Early RAM considerations

[ComSimPilot 623]

Hi all,

As probably all of you I'm very excited for the new Prepar3D v4 announcement! :D A new era in flight simulation history is here. Probably I'm too fast thinking about this, considering I'll buy v4 on May 30 but I'll really start using it when my add-ons become available.

I am currently on 16GB Ram, however my RAM selection was a quite pricey one.16GB G-Skill 3600Mhz C15. Its a very good memory, however I started thinking if I should plan an upgade to add 16GB more. Considering its around 250$ upgrade, I'd rather skip it. Do you think Prepar3D v4 can deplete 16GB quite easily?

Reading Fly Tampa's facebook page they observe a 10-15 fps increase which is huge if true. It would mean most would probably max out autogen. The hot question for me is: Has anyone measured how much memory P3D v3 was needed to perform a flight on a memory heavy scenario? Like the absolute maximum. Heathrow to Toronto on a PMDG 777. If this does not go above 10-12GB then I can avoid upgrading.

One should also consider that 4k textures will now be used everywhere (ground/airport/clouds etc.)

[Mr_LoL 10]

I assume we'll just have to wait and see. Isn't virtual memory stored on the hard drive?  If it turns out we need more ram I'll have to go and get some more as I have 16GB  too.

[Griphos 138]

I don't think it will be Ram that will be the problem, but VRAM.  I suspect 16gb of RAM will be sufficient.  

[Dirk98 354]

12 minutes ago, Mr_LoL said:

Isn't virtual memory stored on the hard drive? 

LoL.

Dirk.

[BlueFinn 21]

Question is, what kind of gain will we have if we update the ram memory speed? I currently have 2666 Mhz ram, if I upgrade to 3600 Mhz, will I get a noticable difference?

[Mr_LoL 10]

18 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

LoL.

Dirk.

LoL what? Doesn't virtual memory reserve some of your hard drive space and has nothing to do with physical memory? 

[FDEdev 955]

1 hour ago, Griphos said:

I don't think it will be Ram that will be the problem, but VRAM.  I suspect 16gb of RAM will be sufficient.  

Jordan King mentioned already that a GTX 1080 will not be sufficient for the highest graphics option and  +10GB VRAM will be necessary 

[Dirk98 354]

1 hour ago, Mr_LoL said:

LoL what? Doesn't virtual memory reserve some of your hard drive space and has nothing to do with physical memory? 

Do you realize it does not translate to physical GBs on your HDD, don't you?

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2017 by Dirk98

[Griphos 138]

I don't know what you're going on about in response to his question, but, yes, your OS will reserve some HDD space for virtual memory to use should you exceed your installed RAM.  It does tend to slow things down when accessing swap files, but I still think 16gb of RAM should be sufficient.  I certainly wouldn't buy 32gb beforehand.  As I said, and Jordan King says also apparently, I believe the limitation for higher resolution terrain textures will be VRAM.  I suppose in a couple of years, when 12gb video cards are standard, we'll be fine.  Now, however....

[Mr_LoL 10]

Thanks for the explanation. I think I'll wait and see how things pan put before splashing out £230 on 32GB of ram.

In two years of owning this rig, I've never hit the RAM limit in any game.

[Dirk98 354]

9 minutes ago, Griphos said:

I don't know what you're going on about in response to his question, but, yes, your OS will reserve some HDD space for virtual memory to use should you exceed your installed RAM.

All my thoughts are with VAS rather than VM, that's what I'm going on about.

Anyway some HDD space for virtual memory is not a factor by any means.

 

Edited May 23, 2017 by Dirk98

[Griphos 138]

Well, too bad we're not all mind readers and couldn't detect what "your thoughts" are about from your detailed "Lol" response to him.  

And, since he was asking about VM, then your "thoughts" about VAS weren't really all that relevant, now were they?

[CFIJose 5,485]

There will soon be a demand for a GTX 1080.

Thanks to P3D v4.

[OneWhoKnocks53 51]

This raises a very valid argument, even the titan Xp only has 12 gb of vram.  Vega RX cards will become relevant as they will ship with 16 gb of HBM2 vram.  However we still have no solid release timeframe.  

[B777ER 2,484]

I have 64GB (4 x 16gb) DDR4 SDRAM 2666MHz so that should be sufficient I would think. I only have a GTX980Ti card though.