Right i have just orded 2 extra gig for my computer, at the moment my pc is running on 2x 512 MB Ram's and on lfs its running Max around 50-60 FPS

how much do you think i could go up to adding 2 more ram (3 in total)?

at the moment cars with 15+ in i cant go any higher than 15 fps


**Sorry if this is in the wrong area to post**

You probably won't see an improvement in LFS going from 1GB of RAM to 3GB. The limiting factor on your LFS performance will be either your CPU or your video card. The CPU is most likely. If you can provide us with more details we can advise you better.

Without knowing the rest of your specs - No idea.

Chances are you'll see very little improvement in LFS but a lot of other apps will "feel" faster.

Manugacturer: Dell
Model: Dimension DIMC521 (Dimension C521)
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ 2.00 GHz
Memory (RAM): 958MB
System Type@ 32-bit Operating system

Only can be able to use Low profile Graphics cards.

Its the worst computer for gaming.. but iv gotta wait 7 months to get a new one.

i dont care what the graphics are on game, i just need more fps so i can actually play without lagging like hell.

Don't use 512M+512M+1G+1G or 512M+512M+2G, use 1G+1G or 2G instead, it will be much faster.

so il just take out my two 512's and put in my 1GB's?

Yea, I would also remove your old ram and use the 2gb. You'll notice things loads quicker, doubtful of a reasonable fps increase really but you might be surprised.

LFS is strongly CPU, I know this for my current situation, my graphics are on max, and even when they are on really low the fps is the same. My cpu is similar to yours though, amd 4200+ (2X 2.2Ghz). I got a massive increase in fps when I oced my CPU to 2.8Ghz, which its currently running at stable and low temps

Right iv gotta remember to take out my 512's

I'm not so sure on the removal of the 2 512MB sticks. If your motherboard has 4 DIMM slots and is capable of operating in dual channel you should be able to fit all 4 sticks with no loss of performance. This, of course, depends on the speed and timings of the RAM you're adding and the RAM that's currently installed. Say you have 4 channels called A1, A2, B1 and B2. When sticks are installed in A1 and A2 those 2 sticks operate in dual channel. When sticks are installed in B1 and B2 those 2 sticks also operate in dual channel. If there is a mismatch in speeds or timings the system will revert to the slowest settings, but you may find that this slight decrease is outweighed by the increase in available RAM, depending on exactly what you use the PC for. The only way for you to find out for sure is to try each configuration for a period of time, performing normal tasks and see if you notice a difference.

Now back to the upgrades. If you were to install a PCI-E graphics card to replace the onboard graphics you would see a significant increase in performance in LFS and other graphics intensive tasks. However, if you plan to get a new PC in 7 months time you may not want to invest much more money in this PC. If the PC you're going to be getting in 7 months time also has integrated graphics with expansion for PCI-E you could carry over a new card you buy for your current PC. This is something you'll need to research and think about. A reasonable low profile PCI-E card will cost you about £50.

I Dont know what i should do, because i might buy a computer, but the thing is i only play 3 games.. CS:S, G Mod and LFS

Il'd Rather have a set of tyres for my Racer

So what do i do then take out 512's or not?

Ohh yea what is MHz aswell??

Quote from amp88 :

The only way for you to find out for sure is to try each configuration for a period of time, performing normal tasks and see if you notice a difference.

Quote from Jordan2007 :

So what do i do then take out 512's or not?

.

Uhm, RAM won't affect LFS much, it'll just respond slightly faster and you can run a few extra things in the background.

You'll want to put the 2GB in, surely? If you have Dual Channel then you can run them both together.

So If it will respond faster? Its got 2 increase game speed a bit?

I Am not good with computers :/

in LFS at least your unlikely to see much of an improvement at all.

On the topic of Memory, i would like to ask a little question.

I was thinking about upgrading from 2GB to 4GB a-data RAM.

Now, my current ones were stock provided with the pc when i bought it. They are 667 Mhz, and the new a-data ones are 800 Mhz.
Would there be a noticable difference in performance/speed in games like GTA4 and such with this increase of speed?
And would 4 GB of ram be needed in my kind of system? (Depending on the load, mostly gaming.)
My pc only has 2 slots for the ram, so obviously it would just be 2x2GB of RAM.
So basically, would i have an advantages upgrading my ram with this system?

MSI MS-7379 v4.0 (G31M)
Q6600 @ Stock clock (2.40Ghz)
1x1=2GB of 667 Mhz ram, as said before

Stiggie, with Q6600 you better get 1066MHz ones.
spacedskunk check ur PM's please

Quote from stiggie :

i was thinking about upgrading from 2gb to 4gb e-sata ram.

wtf?

Quote from Jordan2007 :

So If it will respond faster? Its got 2 increase game speed a bit?

I Am not good with computers :/

LFS does not use a lot of RAM (call it a maximum of 200MB). Windows XP will use roughly 300MB of RAM when it's sitting not doing anything. At the moment you have 1024 MB of RAM (1 GB). So, if you're only playing LFS you'll be using in the region of 500MB (half of your RAM). Any RAM you add in to this equation will be unused by LFS because you already have free RAM sitting there doing nothing that LFS doesn't want to use. Doing other things in the background (like playing MP3s, running IMs, mail clients, browsers etc) will use more RAM, but unless you're leaving things like Photoshop running with hundreds of pictures in memory you probably won't be maxing out your RAM. What LFS does use, though, is a lot of CPU power and graphics power. It needs the CPU to calculate all of the physics for all of the cars (how fast they're going, how much throttle you're using, how much you're turning wheel and how it will affect the car's behaviour etc) and it needs the graphics power to actually draw the cars on the screen. In terms of value for money you will get a bigger increase in gaming performance by going for an upgraded graphics card than by adding more RAM that you don't really need for LFS. Adding 2GB of RAM to the system may improve responsiveness in every day tasks but not really in LFS.

Quote from Stiggie :

I was thinking about upgrading from 2GB to 4GB e-sata RAM.

Now, my current ones were stock provided with the pc when i bought it. They are 667 Mhz, and the new e-sata ones are 800 Mhz.

eSATA is a standard which allows you to connect SATA devices to the computer externally. So, you can plug in a SATA hard drive like you would plug in a USB2.0 device. It has nothing to do with RAM (unless you made an eSATA RAMDDisk, but let's not go there... ). The Q6600 has a standard FSB of 266Mhz (quad pumped to 1066Mhz), so if you want to match the FSB with RAM you should go for DDR2-1066 RAM. It isn't much more expensive than 667 or 800 RAM. I would go for a 4GB kit (2*2GB sticks) of DDR2-1066. This will give you an increase in performance over the current DDR2-667 RAM but it probably won't be a very big one.

My god, i fail. Excuse me, i ment a-data RAM.
I don't know where my mind was at that moment.

Thanks for the explanation anyway.
The problem however, is that my motherboard only allows up to 800Mhz of DDR2. > http://www.msicomputer.com/pro ... model=G31M-F&class=mb

In that case, i'm going to leave upgrading my ram for the future, and start saving up for a new GPU.

I had 512mb RAM in my old PC, then I bought a lappy with 4G RAM. Clicking in LFS is much faster, tracks are loading faster, connecting to hosts is faster... I'm not sure about FPS boost, because all the other specs are better than in my old PC. As said before, VGA and mostly CPU affects FPS, not RAM.

i talk to him on skype and hes running windows vista 32bit and i think with 1gb it would be using a lot so i think he would be able to handle a bit better grid

Vista will definitely benefit from more RAM in general tasks. I assumed (due to the spec of the PC) that he was using XP. However, I still don't think LFS performance will improve that much.