512mb or more?

[Hawkeye313]

I have problems with scenery loading at times when I look off to the side while in VC.  I know that a lot of this is due to the game settings and the video card.  I am going to upgrade the video card, but don't feel like spending $400+ right now.  I've got 512 mb of Corsair Twin X Low Latency in my system, and was wondering if going to a gig would make a noticeable difference or should I just wait for the video card.  I know several of you guys run a gig or better, what do you thinK?

[Gixer]

512 is enough to run the sim thats about it.  You also have to take into account other stuff thats done on your PC, unless you just use it for FS2004 that is.

1gig gave me noticeabley quicker load times etc and reduced the amount of work my page file had to do.  Ram can be accessed faster than the page file so this speeds things up a bit too.

Many of the newer games that are being released these days like 1gig of ram to run at their best too, this is another reason for me having it.  1gig of ram will be standard fitment to PC's later this year I reckon, its only a matter of time before you go to it!

[Paz]

 I think 1 Gb of ram has pretty much already become standard nowdays, at least amongst gamers.
 Low prices on memory have really made it worth it anyways.

[Hawkeye313]

That's kinda what I was leaning towards guys.  Thanks for the input.  I guess I'm off to newegg.com!

[carolina_ice]

I noticed a pretty big diffence in load times and the scenery looks a lot better since I went to 1 gig. from 384 megs. It seems to run smoother.

[Gixer]

Your scenery should look no different.  Ram has no impact on your computers graphical output, i.e. image quality.

What it may allow you to do is up the detail level a bit in your graphics settings but just putting ram in will not alter the way your sim looks.

[yf]

FS will use even 2GB, but in order to have rock'n performence a "good" VGA card is inportend like the 6800ultra....

regards

[Hawkeye313]

Ok, I "bit the bullet" and ordered a 6800 GT card.  It'll be here tomorrow  ;D.  I can't wait to see this thing in action.

[yf]

Why not the ultra?  And also, I got a P4 over 2GB of duel channel RAM, the now S-HD and the 6800 ultra, and....  

It is giving me "always" a smoooode drive!
Yes, sometimes the FPS drops to 24. But normal it is at 30 FPS (I looked it at 30 there is no point of going higher)
that

[the_autopilot]

You can overclock a gt to ultra speeds.

As for the ram, definitely go with a gig especially since its pretty cheap now.

As for me, I also get a smooth drive as well, but then again, fs9 never uses up all my memory nor does it fully utilize my gfx cards.

[Gixer]

FS9 uses no where near 2gig lol!

I used to use MBM5 with my old system which had 1gig.  The most I could ever get the system to use was about 850meg of ram.

Usually with FS9 it was 600-650meg I think.

Having the best of everything is fine but it is not the key element.  Keeping the data in your system flowing constantly is the key element to things running smoothly.  If it gets bottlenecked anywhere you will end up with stutters in your game!

6800GT was a good choice.  As said it should clock up to 1100/420 (ultra speeds) no problems.

[the_autopilot]

FS9 uses no where near 2gig lol!

I used to use MBM5 with my old system which had 1gig.  The most I could ever get the system to use was about 850meg of ram.

Usually with FS9 it was 600-650meg I think.

Having the best of everything is fine but it is not the key element.  Keeping the data in your system flowing constantly is the key element to things running smoothly.  If it gets bottlenecked anywhere you will end up with stutters in your game!

6800GT was a good choice.  As said it should clock up to 1100/420 (ultra speeds) no problems.

I've ran all the major good games at once and still never used up all my RAM.  According to Task manager, I was using a little bit more than 2 gigs when i had HL2, Doom 3, Far Cry all at once at at the highest resolutions and qualitiies.

[Gixer]

hahaha Excellent.  What is weird is it still uses page space even when you have ram free, never could work that one out!!

I never tried more than one game at once, just run FS9 and every application I had.

[Rivers]

I have 512 Mb and will get more ram asap

[Gary R.]

Hey auto-pilot.  How much $ does your system represent??  My off the cuff guess is at least $3k.  I upgraded from a 9200 radeon to the "affordable" 6800 alternative, the 6600 GT and didn't notice a huge fps difference.  Actually, what I observed was that I am able to run the same settings I used with the 9200 at 1024x768 instead of 800x600.  That's the main improvement I noticed.  But, eeryone I poll locally around my locale agrees that a vga and ram do work hand in hand and that going from 768 meg to break the 1 gig mark would definatly give me a few more frames and they were correct.  Planes load faster, scenery loads faster and overall its just better.  I noticed the biggest difference when flying high detailed aircraft like PMDG 737 and Wings of Power planes.  Also, the Fanda Dash 8.  Any plane with demanding textures or high system simulation which requires the pc to run a lot of subroutines, the extra ram boosted performance in terms of frames.