16MB RAM, is it enough?

[lopentan 18]

25 minutes ago, Langyboy63 said:

Pressed!!!!!!

Well done!

[flightsim1818 79]

I saw a comparison on youtube. At first it doesn't look like a difference between 16 and 32 but after a while you'll notice that there are less frame drops with 32 GB. FPS performance seems more consistent. Not a huge difference but maybe big enough to get a smooth overall feeling during the entire flight.

I won't upgrade now, but when going all-in in VR, it looks like an expensive journey.

[MarcG 2,924]

I did a big PC upgrade last year and mulled over 16gb or 32gb of RAM, I went with the former. For pretty much everything 16gb is just fine, but MSF is already pushing that and with prices dropping a touch I will be getting those extra 16gb in the Black Friday sales (I'm in no major rush).

[psolk 3,037]

man, you guys are too nice, no one is going to give the OP a tough time about the title of the post??  16MB might be a bit light, 16GB would be better, 32GB would be best 🙂  😉  

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

16GB is far more than enough. Also, 2400Mhz is very low, you should have gone with 3600Mhz for a Ryzen, it would be far more beneficial than adding another 16GB.

I don't know where you guys are flying, but with the horrid default aircraft and the heaviest sceneries i own (KMIA addon, NY default, etc) i haven't seen RAM used by the simulator ever go over 10GB.

[MarcG 2,924]

49 minutes ago, Nuno Pinto said:

16GB is far more than enough. Also, 2400Mhz is very low, you should have gone with 3600Mhz for a Ryzen, it would be far more beneficial than adding another 16GB.

I don't know where you guys are flying, but with the horrid default aircraft and the heaviest sceneries i own (KMIA addon, NY default, etc) i haven't seen RAM used by the simulator ever go over 10GB.

It's no doubt settings dependant, I'm currently seeing an average of 11gb with peaks at 15.5gb in heavily built up areas. Not everyone runs the same settings, so you will see variations in ram usage (plus throw in other PC Specs) 

[Chock 17,769]

3 hours ago, Langyboy63 said:

Is it with spending another £60 odd quid?.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Since you appear to have bought it, this reply is more in the nature of a supporting comment than an attempt to persuade you.

Some more RAM never goes amiss, so if you can afford it yes, it is always worth it, and even if not now, then almost certainly down the line.

Flight Simulators tend to get more bloated when the add-ons start appearing, so whilst people may indeed be reporting that their new MS sim runs okay on 16Gb of RAM and doesn't seem to use more than that amount, this is not likely to be the case when it has an add-on EFB, add-on ATC, add-on AI, and they are flying a super-duper study sim airliner as opposed to a default GA aeroplane which has many functions in it either reduced, or non-functioning.

Consider this: Everyone can run FSX straight out of the box, it is after all 14 years old, yet you can throw so much stuff at it that it ends up crashing from a VAS limit which 32 Bit apps have. But you can do a similar thing with P3D V5, which is a 64 Bit DX12 application, by overpowering how much VRAM it has, again by throwing a load of fancy stuff at it when it would normally run just fine in vanilla straight out of the box flavour. In other words, flight sims start struggling when they start getting add-ons, even the latest ones. Always have, always will.

Now one could argue that if you are happy with the default stuff and don't want any fancy add-ons then this won't be an issue, which would be fine apart from the fact that we know there are going to be default features coming to the sim that pretty-much everyone wants and will not be optional, and which which will increase memory usage significantly; for example a replay camera capability. If using a replay camera doesn't increase memory usage, then I will be very curious as to how Asobo will have managed to do that.

Beyond this, if your PC is intended for more than just running flight sims, having a lot of RAM is a good thing for other apps too, most notably NLEs for video editing, image manipulation in things such as Photoshop, and audio workstation apps for if you do music stuff, especially recording whilst monitoring or using realtime FX processing.

More RAM significantly reduces video rendering times, improves playback and monitoring in both video and audio apps and can significantly reduce the time required for batch processing multiple files in applications such as Photoshop and/or for processing complex actions. And if you want to start multi-tasking with numerous apps, possibly even linking them together for a cross-platform workflow, as you can with many Creative Cloud media applications, then having a load of RAM is a godsend.

Is 60 quid worth it for all that? Sure is.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Chock

[Ixoye 1,812]

2 hours ago, Nuno Pinto said:

i haven't seen RAM used by the simulator ever go over 10GB.

I have seen it peak at 18GB, and that was not in the most demanding scenery either, I play at 3440x1440 Ultra.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Ixoye

[Langyboy63 22]

Thanks all for your comments.

Chock, you explained the benefit of more ram very eloquently.

Well installed yesterday and with the update to MSFS, really pleased with the results, EKCH is my first add-on airport, looks great.

[Fielder 3,644]

Based on the tests online, I doubt more RAM will help with FS2020 at all.

[Oldschool61 38]

On 9/18/2020 at 3:37 AM, Langyboy63 said:

Yes, 

But with 2080ti which would be the one I would like still retailing @ £1000+, I would have to wait.

So you dont think an extra 16gig ram will make any difference at all?

Not unless you can fly at 4K likely.  At 1080P and 1440 there will be little to no difference.

[smurfboard 9]

playing fs2020 my system shows a *consistent* RAM utilisation of 18 gigabytes (out of 32)

—1920x1200, ultra settings, 1080ti

 

[Evros 310]

Just for testing purposes, I disabled two out of my four DIMMs which left me with 16GB of RAM. Saw literally zero difference in performance. Faster RAM could make difference as 2400MHz is indeed on rather slow end of the spectrum, especially if you couple it with Ryzen CPU, but that doesn't really matter anymore because I doubt that you are in a market for an upgrade now.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Evros

[stefbuik 7]

Extra RAM is always a good investment  imho, even if FS2020 doesn’t need more than 16gig.

It gets especially useful when running apps in the background. ( we’re all going to do that with FS2020, even if it’s only fSUIPC.. It’s our OCD : There’s no such thing as “too many” background apps running to improve the FS experience..🤣.. )

[curbz 22]

Bought another 16GB for a total of 32GB - installed, made no difference, uninstalled and sent back for a refund.