RAM

[mckinneyc]

Would upgrading my RAM make any difference to the performance of my PC?

The RAM I have at the moment is two DDR2 2GB sticks, it all makes me go 

[King Class Scout]

possibly a minor one.  after all, more RAM is great...but don't forget, what usually snatches the RAM is Window$ itself.  isn't DDR ram obsolete, or something?

[Nebula]

KSC DDR2 is for the older generation of cpus...(before i7) DDR3 is the latest.

also you want at min 4GB of ram recommended 6GB. Increasing the size of your page file can also help.
what can also help with the performance of your pc is getting faster ram and making sure it can run at its speed in the bios.

general maintenance of the HD cleaning it out and defragging it can also help.  (if you aren't running off an SSD)

[mckinneyc]

I do the general maintenance stuff at least twice a month.

I bought two sticks of DDR3 4GB RAM today, just wating on them being delivered

[Nebula]

HOLD IT!!!!!!!!!!

DDR3 RAM WILL NOT WORK ON DDR2 SLOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THEY ARE NOT ONE IN THE SAME... DIFFERENT PIN LAYOUTS!!!

[moed]

HOLD IT!!!!!!!!!!

DDR3 RAM WILL NOT WORK ON DDR2 SLOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THEY ARE NOT ONE IN THE SAME... DIFFERENT PIN LAYOUTS!!!

Nebs right!  If you have time, cancel the order!

DDR2 is older but still quite good - and definitely fast enough for BC.  In fact, when BC first came out and even after a few years the latest RAM at the time was DDR1.  I played with a bunch of high res mods in my BC installs with DDR1 and it was fine.

Besides adding more RAM - which is always good, the real trick to getting a smooth running system is to disable a bunch of background programs that unnecessarily take up system resources and, cleaning up then defragging the hard drive all to optimize your PC.  Some of the procedures to disable unnecessary background processes/programs are fairly simple... but some you have to dig deeper and be careful not to turn off something your system actually needs to properly function.

4GB of RAM is not too bad at all for BC, so you're pretty well covered in that category. Go through your system and uninstall any apps you no longer or rarely use.  Also, what OS are you running?

[mckinneyc]

Cancelled lol

It's windows 7

[CyAn1d3]

use crucials tool to see what you can do with your system.
it at least told me what ram i can and cant use. managed to get another 4g stick from them to beef up my asus laptop. (20$ mind you)
im running 7 too

she opens and switches programs like lightning, and boot phases have increased slightly, but everything else stayed the same for me 

[Nebula]

she opens and switches programs like lightning, and boot phases have increased slightly, but everything else stayed the same for me 

That's your HDD holding you down there.

[King Class Scout]

at least I was right about the RAM type being obsolete.  and I guessed right as well.

I have a little theory I came up with.
XP needs to be on a 2/2/2 machine...that is, a 2 gig double core processor, 2 gig of ram, and 2048 vid ram
7/Vista on a 4/4/4 quad core 4 gig processor, 4 gig of ram, and 4096 vram

[Nighthawk]

too much ram is a waste if your processor can't handle it
just enough ram might not be a problem if you know how to administrate your software
too little ram is an issue, in any case.

[CyAn1d3]

That's your HDD holding you down there.

ive got to go back and re-install alot of the things i have for development in the x86 folder to take advantage of the new ram i slapped in.

right now the ONLY thing that takes advantage of it is PS, Ills, and Max.
the UDK is installed in my "data" partition on my HDD.

i want to move all my models and content to the data part, and use that parititon to store everything, and run all my software out of the OS partition like i SHOULD HAVE from the beginning

its just ALOT of stuff to move around...

[Nighthawk]

the UDK is installed in my "data" partition on my HDD.

partitions are still the same physical disk... if the unit is slow, they will both be slow, you can't fix that.

[CyAn1d3]

so even moving the install over to the x86 folder on the os partition wont help much?

i havnt had much in performace issues with this machine in max, shes only 3 years old.
i DO notice in running the UDK that when i start throwing in meshes like grass and trees, it CHUGS the framerate, wich i know isnt a ram issue, its a graphics ram/processor issue. (also im running 2 screens at once when i run the udk, one for the active 3d render on the integrated monitor and an external one for the content browser)

its inevitable, if im going to continue building this game from scratch, im GOING to have to drop the money for a more than decent tower.
(also a kinekt sensor and a greenscreen, but thats another subject)
for now im going to just stick to using an empty room to build functions and animations in untill i have a tower capable of building the overworld.

