Memory

[Bobstrains]

Im planning on Upgrading the Memory on my Asus P4P800-E Delixe to atleast 2 Gig Mushkin eXtreme Performance 1GB XP4000 REDLINE
Would it Benifit me to go all out and Add the full 4 Gig?

 

[SuperFudd]

No, in my not so humble opinion, at least not with TRS2006 and XP.

 

[smash]

Although I cannot directly answer your question, One thing to consider is this.
If you only go to 2gb you are really only adding about 512 to 768 mb to trainz because window still needs some to operate.
Going to 3 or 4 gb ram means Trainz can get access to full 2gb worth.( Just finished reading that from MS Help. Trainz gets 2gb ram ,the rest get used by windows.)
Back to you question is it worth it to go full 4 gb: Probably not. You might consider going to 3 gb if possible. That way no worries about it later.
Kenny
Ps if oyu want to read the techie stuff from MS here is link.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us

 

[JCitron]

Although, I would go with the 4-gig. The reason being that the newer motherboards use RAM in pairs for interleaving for better through put. You can add in single gigs of RAM. but the RAM bus will slow down instead of interleaving the memory for faster access. My EVGA nForce 680i is such a board.

If anything go with 2-gigs right now, and then add the other 2 later. That's what I did because that's all I can afford right now. When the budget allows, I'll add the other to DIMMS to bring the memory up to the 4-gig.

Another reason too is that eventually we'll end up to upgrading to Vista, and the newer operating system runs best with 4-gigs of RAM, from what I've read, although you can run it with less of course. [1]

John
[1] I haven't upgraded yet in case you're wondering.

 

[SuperFudd]

I have 1g of RAM (see below) and XP sp1. When not running any other "aplication", I have about 600meg standing by. After one pass of FSAutoStart, it goes to about 680meg.

 

[JCitron]

I have 1g of RAM (see below) and XP sp1. When not running any other "aplication", I have about 600meg standing by. After one pass of FSAutoStart, it goes to about 680meg.

The 400MB is scarily used by Windows and its resources. The FS Autostart compresses the kernel and dumps it to virtual memory. This gives you a little bit more memory, but I've used utilties like that in the past with mixed results with some of them actually crashing the computer!

The one you're using runs out of memory after 1-gig unless the developer fixed it.

Given the direction that computers are going, I recommend going with as much memory that you can afford at the time.

John

 

[Bobstrains]

Well this is a Dual Channel setup so the Memory does work in Pairs... it's Either 4 512MB Sticks or 4 1 Gig sticks

 

[Kelly88]

I not to sure on this will have to check
my understanding is it depends on what version of windows XP you hav

XP Family can only work with 2GB
XP Pro can go pass this

as I say this needs checking ?

 

[john259]

Some ideas: check the computer's manual, check the manufacturer's web site for any advice, check their forum if they have one. If you have any plans to go for Vista in the future 4GB might be your best option.

John

 

[ZapperJet]

I not to sure on this will have to check
my understanding is it depends on what version of windows XP you hav

XP Family can only work with 2GB
XP Pro can go pass this

as I say this needs checking ?

No, I don't think so. Both XP's are built on the same base kernel, so there shouldn't be any memory usage difference between the two.

If you can afford 2GB, get it. But IMHO 4GB is major overkill, regardless of whether your running XP or Vista.

It all depends whether or not Trainz uses that much memory. I know it can, easily. Right now I have 1.4Gb of memory free (30% used by Windowz; 600Mb). Trainz never uses over 1Gb on my machine, even though I have it set to used 1.4gb in the TO.txt.

Thus, I don't need any more memory for the time being.

Cheers,
John

 

[johnwhelan]

I not to sure on this will have to check
my understanding is it depends on what version of windows XP you hav

XP Family can only work with 2GB
XP Pro can go pass this

as I say this needs checking ?

Both are the same, programs can use a max of 2 gigs, the operating system can use 4 figs, typically it will use 512Mb and the rest for disk caching etc.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

Im planning on Upgrading the Memory on my Asus P4P800-E Delixe to atleast 2 Gig Mushkin eXtreme Performance 1GB XP4000 REDLINE
Would it Benifit me to go all out and Add the full 4 Gig?

