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Which is more important for gaming; New 7200 HDD or GB RAM - Page 2

post #21 of 39
1/20/05 at 4:46am
2 GB is overkill for games unless you're doing video editing or using an application like photoshop or AutoCAD. I noticed a performance increase on my M505 by increasing the memory to 1GB. Although, 2GB sounds nice and all, I can't think of a game that will use 2GB of RAM, unless you use some kind of program that uses your RAM as a swap file as well. I've heard a couple of people using such a program for their systems with 2GB RAM. I still want a 100GB 7200rpm drive, just to increase my system performance and load times.
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post #22 of 39
1/20/05 at 5:13am
Ya you dont need 2 GB ram that is by far overkill. 1 Gb ram and 7200 rpm HD is more than enough.
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post #23 of 39
1/20/05 at 5:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Compman55
By: Ramificatio


At one point you are right, but no in todays world. In medal of honor pacific assault, when I had 512mb of ram, the scenery would jerk whenever the hard drive light would come on. This means the game is using the swapfile. When I got my 7K60, it helped but did not eliminate the jerks. So a hard drive will help but I still feel ram is more important. I will say 2gb and a 7k60 will make it feel like a new computer.

I have the 1 gig extra RAM and it made MOHPA jerkfree.
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post #24 of 39
1/20/05 at 6:43am
2Gb is in no way overkill for newer games. With the complex textures, you can easily fill up 2GB of RAM and still be somewhat reliant on the swap file.
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post #25 of 39
1/20/05 at 8:02am
Soon 1GB will not be enough for the crazy requirements of new games ,not to mention the Windows Longhorn in 2006 (next year) which itself will require a min of gig of ram or for sure more just to load the windows (and where's the ram for games.....) .Never enough ram to be happy....
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post #26 of 39
1/20/05 at 11:48am
I think the the crazy requirements of new games will burden the GPU and VRAM a lot faster then regular RAM.
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post #27 of 39
1/20/05 at 3:11pm
I'm using an 80gb 7200 rpm USB 2.0 drive on my 6811, and playing games off of it. Works pretty well. The fact that the game data and the swap aren't on the same drive is another plus.
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post #28 of 39
1/20/05 at 4:03pm
2GB is no overkill unless doom3 at ultra high.
But even if it doesn't swap it will run hell a slow due to the 4pipe gpu most laptops have. So yes 2GB is overkill
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post #29 of 39
1/20/05 at 4:42pm
Ya you just dont need 2 GB if you can afford it get it but it is by no means needed at this time.
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post #30 of 39
1/20/05 at 5:59pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Entropius
I'm using an 80gb 7200 rpm USB 2.0 drive on my 6811, and playing games off of it. Works pretty well. The fact that the game data and the swap aren't on the same drive is another plus.

that was what I was thinking of doing. My desktop has a TB of memory including numerous external 7200 HDD's, so I think I might borrow one of those.
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post #31 of 39
1/20/05 at 10:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Game33
Ya you just dont need 2 GB if you can afford it get it but it is by no means needed at this time.
If you are not going to utilize 2GB, it is overkill. 2GB can very easily be utilized when running newer games though. If it needed? No, you are right, it is not needed. You can game without it. Will it increase performance? Absolutely.
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post #32 of 39
1/21/05 at 12:46am
OOlatin,

How or what did you do to get you M505x up to 1 Gig
I want to do the same

Thanks

Daley
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post #33 of 39
1/21/05 at 1:35am
This is the first place on this forum where I hear that 2GB is NOT necessary. Everyone else I talked to is just that crazy enough to have it.
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post #34 of 39
1/21/05 at 2:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dlukesdoom
OOlatin,

How or what did you do to get you M505x up to 1 Gig
I want to do the same

Thanks

Daley

nothing magical. Just went to www.crucial.com and bought two 512 sticks there. They have a tool there that will tell you which type of ram is compatible with yours. So I bought two of the PC2100 512 sticks. When I bought it I got Free 2 day shipping but they're only offering free shipping now.

You take out the two 256 sticks that are already in there and replace them with the new crucial 512 sticks to bring your memory up to 1GB RAM.
After the upgrade you'll be stuck with two 256 sticks that gateway put in there originally.

Here's the link to the actual memory for the M505:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...ries&submit=Go
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post #35 of 39
1/21/05 at 5:01am
But if you have 2GB RAM couldn't you turn off the pagefile and all the programs etc would load in to and work dirrectly to the memmory? Or make a 1GB ramdisk and have the swapfile there? Thus saving alot of battery life and HD life wich in turn lower overall system heat and component wear? Perhaps...?
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post #36 of 39
1/21/05 at 6:23am
A 1GB ramdisk would work great, but kinda make the purpose of having 2GB useless. Disabling the pagefile will work to increase performance as long as you aren't needing to exceed the 2GB barrier for memory work. I have disabled the page file on several machines before with excellent results. The kicker is making sure the work you do will fit into the 2GB address space. An requirements much over that will cause too much random HD access.
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post #37 of 39
1/21/05 at 5:35pm
Well, since 2GB is overkill for alot of applications (except maybe video editing or simultaneous power intensive applications) then the average joe should be fine turning off their page file at 2GB and still run all their games and programs fine.

Wouldn't it be also good to make a 'small' pagefile, that way if you do run out of memory, you have a margin of error before windows gives you a BSOD?
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post #38 of 39
3/18/05 at 8:20pm
yesterday I upgraded the RAM on my Targa Visionary 811 (also based on the Arima laptop like the Emachines laptops) and there is no stuttering in HL2 anymore. It was an upgrade from 512MB to 1GIG.
I think extra RAM is more important then a faster HDD. Also loading goes faster because the laptop doesn't have to write stuff to the pagefile.
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post #39 of 39
3/18/05 at 8:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by oolatin
2 GB is overkill for games unless you're doing video editing or using an application like photoshop or AutoCAD. I noticed a performance increase on my M505 by increasing the memory to 1GB. Although, 2GB sounds nice and all, I can't think of a game that will use 2GB of RAM, unless you use some kind of program that uses your RAM as a swap file as well. I've heard a couple of people using such a program for their systems with 2GB RAM. I still want a 100GB 7200rpm drive, just to increase my system performance and load times.
Heck...right now I would settle for a good 7200rpm 80GB drive. Just bought the Gateway 7422GX and I love it, but it does move rather slowly. With the AMD 64 proc and 1GB RAM I figured it would be a lot faster than my desktop...but it is pretty slow. I don't have a lot of software on it, so the only thing I can figure out that is probably slowing it down is the 80GB 4200rpm drive.

The other thing that really bugs me is that I only get an hour and 45 minutes out of a battery charge. I would like to find an external battery that I could take cross country with me when I fly that would give me at least 4+ hours on a charge. I do a lot of west coast to east coast flying and I bought the Gateway to do work on the long commutes. The good thing is the screen is beautiful and the machine really does a good job while watching movies...but I don't know too many movies out there that are only 1 hr, 45 mins. Oh well...I will keep reading the forums and hope that someone comes upon something that will help.
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