Game Guides Archive
Thread: Does everyone have 1GB of Ram?
Cobacca1
Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:57 pm
#14
As everyone else has been saying, upgrade your RAM. I used 512MB for an entire year even though people suggested that I upgrade it. I finally gave in, and in July I bought another 512MB for a total of 1024MB and am KICKING myself for not doing it sooner. The stutter/lag in cities is virtually non-existent and my load times went from as much as 3-4 minutes during shuttle trips to 10-20 seconds. But it now, you will no regret it for an instant.
wrathbenelli
Mon Nov 01, 2004 2:51 pm
#15
Man I love this community,
Thanks for everyone who contributed to the discussion.
I am certain my issue was ram related, however, i will update one more time after i try the suggestions from the thread. Thanks again.
Cry4Dawn
Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:05 pm
#16
512 Ram sucks to say the least for SWG. 1 GIG makes a difference.. I even saw a better changed when I hit 2 gigs of ram. However it does say the game does not support it I have noticed MANY improvements from SWG and even running2 swg at one time...
Furious911
Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:40 pm
#17
I have 1.5GB of PC2700 DDR (since I've had the game) and the game still draws in objects way too damn late (like when I'm driving and a building appears feet in front of me and I cant aviod it and crash about $1000 of damage into it) its still a little too choppy and I don't have the graphics all the way up, I have it at 1280x1024 (I never play games lower then this res) and have other things toggled like shadows and thigns to make the game a littel faster but having the 1.5Gb fo ram dosent seem to be that big of a help, unless the game was HELLA slower with less RAM which if thats that case I wouldnt even play this game at all.
If I can play DOOM 3 and Far Cry with supersmooth graphics with everything on, then I should be able to run SWG better then I am, IMHO.
I don't know how much longer I'll be playing anyway since I'm plagued with henious crashes all the time.
My Spcs:
Athlon 2600+
Athlon 2600+
MSI mobo
1.5GB PC 2700 DDR
Radeon 9800 Pro 128
C-wave 5.1 surround sound card
Logitech MX700
Z-Board
Slash_DPC
Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:42 pm
#18
Blu_Haze wrote:
Slash_DPC wrote:
I have 1.5 gigs of ram and I've turned off my page file (virtual memory). SWG/JtL loads and runs so nice and fast =]Turning off your page file is a bad idea. The page file is there as a failsafe device so that if your computers hardware memory either fails or is completely used up then your computer can still operate without it temporarily. While it's best for your computer to use hardware RAM instead of virtual memory, you still need the page file there as a backup.The best way to tweak your page file to get better performance without removing it altogether, is to make it a static page file. In WindowsXP Right click on My Computer, click the advances tab, then in the performance heading at the top click the settings button. In the new window click to the advanced tab, and at the bottom of this tab you'll see a table called Virtual Memory. Click the change button. Now you'll see a new window that controls all of your virtual memory settings. You see, when the page file was first invented hard drives were still relatively small and performance wasn't an issue. So they created a system where the page file started out small to save precious space, and expanded when it needed to. In these times however 100GB hard drives are common, so it's better to save performance and have a static swap file that never changes size.At the top click on the hard drive that you want to have your paging file (recommended to not use your main hard drive that windows is installed on) and then click on the custom size option about half way down the page. In the two boxes to the right set the size of your paging file, which will be determined on how much RAM you have. If you have more than 1GB or RAM, then set the paging file size to 1.5 times the amount of RAM that you have. If you have betweem 256MB and 1GB of RAM, then set it to twice the amount of RAM that you have. For example, I have 512MB of RAM, so in both of the boxes I put 1024 in for the size of my paging file. As long as you set both numbers to the same value then your paging file will be static and never change size.If you do this you will greatly improve performance during gameplay, however your computer will still have the failsafe in case you ever run out of memory (and with the amount of memory leaks there are in todays games that can easily happen even with 1GB+ of RAM). If your computer ever runs out of memory and has no where else to store temporary information (the paging file), it will immediately lock up and have to be rebooted.
