I have 16GB DDR4 2666. The simulator should run fine with 16GB, based on some alpha testers having that amount of RAM, and the fact it falls under the recommended spec.

One tester will say their performance monitor doesn't show it using even 16GB, someone with 32GB installed will say their performance monitor shows the sim using 20GB. This is because a) software will scale based on the installed RAM, b) if you have lower RAM, the operating system/software is probably allocating a portion of disc space as virtual memory to make up for the shortfall. Sometimes you can control the amount of virtual memory allocated directly from the software (I don't know if there is a setting for this in Flight Simulator?) Otherwise, Windows handles it automatically (and you can change the allocation of VM in Windows settings). If you have more RAM, the OS relies less on temporarily storing data in VM and pushes it directly via RAM, which is much faster.

So either 16 or 32GB will work, but there might be a speed increase (not necessarily FPS, as the VRAM on the GPU is usually handling the streaming of graphics assets) for certain processes in the game. How noticeable that increase is in FS I'm not sure, but I'd be interested to know, as this is the first bit of software making me consider an upgrade to 32GB - but only if it's very noticeable.

Edited August 7, 20205 yr by March Hare

From experience, the only RAM which is useless is the one you do not have. I thus built my last rig in 2013 with 16 Gb when common wisdom was that 8 Gb was enough. Never felt it was an overkill toying with sims, image and video editors etc. Next will be at least 32, maybe 64. 

3 hours ago, Dreamflight767 said:

I'm still really confused where I stand as I'm no computer expert  I just really want this sim to work.  Any quick thoughts would be helpful.   i7-770K, GTX1080ti, 32G ram.

Should be fine. 

If you are using a high end Graphics card, I would say 2070 upwards, higher resolution textures in any game takes more ram.

19 minutes ago, Vcrit said:

If you are using a high end Graphics card, I would say 2070 upwards, higher resolution textures in any game takes more ram.

It's your VRAM that's handling the streaming and display of texture assets, so that's more important. That's why we'll start seeing an increase in VRAM with moves towards even  higher resolutions such as 8K. Your system RAM can queue assets ready to push to the VRAM if need be, but if the bus is fast enough on the GPU it probably won't be doing much in the way of queuing on RAM.

Just now, March Hare said:

It's your VRAM that's handling the streaming and display of texture assets, so that's more important. That's why we'll start seeing an increase in VRAM with moves towards even  higher resolutions such as 8K. Your system RAM can queue assets ready to push to the VRAM if need be, but if the bus is fast enough on the GPU it probably won't be doing much in the way of queuing on RAM.

And it largely depends, of course, on how well the software engine is coded and optimised to handle pushing and juggling assets through the hardware.

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

From experience, the only RAM which is useless is the one you do not have. I thus built my last rig in 2013 with 16 Gb when common wisdom was that 8 Gb was enough. Never felt it was an overkill toying with sims, image and video editors etc. Next will be at least 32, maybe 64. 

Did 64 gb of ddr4 3200 in my build, which arrived yesterday.. zero regrets.  The sim likely only gets more complex as add-ons arrive.

 

8 hours ago, driver101 said:

My proposal would be to wait until you see how it runs on your machine. No need to make expensive decisions yet.

I have a 6700k with a 1080ti and 16gb of ram. I was really surprised about the performance. 😉

 

 

 

5 hours ago, joec63 said:

Should be fine. 

Thanks.  That's my current set-up.  Wasn't sure if it would be enough "horse power" to even run the sim let alone future updates and add-ons (FSLabs, PMDG, Maddog X, etc.). 

I think that the XBOX Series X reserves around 8 gb for the OS and a ton on the 1 tb SSD.

Regards

bs

Edited August 7, 20205 yr by bean_sprout