Does Vista'a ReadyBoost helps in gaming ?

[abubakarm]

Hi, in vista, i was wondaring, if I am lacking enough ram in the system (i have 1.5gb), if I plug in a readyboost compatible usb flash drive, will it show any performance improvements for the games that have more requirements for ram?



Moved to PC Gaming.

Video Mod BFG10K.

 

[myocardia]

...

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: myocardia
No, just buy more RAM. 4GB is the minimum amount of system RAM you'll want to use with a gaming system, especially when running Vista.

I've been doing fine with 2GB for the last year. I don't think any more would be noticeable in most 3D games.

 

[themisfit610]

But it absolutely is noticeable in Vista. 4gb is the baseline for a performance system IMO.

Heck, I go to swap when I have 20 images open in Photoshop, with Lightroom doing a batch JPEG export in the background. Thinking seriously about going to 8GB...

ReadyBoost on the other hand - LOL! It seemed like a good idea when RAM was still $100/GB...

~MiSfit

 

[batmang]

Now that RAM is so cheap, there is no reason NOT to have 4GB in your rig's. $80 for 4GB nowadays. Readyboost is great if your laptop is maxed out at 2GB or your too cheap to buy RAM. Get a 2-4GB USB stick and it will definitely improve Vista performance if you have 1-2GB of RAM.

 

[Denithor]

Heck no, it's not $80 for 4GB, these days it's $30-40 after rebate for 4GB. Just look in the hot deals section.

2GB is considered the minimum for a decent general-use Vista build, 4GB is standard on Vista (64-bit) for gaming setups.

 

[AVP]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231209

http://shop1.frys.com/product/5200607

Please stop lying

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: AVP
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231209

http://shop1.frys.com/product/5200607

Please stop lying

Stop being a dipshit trying to act smart for the sake of argument.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820208344

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
ReadyBoost on the other hand - LOL! It seemed like a good idea when RAM was still $100/GB...

You mean when USB flash drives were still $100/GB too?

 

[themisfit610]

No, 4GB sticks were cheaper than 4GB of DDR2 RAM awhile back..

 

[Spike]

I tried using readyboost on my 2GB vista HTPC machine and it did not seem to do improve anything very much, let alone gaming.

Anyway, for those saying 4GB is the min I disagree. Yes, my 8GB vista 64 setup starts up WAAAY faster than the 2GB vista 32 setup but once it's running both perform very fast, even when gaming. I have been thinking about two more gigs but it's DDR1 and I need fast ram to match the overclock I currently have going on there so the relatively high price has kept me from getting more, especially since it runs so well with only 2.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: myocardia
No, just buy more RAM. 4GB is the minimum amount of system RAM you'll want to use with a gaming system, especially when running Vista.

I've been doing fine with 2GB for the last year. I don't think any more would be noticeable in most 3D games.

You don't THINK it will help, we KNOW it helps from actually testing it.

Get 4GB.

And ready boost is widely known to have no discernable benefit for people with 2+ GB of ram. it provides a minor benefit at 1GB of ram, and a large one at 512MB.

 

[footballrunner800]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: myocardia
No, just buy more RAM. 4GB is the minimum amount of system RAM you'll want to use with a gaming system, especially when running Vista.

I've been doing fine with 2GB for the last year. I don't think any more would be noticeable in most 3D games.

You don't THINK it will help, we KNOW it helps from actually testing it.

Get 4GB.

And ready boost is widely known to have no discernable benefit for people with 2+ GB of ram. it provides a minor benefit at 1GB of ram, and a large one at 512MB.

+++

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

I can sure tell a difference in general usage going from 3gb to 2gb after having a stick go bad.

 

[abubakarm]

thanks, i was thinking i should get a 3 gb ddr2, but now agree on getting 4gb.

 

[zerogear]

now change to x64

 

[SlowSpyder]

My $.02. When I upgraded to my Phenom system from my 939 system I got 4GB because it's so cheap it just made sense to get 4GB instead of 2GB. In all honesty, I doubt very much that 4GB vs. 2GB matters a whole lot if you're only gaming, without other things going on in the background. But then again I'm on XP, not sure if Vista is that different or not.

Slightly off topic, does Vista32 see all 4GB, or is it still less due to the 32bit limitation? XP Pro only sees 3.2GB for me, I'm guessing due to the 512MB on my video card. Still not sure where that other ~300MB is. Anyway, I wasn't sure if Vista32 had some kind of upgraded tech to let it use all of the installed 4GB, or if there is no way around the 32bit limitation other then going with a 64bit OS (and of course the 36 bit address extension that some of the server stuff uses, but that's not really relevant here).

Anandtech editors, there's a nice article idea... test a handful of popular games at a few different resolutions on XP, Vista32, and Vista64 with 1GB,2GB,4GB, and 8GB of memory. I think we'd all be interested in the results.