[Nebula]

I'd move your page file to the data partition... it has room to grow there.

I'd also get and run CCleaner... get rid of all the crap and temp files so it doesn't take ages for the HDD to find space to read or write from on the OS partition.

[moed]

I'd move your page file to the data partition... it has room to grow there.

I'd also get and run CCleaner... get rid of all the crap and temp files so it doesn't take ages for the HDD to find space to read or write from on the OS partition.

I have 2 comments to what Neb said:

1.  If possible, get a second hard drive, install it, and then put the page file on that.  It's much better to have a page file on a completely separate drive than to have it on a separate partition of a single drive.  

2.  CCleaner is good... but be careful using it.  CCleaner is a utility app that I call almost "too good".  What I mean by that is that as it scans your system for any crap, superfluous files that it can get rid of, sometimes, it deletes a file (or 2) that it thinks is a crap file but is actually an important file that may be critical to the proper functionality to the system.  You then think that your PC is all nice and clean, try to restart it and POOF... you get a BSOD or some other major error that prevents the system from booting to the OS.  

Make sure after you run CCleaner that before you click on the clean-up button (or whatever it's called), that you first inspect the list of what it's getting rid of..... if that list is huge then you have 2 choices: either cancel the whole thing and go through the slow way and clean up the system manually or, go through the list displayed in the CCleaner screen with a fine tooth comb to make SURE that no critical files are mistakenly in there.

Some people have had excellent results with CCleaner as it's usually quite good at differentiating between important system files and crap files... but not always.  And all it takes is once to hose your system.

[Nebula]

2.  CCleaner is good... but be careful using it.  CCleaner is a utility app that I call almost "too good".  What I mean by that is that as it scans your system for any crap, superfluous files that it can get rid of, sometimes, it deletes a file (or 2) that it thinks is a crap file but is actually an important file that may be critical to the proper functionality to the system.  You then think that your PC is all nice and clean, try to restart it and POOF... you get a BSOD or some other major error that prevents the system from booting to the OS. 

THAT IS ONLY IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHEN LETTING CCLEANER MANAGE YOUR REGISTRY.... ccleaner is much happier if you just let it do the normal cleaning.

CCleaner has gone through major revisions since its first release... I've never had issues with it cleaning files.

[moed]

THAT IS ONLY IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHEN LETTING CCLEANER MANAGE YOUR REGISTRY.... ccleaner is much happier if you just let it do the normal cleaning.

CCleaner has gone through major revisions since its first release... I've never had issues with it cleaning files.

I'm an IT manager and have used CCleaner since it's first release till the latest one.  Let me just say that I'm sure I've used it quite a bit more than any of you out there put together... unless of course some of you are IT professionals also.  As I said at the end of my last post.  Most of the time CCleaner does an awesome job.  But I have come across on rare occasions a "hiccup".

And I'll say it again, all it takes is once.

[Nebula]

This is why you don't select every single option CCleaner gives you... you should actually read what each one does. xD

Though I have to say now that I think about it... I purposely tell CCleaner to avoid McAfee because some of the log files affect its operation... 


I've been trying to get into the door with IT but the way the job market is where I live... they either want people with experience(3+ years of actually working) or they don't want anyone at all...

So it is quite hard to even get an entry level job.

BAH.

[moed]

This is why you don't select every single option CCleaner gives you... you should actually read what each one does. xD

Though I have to say now that I think about it... I purposely tell CCleaner to avoid McAfee because some of the log files affect its operation... 


I've been trying to get into the door with IT but the way the job market is where I live... they either want people with experience(3+ years of actually working) or they don't want anyone at all...

So it is quite hard to even get an entry level job.

BAH.

Sorry to hear that Neb... I know the feeling.  It took me quite a while to "get in the door" myself.  Had to work several contract jobs for a decent amount of time before I could get enough experience to make it full-time.  I know this isn't much comfort but keep at it... persevere, it'll happen.  The economy is still in the tank and it's hard to varying degrees everywhere.  Where do you live BTW?

I totally agree with you on not selecting every option CCleaner gives you.  Unfortunately, the common lay person that works/plays on computers more often times than not don't read the "finer" details and just run the program with it's default settings and they run into the problems I was describing.  Remember, I said to be careful when using CCleaner, I never said to not ever use it at all.