Should I get more ram?

[michaelb15]

I have a 128 MB ATI 9200,
Windows XP,
80 GB Hard Drive,
512 MB PC2700 RAM,
And a ASUS P4PE motherboard that is expandable to 2 GB RAM

Would it be worth the money to upgrade that to 2 GB ram, or how much more should I put in it

If it is, how much would it increase my system performane?

Thanks alot

[swanny338]

2 GB is not really worth it. 512MB to 1024 is great.

And if you get 2Gigs of RAM it would probably have to be PC2100 which is not to great. So get another stick of 512 PC2700

[Daz]

1024mb is more than enough the higher the PCXXXX the better it is if your motherboard can support DDR400 then go for the PC3200 ram if not then 2700

[Chi_San]

1024mb is more than enough the higher the PCXXXX the better it is if your motherboard can support DDR400 then go for the PC3200 ram if not then 2700

Yeah, you could put PC 3500 in it and overclock your FSB until it's running at it's intended speed. :p

PC 400 is expensive stuff. GeiL makes some impressive RAM, you might want to check it out. I don't know if it's compatable with your motherboard though.

[nickle]

XP utilizes RAM better than the W Dos programs. 98SE did not handle RAM above 512 very well.  XP does better. According to the experts I've read.  I did read of a RAM test in Gr. where XP was the OS and RAM increase 64 to 128 resulted in a very large performance increase. RAM from 128 to 256 was a marginal performance increase.  THG had a recent article on RAM, check it out, that asserted that XP (NT system) would perform much better if it had more than 512 MB RAM.  Asserted but did not test to be true.  If more RAM gave significantly better performance would objective tests not be shown on the major manufacturer's web sites?  Any tests shown? No?  Opinion:  512 is fine for FS9.  Maybe CFS3 would benefit from more RAM.  Why?  Because the HD light comes on infrequently in FS9 and more frequently in CFS3.  CFS3 is very rich in scenery and AI objects which require more RAM or virtual memory.

[congo]

I tend to agree with Chi-San and Nickle.

1024mb of ram is way enough ram with plenty of room for fragmentation.

If your CPU supports the 800mhz Front Side Bus speed, (it probably doesn't, but check) then a mobo upgrade to an Intel 865 or 875 chipset (dual channel ram) will get you better results than a RAM upgrade, also, if thats the case, trade your ram up to PC3200 or higher to match it up or overclock.

A CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade is probably a bit much at this stage, It's a shame you didn't get into the 865 chipset. The memory bandwidth is awesome with it.

I'm not sure what a ATI 9200 performs like, could be a big improvement to be made in the video card choice instead of RAM as well.

I don't have FS2004 yet, but if it's anything like 2002, it loves CPU/system speed.

[nickle]

Looks like your system is plenty good enough.  Your card is not.
See Toms Hardware Guide for several articles on 9200 tests.
Summary from March 2003 test of 9200, 9600, 9800:
"Don't hold your breath for any surprises where the Radeon 9200 is concerned, however. This chip offers nothing new over its predecessor, aside from an AGP8x interface."
If you go for more RAM, post your impressions.

[michaelb15]

[quote]Looks like your system is plenty good enough.

[nickle]

Define a "slide show" pls.  Do you mean stutter?
My app FR is set to 12.  No stutter.
Substantial testing shows no difference 12, 20, 30 or max of 40 my system.  At least none that I can see.
I believe the fixation on FR stems from a "fact" that most users have as a deeply held belief.  If the FR is set to a lower value, the user "knows" that the rendering is not as good as it would be at say 50 FR.  Not that anyone can see the difference; it is a DHB.
I read a recent test where 2004 was included.  The test system was the latest P4, 3+, hyperthread, etc with 5900 and 9800 cards.  Just a "typical" simmer set up.  The app was maxed in settings and the variables were card anitialiasing and anisotropic settings.  In this super duper system FR's were driven to a (barely) acceptable 30 FR for the ATI card and FX was the "winner".
I find comedy in the most unexpected places.  

[congo]

Around 30 Frames / second is TV broadcast standard.

The human eye detects less than 28 FPS.