 

[teb468]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
Slightly off topic, does Vista32 see all 4GB, or is it still less due to the 32bit limitation? XP Pro only sees 3.2GB for me, I'm guessing due to the 512MB on my video card. Still not sure where that other ~300MB is. Anyway, I wasn't sure if Vista32 had some kind of upgraded tech to let it use all of the installed 4GB, or if there is no way around the 32bit limitation other then going with a 64bit OS (and of course the 36 bit address extension that some of the server stuff uses, but that's not really relevant here).

Nope, Vista32 still suffers from that.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: myocardia
No, just buy more RAM. 4GB is the minimum amount of system RAM you'll want to use with a gaming system, especially when running Vista.

I've been doing fine with 2GB for the last year. I don't think any more would be noticeable in most 3D games.

You don't THINK it will help, we KNOW it helps from actually testing it.

Get 4GB.

And ready boost is widely known to have no discernable benefit for people with 2+ GB of ram. it provides a minor benefit at 1GB of ram, and a large one at 512MB.

No, you THINK it helps. It's called the placebo effect. Games rarely ever use more than 1.5gb commit charge, and most games CANNOT use more than 2gb due to being written for 32-bit Windows which has a 2gb limit to how much memory any single application can use.

In today's world, the benefits of going from 1gb to 2gb are huge. Going from 2gb to 4gb is negligable at best.

That said, there's nothing wrong with future-proofing if you have the money.

 

[sticks435]

Didn't Anandtech do an article about the benefits of 2/4/8 gigs of ram awhile back? They found that going from 2-4 mostly helped cut down on level load times in games like Crysis, and using 8 allowed you to cut out the swap file completly.

 

[imported_apocalypse]

Originally posted by: drebo

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: myocardia
No, just buy more RAM. 4GB is the minimum amount of system RAM you'll want to use with a gaming system, especially when running Vista.

I've been doing fine with 2GB for the last year. I don't think any more would be noticeable in most 3D games.

You don't THINK it will help, we KNOW it helps from actually testing it.

Get 4GB.

And ready boost is widely known to have no discernable benefit for people with 2+ GB of ram. it provides a minor benefit at 1GB of ram, and a large one at 512MB.

No, you THINK it helps. It's called the placebo effect. Games rarely ever use more than 1.5gb commit charge, and most games CANNOT use more than 2gb due to being written for 32-bit Windows which has a 2gb limit to how much memory any single application can use.

In today's world, the benefits of going from 1gb to 2gb are huge. Going from 2gb to 4gb is negligable at best.

That said, there's nothing wrong with future-proofing if you have the money.

The game is not the only process running on your machine. Vista takes up quite a bit of memory, and if you have anything else running in the background, its going to go over 2GB of memory usage when you run a modern game.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: apocalypse

Originally posted by: drebo

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: myocardia
No, just buy more RAM. 4GB is the minimum amount of system RAM you'll want to use with a gaming system, especially when running Vista.

I've been doing fine with 2GB for the last year. I don't think any more would be noticeable in most 3D games.

You don't THINK it will help, we KNOW it helps from actually testing it.

Get 4GB.

And ready boost is widely known to have no discernable benefit for people with 2+ GB of ram. it provides a minor benefit at 1GB of ram, and a large one at 512MB.

No, you THINK it helps. It's called the placebo effect. Games rarely ever use more than 1.5gb commit charge, and most games CANNOT use more than 2gb due to being written for 32-bit Windows which has a 2gb limit to how much memory any single application can use.

In today's world, the benefits of going from 1gb to 2gb are huge. Going from 2gb to 4gb is negligable at best.

That said, there's nothing wrong with future-proofing if you have the money.

The game is not the only process running on your machine. Vista takes up quite a bit of memory, and if you have anything else running in the background, its going to go over 2GB of memory usage when you run a modern game.

Also, thanks to SuperFetch, games you play frequently will load a helluva lot faster.

With with 8GB of system ram on Vista x64, I am using more than 2GB of ram at all times...

Yeah, its definitely not a placebo effect.

 

[themisfit610]

Exactly.

What happens if you want to encode video, (at least 600-1gb of RAM), play WoW (same usage), and keep Photoshop open at the same time

~MiSfit

 

[Blurry]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Exactly.

What happens if you want to encode video, (at least 600-1gb of RAM), play WoW (same usage), and keep Photoshop open at the same time

~MiSfit

Change to a new lifestyle.

j/k.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: dreboNo, you THINK it helps. It's called the placebo effect. Games rarely ever use more than 1.5gb commit charge, and most games CANNOT use more than 2gb due to being written for 32-bit Windows which has a 2gb limit to how much memory any single application can use.

In today's world, the benefits of going from 1gb to 2gb are huge. Going from 2gb to 4gb is negligable at best.

That said, there's nothing wrong with future-proofing if you have the money.

Your post would be perfect... If you wrote it in 2006. You are 100% correct that a Win32 application cannout utilize >2GB without using PAE, but Vista can easily chew up 2GB+ of RAM, especially the higher versions like Home Premium and Ultimate.

Vista also utilized advanced caching techniques that will utilize all available system RAM, so even if a game is not able to directly access extra memory, that does not mean that Vista will not cache the game's resources in unused portions of RAM.