mother board. Easy to do this... Go to crucial.com and do their RAMcheck and see what your RAM is rated at, and it will specify newRAM which might be faster. This will give you better fps ONLY ifthe limiting step is the RAM speed - and if not matched then thisis quite possibly a limiting factor. Oh and 800 Hz FSB is good, and 1066 hz FSB is best at moment outsidethe esoteric comptuers. I am sure I have missed something in this comment...Tom

I second Tom's detailed post.There is currently no reason whatsoever to increase the RAM to more than 2GB, because the results, if any, will be marginal at best.The following will greatly impact your frame rates (in order of priority):- CPU, CPU, CPU (the faster, the better, Dual Core)- Memory (2GB with low latency)- Graphic Board (>256MB Ram for a single monitor (19") setup, preferably a current generation board; >=512MB for dual/multi monitor setup with higher resolutions)- FSX tweaking (autogen, traffic, detail, bandwidth, textures)Pat

Hi,FWIW, I believe adding more RAM will help to an extent. You say that you are running the /3GB switch. If this is used along with the /userva=2560 switch as well (which really helps), you are forcing a portion of the virtual memory allocated to FS along with the OS allocation to swap. Virtual memory is not the same as physical RAM in that 3GB (of 4GB installed) will only be recognized by any 32bit OS. The extra gig will provide a little more stability and speed whereby you can allocate the bit of extra performance gained to AI, or Autogen, etc.. I decided to install 2 more 1GB sticks (4GB total) allowing expansion to 64bit OS later whereby all physical RAM will be used and to keep dual-channel pipelines (all 4 slots) in use now.Please see my tweaks in the first reply to this post:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=27027&page=2Although our machines are not the same, I believe all five of these tweaks are still valid in almost everyone's case using Nvidia video cards. The last paragraph has a link to some recent pics showing my results.

I dont' know howe many times we have to repeat ourselves on this subject. 4 gig if RAM on most mobos using XP is asking for trouble. 3 gig max, over 2 gig you probably won't see any difference.Use the search function and see.Allcott