I'm not sure exactly how this relates to PC games as I can detect frame rate losses under 60 FPS if thats what my machine is telling me in the info.

Safe to say, (laugh all you want Nickle), that an FPS of 10 is not the duck's nuts..........

There is definitely a video problem and RAM won't solve it.

[nickle]

There isn't a system out there that will give FS9 60FPS at high app and card filter settings. None.  Kowledge that the standard is 28 for TV  likely influences the conclusion that 28 or more is a requirement in FS9.  Most systems will not give FR of 28 or more with high app and filter settings.  Won't happen.  FS9 is designed for compromise hence the FR slider.  High FR or 3D filter settings but not both.  MS:"Limiting FR frees up computer resources" for Bi/Tri, antialiasing and anisotropic filtering.  Filtering which is designed to enhance realism but carries a high card resource consumption penalty.  The 9200 card is likely the weakest point in the system.  And the obsession with FR will not improve the result.    

[nickle]

From AvSim 2004 review:

30. Response from Steve (Bear) Cartwright on 3 Aug 2003
SteveC,

Unlike most of the fellows on the review team, I had the advantage of having 2 very similar systems sitting side-by-side, with one running FS2002 (Compaq AMD 1.3Ghz, 256MB SDRAM, GeForce2 MMX) and the other running FS2004 (AMD 1.2Ghz, 512MB SDRAM, 128MB ATI 9700 Pro) so I could directly compare performance. I keep my fps locked at 16fps always and rarely ever look at frame rates, as I am only concerned about how fluid the experience is and not with the numbers.

When I had the two sims set up so that the display sliders were on medium settings (using the default selections) FS2004 had better or denser scenery yet always ran with fluid smoothness, but FS2002 would occasionally lose that smoothness, especially when clouds were in view, actually the term "hammered" applied whenever clouds appear on my system with FS2002. Not so with FS2004, clouds or not.

My observations tended to backup that statement of "frame rate friendly" and based on my experience with my two systems, those conclusions haven't changed.

Steve (Bear) Cartwright

[congo]

I can't believe Bear said that!

A comparison! I think not!

How the heck can you call two systems comparitive when one of them is running a GF2 video card and the other a RADEON 9700.

The reason the system running FS2002 got "hammered" is because the poor old GF2 card just couldn't handle antialiasing the clouds.

Stop it Nickle, your confusing people.

O h .......... and where did I say anyone got 60fps in FS2004?

[nickle]

Orenda

Your computer:

THG Six Athlon Boards with the KT 600 chipset

"Buyers enticed by dual channel DRAM should note one crucial thing: in theory, a dual-channel memory link does not bring any benefits since the data rate is limited by the FSB bus's bandwidth. It's fixed at a maximum 200 MHz (Athlon XP 3200+) to give a bandwidth of 3.2 GB/s. Even using fast dual DDR400 memory with an access time of 6.4 GB/s has no effect on the Front Side Bus bottleneck of 3.2 GB/s. With that in mind, it's really not so inappropriate to question dual-channel memory technology on the Socket A platform.

A single memory channel combined with DDR400 - and cleverly connected at the Northbridge - has a bandwidth of 3.2 GB/s. What's more, this solution saves money."

Got it? Your Frontside bus limits the speed of the pricey RAM.  You could have gotten the same performace without the dual DDR.

[nickle]

The pic shown by Orenda is really nice.  Looks like the scenery was substantially enhanced.  There is a cost to the enhancement in the form of more polygons and texture processing required by the MB/chipset and CPU.  And the graphics card must render more detail.  Doesn't come for free.
I tested 2002/2004 Along the Rockies to check the FR difference.  With card settings FS and FA of 4X and Bilinear; comparable app settings, unlimited FR, 2002 was around 50 and 2004 around 30.
12 FR was not good for senic stuff.  20 was Ok for me both apps.  Depends on rate of change of scenery and altitude.  At 30 bank 20 FR was Ok.  Higher bank angles generate higher scenery changes and higher FR requirement.  So if the purpose of the flight is ever tighter circles then higher FR is better until the inevitable. Most of my flights are instrument and scenery is less important.
FR does matter; it's that it isn't the only setting that matters and 2004 is designed to operate smoothly at the 20 FR default.