LOL, where to begin. First, are you aware of that every version of Windows has EXTEMELY poor memory allocation? You would think that an OS like Windows would write all info to RAM until the RAM is completely full then write to the page file. Not the case. The only OS I would trust for that is Linux. Second, I play SWG, BF1942, and a slew of other games w/ my settings maxed out and w/o my page file one. Its the best thing I've ever done. I don't need a failsafe plan if I don't ever fail to begin with. Third, I have friends who duel client, like me, say, "Oh gotta reboot, I'm lagging really bad." Why? Because all that garbage is cached in their page file and its just grinding their hard drive (expression). Fourth, so I have crashed once from not having enough RAM, but thats trying to run the following: Duel clients on SWG, Photoshop, Bit Torrent, and some other program I can't remember. The computer doesn't lock up, it simply crashes to the desktop and you just restart the app. Are you still on Windows 98 or something? XP, believe it or not, is pretty good about not locking up and having to reboot. You should try running w/o your page file. It makes a big difference, although I wouldn't advise doing it unless you have a gig or more of ram.
Ackew
Mon Nov 01, 2004 5:41 pm
#19
I have 1.5Gb of ram, a p4 3.2 and a 3Mb connectionandstill get lag 
Oh and avoid linux like the plague unless you want to spend weeks just getingit to recognise your mouse 
Oh and avoid linux like the plague unless you want to spend weeks just getingit to recognise your mouse Message Edited by Ackew on 11-02-2004 12:44 AM
Ryche_Mykola
Mon Nov 01, 2004 11:22 pm
#21
I upgraded 512mb to 1024 mb, made an enormous difference.
ErazorHarpia
Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:20 am
#22
Also, the key to getting the best out of what you have is to defrag and on a regular basis, you'd be suprised how much it can help. My comp is defragged every weekend.
Blu_Haze
Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:31 am
#23
Slash_DPC wrote:
I have 1.5 gigs of ram and I've turned off my page file (virtual memory). SWG/JtL loads and runs so nice and fast =]
Turning off your page file is a bad idea. The page file is there as a failsafe device so that if your computers hardware memory either fails or is completely used up then your computer can still operate without it temporarily. While it's best for your computer to use hardware RAM instead of virtual memory, you still need the page file there as a backup.
The best way to tweak your page file to get better performance without removing it altogether, is to make it a static page file. In WindowsXP Right click on My Computer, click the advances tab, then in the performance heading at the top click the settings button. In the new window click to the advanced tab, and at the bottom of this tab you'll see a table called Virtual Memory. Click the change button. Now you'll see a new window that controls all of your virtual memory settings. You see, when the page file was first invented hard drives were still relatively small and performance wasn't an issue. So they created a system where the page file started out small to save precious space, and expanded when it needed to. In these times however 100GB hard drives are common, so it's better to save performance and have a static swap file that never changes size.
At the top click on the hard drive that you want to have your paging file (recommended to not use your main hard drive that windows is installed on) and then click on the custom size option about half way down the page. In the two boxes to the right set the size of your paging file, which will be determined on how much RAM you have. If you have more than 1GB or RAM, then set the paging file size to 1.5 times the amount of RAM that you have. If you have betweem 256MB and 1GB of RAM, then set it to twice the amount of RAM that you have. For example, I have 512MB of RAM, so in both of the boxes I put 1024 in for the size of my paging file. As long as you set both numbers to the same value then your paging file will be static and never change size.
If you do this you will greatly improve performance during gameplay, however your computer will still have the failsafe in case you ever run out of memory (and with the amount of memory leaks there are in todays games that can easily happen even with 1GB+ of RAM). If your computer ever runs out of memory and has no where else to store temporary information (the paging file), it will immediately lock up and have to be rebooted.