From crucial.com

Q: Does my computer support dual-channel memory?

A: Yes. To benefit from the performance advantages offered by dual-channel systems, you should install memory in identical pairs. Installing a kitted pair is the best way to ensure that your modules are identical, right down to the chip count.

DDR PC3200,DDR PC2700,DDR PC4000 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.*

So I think you could go 3 gigs of memory, 2 one gig in the first pair and 2 512mb in the second pair and still get dual channel performance.

Cheerio John

 

[Talismana]

I´m not an expert but my experience is like this:

I used to have 2GB RAM. On the largest routes I noticed that the load on the RAM was nearly all the time 99%, at the max, and the performace was very poor. I thought that 3GB should be OK, but as mentioned above I was adviced to use them in pairs so the next step was 4GB.

Maybe that is a "major overkill" for the moment, but that does not disturb me at all, knowing that soon enough that will be needed anyway. I do not see the point of being just above the limit for good performance.

Håkan

 

[johnwhelan]

I´m not an expert but my experience is like this:

I used to have 2GB RAM. On the largest routes I noticed that the load on the RAM was nearly all the time 99%, at the max, and the performace was very poor. I thought that 3GB should be OK, but as mentioned above I was adviced to use them in pairs so the next step was 4GB.

Maybe that is a "major overkill" for the moment, but that does not disturb me at all, knowing that soon enough that will be needed anyway. I do not see the point of being just above the limit for good performance.

Håkan

If you have one pair of one gig and one pair of 512mb the memory is in the required pairs for dual channel. Might be worth while checking the ASUS site to confirm under the faq for that motherboard.

Cheerio John

 

[ZapperJet]

One thing I noted a while back is that putting 2x1gb and a 512mb in a three slot configuration with Dual Channel enabled caused the sound in the game to spike rapidly and the system to be unstable. I suppose, in the same way, that if you put 3x1gb into your system, you might also experience these problems.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
John

P.S.: But at least I have an extra 512 on hand incase a game goes over the limit. And I experience little to no change by toggling DC on and off...

 

[davidt]

My take on it

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

The way I read it, if you've got XP Pro you can use the /3GB switch to allow your applications to use more than 2GB of RAM. However, it's only of any use if the application (ie trainz.exe) has been compiled with the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE directive - something Auran would have to do.

If you have a system with 2GB RAM and you can see that you're approaching that 2GB limit per application (ie Trainz.exe), you should benefit by going to 4GB. Why? Because with 4GB, more of the O/S can reside in RAM in the separate 2GB address space allocated to the kernel. More physical memory is free for your application. However, your application still won't use more than the 2GB unless it's been compiled to do so.

YMMV

 

[Harry_James_Potter]

One thing I noted a while back is that putting 2x1gb and a 512mb in a three slot configuration with Dual Channel enabled caused the sound in the game to spike rapidly and the system to be unstable. I suppose, in the same way, that if you put 3x1gb into your system, you might also experience these problems.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
John

P.S.: But at least I have an extra 512 on hand incase a game goes over the limit. And I experience little to no change by toggling DC on and off...

depends on the board...

The AOpen job i have has four slots.

Having dual-channel and three slots just seems to be completely pointless.

regards

harry

 

[Bobstrains]

Some ideas: check the computer's manual, check the manufacturer's web site for any advice, check their forum if they have one. If you have any plans to go for Vista in the future 4GB might be your best option.

John

Well actually this is a home-built system

 

[johnwhelan]

One thing I noted a while back is that putting 2x1gb and a 512mb in a three slot configuration with Dual Channel enabled caused the sound in the game to spike rapidly and the system to be unstable. I suppose, in the same way, that if you put 3x1gb into your system, you might also experience these problems.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
John

P.S.: But at least I have an extra 512 on hand incase a game goes over the limit. And I experience little to no change by toggling DC on and off...

You need to use matched pairs. Two 1 gigs and two 256Mb would probably have worked, using 3 of the 4 slots destroys the dual channel.

Cheerio John

 

[john259]

Well actually this is a home-built system

Fair enough, aim for the system board manufacturer's web site then, if possible. It was only a suggestion

John