Doubling RAM = better Uru?

TheLazenby · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:31 am **Posts:** 323

I've brought up the problems I've had playing Uru with 512MB RAM and a Radeon Xpress 200 integrated card numerous times...

But, I'm very strongly considering buying another 512MB. Will this improve the gameplay?? (Someone swore up and down that doubling the RAM wouldn't make the game run better, but it just seems logical....)

Whilyam · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:04 am **Posts:** 4134

I have a gb RAM and a Radeon X300 card. It appears my card is too old to play Uru efficiently, but I'm sticking with it for now. Upgrading memory is always a good idea, but I doubt it will achieve miracles.

Ed Oscuro · **Posted:** Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:22 pm

I went from 768MB, a 1.6 GHz Pentium IV, the previous standard of hard drive (ATA I think?), and a GeForce 6600 to 2 GB, an Intel Core II Duo, a 8800 GTS, and SATA drives - the game loads in seconds flat, and rendering lag is completely gone. I'm running at 1260 x 980 on a 21" monitor with no problems.

In other words: Everything matters, including what type of hard drive you have (that is the part which will determine your load times). The absolute newest stuff shouldn't be needed to run Uru effectively; in fact my previous system had an AMD 64-bit 4000+, gig (at least) of RAM, and a GeForce 7800 GTX, and ran Uru every bit as well as this one as far as obvious performance goes. I could probably boost this one's screen resolution even higher, but I don't see the value in it - textures get a bit stretched when you do that.

TheLazenby · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:31 am **Posts:** 323

Alright, I'll definitely try doubling the RAM then. I want my Uru Live to run nicely. :wink:

In the future though, I definitely want to upgrade my card though.

Malia · **Posted:** Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:47 pm

I went from 512 to 1 GB and it helped a LOT.

Fra'ni · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 12:51 am

Malia wrote:

I went from 512 to 1 GB and it helped a LOT.

/me seconds that.

Rifkind · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:38 am

With mulitple machines in our house in various states of build. I've ended up using the machine with 512k ram, P4, and a 32mb vid card for most of my Myst play. It is not the best performance, but still very playable.

When I play on the AMD dual core machine with 512mb vid card and 2+ gigs of ram, the game play diffference is enormous....smooth and night and day difference in graphics quality...

But, all of the above is fairly obvious though... :wink:

3 basic rules when budgeting how much you will spend on your machine: (1) get the fastest processor you can afford, (2) the best vid card, and (3) the most Ram you can afford. No need to get a 320GB HD, when an 80GB drive is more than you will ever need. There are plenty of ways to eliminate fluff peripherals/components, in order to get better core components which directly affect your gaming experience/performance.

TheLazenby · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:31 am **Posts:** 323

What about the graphics settings? The video and sound settings are all on low (with no filters), and I still have trouble. Will doubling the RAM allow me to bump them up a little bit?

uecasm · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:15 am

512MB is basically the minimum you should have on XP for running regular office applications. If you're going to be playing games then 1GB really is the minimum for things to play comfortably.

Regarding the graphics settings: it depends. It may well make a bit of difference (if you're swapping, it'll make a LOT of difference), but most of the settings are either CPU or graphics card bound.

Ed Oscuro · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:22 am

It's hard to give a definite answer since we didn't program the game, but you can probably bump the sound settings up since that will be handled either by the CPU or by sound hardware (if you have anything). And by "trouble" what you mean is probably "the video output is jittery." Easily enough diagnosed; your two-year old card isn't up to snuff. My old Geforce 6600 (AGP version) is roughly as old as your Xpress 200 (September/November 2004, I think), and probably no more capable. You probably will want to look at both a RAM upgrade and a more recent video card, although upgrading to stuff newer than your integrated video will be a bit expensive (a GeForce 7800-era card would be roughly $300, assuming your system has a PCI-e slot, which it might not).

First questions, then: What's your processor speed, and does the board do PCI-e?

killmoms · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:45 pm

Honestly, the thing limiting you in that case is your video card. Upping your RAM will help some with load times, but the integrated graphics are what's murdering your performance. Well, you never mentioned your CPU either, that might be having an adverse effect as well.

But I'd assume it's your graphics chipset more than anything else. Get a real graphics card if you're able.

Rusty_Russell · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:49 pm

System RAM has more of a bearing on lag than the graphics card - the more and the bigger the accompanying pagefile, the fewer the disk accesses, and disk i/o is always the slowest operation. More memory on the graphics card will give you a fuller-featured / prettier experience (eg full-screen anti-aliasing at higher resolutions, etc).

Malia · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 5:46 pm

I had a really old card, Nvidia Geforce 4 MX, until very recently.

Going from 512MB to 1GB improved download/link/lag incredibly for me.

Upgrading the video card just made it so I can see pretty reflections in the water and I can no longer do superjumps.

Moleculor · **Joined:** Sun May 28, 2006 6:38 pm **Posts:** 787

Doubling the RAM will make ANYTHING better, especially when you're running at a meager 512MB.

Honestly? These days, 1GB is bare minimum.

Ed Oscuro · **Posted:** Thu Feb 08, 2007 1:20 am

Rusty_Russell wrote:

System RAM has more of a bearing on lag than the graphics card

Not necessarily. A way to estimate would be to see what sorts of situations bog down the game worst - higher poly-count scenes bogging down the game would indicate it's the graphics card. Of course, it sounds like the OP has both problems to some degree.

Doubling RAM = better Uru?

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