Ritwack_Farstar
Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:53 am
#24
Slash_DPC wrote:
Blu_Haze wrote:
Slash_DPC wrote:
I have 1.5 gigs of ram and I've turned off my page file (virtual memory). SWG/JtL loads and runs so nice and fast =]
Turning off your page file is a bad idea. The page file is there as a failsafe device so that if your computers hardware memory either fails or is completely used up then your computer can still operate without it temporarily. While it's best for your computer to use hardware RAM instead of virtual memory, you still need the page file there as a backup.
The best way to tweak your page file to get better performance without removing it altogether, is to make it a static page file. In WindowsXP Right click on My Computer, click the advances tab, then in the performance heading at the top click the settings button. In the new window click to the advanced tab, and at the bottom of this tab you'll see a table called Virtual Memory. Click the change button. Now you'll see a new window that controls all of your virtual memory settings. You see, when the page file was first invented hard drives were still relatively small and performance wasn't an issue. So they created a system where the page file started out small to save precious space, and expanded when it needed to. In these times however 100GB hard drives are common, so it's better to save performance and have a static swap file that never changes size.
At the top click on the hard drive that you want to have your paging file (recommended to not use your main hard drive that windows is installed on) and then click on the custom size option about half way down the page. In the two boxes to the right set the size of your paging file, which will be determined on how much RAM you have. If you have more than 1GB or RAM, then set the paging file size to 1.5 times the amount of RAM that you have. If you have betweem 256MB and 1GB of RAM, then set it to twice the amount of RAM that you have. For example, I have 512MB of RAM, so in both of the boxes I put 1024 in for the size of my paging file. As long as you set both numbers to the same value then your paging file will be static and never change size.
If you do this you will greatly improve performance during gameplay, however your computer will still have the failsafe in case you ever run out of memory (and with the amount of memory leaks there are in todays games that can easily happen even with 1GB+ of RAM). If your computer ever runs out of memory and has no where else to store temporary information (the paging file), it will immediately lock up and have to be rebooted.
LOL, where to begin. First, are you aware of that every version of Windows has EXTEMELY poor memory allocation? You would think that an OS like Windows would write all info to RAM until the RAM is completely full then write to the page file. Not the case. The only OS I would trust for that is Linux. Second, I play SWG, BF1942, and a slew of other games w/ my settings maxed out and w/o my page file one. Its the best thing I've ever done. I don't need a failsafe plan if I don't ever fail to begin with. Third, I have friends who duel client, like me, say, "Oh gotta reboot, I'm lagging really bad." Why? Because all that garbage is cached in their page file and its just grinding their hard drive (expression). Fourth, so I have crashed once from not having enough RAM, but thats trying to run the following: Duel clients on SWG, Photoshop, Bit Torrent, and some other program I can't remember. The computer doesn't lock up, it simply crashes to the desktop and you just restart the app. Are you still on Windows 98 or something? XP, believe it or not, is pretty good about not locking up and having to reboot. You should try running w/o your page file. It makes a big difference, although I wouldn't advise doing it unless you have a gig or more of ram.
Just a small comment.
I've actually encountered several program that simply refused to run, if the "virtual memory" in windows is disabled - even if there were more than plenty of RAM for the program to run... 
Oh well, I keep my page file at a static size on it's own partition (wouldn't mind a small fast HD dedicated to it though, hehe).
Keeps the hassle to a minimum. 
SoloMek
Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:11 am
#26
Jabegea wrote:
I have 1GB of ram, 3.4 P4 HT, 5300 Geforce and ever since pub 11 I have a considerable amount of lag. Before all this JTL crap, gameplay, even in Corolag, was seamless. Now, it is laggy again. Guess Ill just go for 2GB.
Something's wrong here. I run a 1.6 P4, 1 GB ram and a GeForce2 card (2 years old) and have close to no lag. I lag very slightly when I exit the Coronet spaceport, etc. How come this guy who is running the latest retail gear has problems? By the way I have all graphic options cranked up except for shadows. My only upgrade is the RAM.
I've read over and over about people running crazy gear but getting poor performance. My Dell Dimension 4400 is more than 2 years old and I glide through everything with options cranked.Space is wonderful.