Upgrading RAM
Magicmoon:
Quote from: J. M. Pescado on 2007 July 19, 07:32:10
If you had only 1 GB, you would not be able to load anything other than TS2, and no CC other than perhaps overrides, and it would struggle. If you had even less, TS2 itself would thrash, since you'd have less than the minimum 500 MB of RAM needed to load an empty install.
At the risk of having my lips ripped from my face, I'm going to have to disagree a little. I have 1 GB RAM. At one time I had 10 GB of CC and was definitely getting a performance hit. I pared this down to 4 GB and I am only getting a slight hit now as compared to a clean game. The CC I have now adds approx 4 minutes to loading time whereas I was getting a 20 min loading time when I had 10 GB CC. CC tends to affect loading time more than it does game performance.
Is it possible that the type of CC has more to do with it than the amount of CC? For example, I would expect mods to cause more slowdowns than clothing since mods must keep running and checking things to make their decisions. If I load in 200 dresses, all 200 do not have to stay in the memory at all times. Just the one that your Sim is wearing needs to stay in the memory. (Otherwise there wouldn't be a load time when you go into CAS or attempt to buy new clothes) But the mod has to keep asking, "does this Sim need to pee? Is it time to woohoo? Should I bring a friend home on the bus? Even when the answer to the question is "no", it still had to use memory to do the checks. Since these checks are always going on in the background, unlike the dress, they have to stay in the active memory.
The biggest slowdown I have at the moment is when it rains or snows. It is only slightly more sluggish with the CC in place than without it. On lots with very few items (CC or Maxis) and few Sims, there is no slowdown at all compared to a clean game. Using Jordi's more Sims mod I have some lots that have 2 adults and 7 kids. These lots absolutely DO take a performance hit, especially when several visitors are also there. The computer with the higher memory on the video card performs better during bad weather although it still takes a hit when too many Sims are on the lot, which makes sense since each Sim has to have the checks run on them.
One difference that I can see is how much crap is on any given lot. I tend to make lots with just the items that the Sims need. My daughter crams as much stuff into a lot as she can. Her game is always more sluggish than mine although she plays her game on my computer so the configuration and CC is the same.
J. M. Pescado:
Quote from: magicmoon on 2007 July 19, 08:37:10
Is it possible that the type of CC has more to do with it than the amount of CC? For example, I would expect mods to cause more slowdowns than clothing since mods must keep running and checking things to make their decisions. If I load in 200 dresses, all 200 do not have to stay in the memory at all times. Just the one that your Sim is wearing needs to stay in the memory. (Otherwise there wouldn't be a load time when you go into CAS or attempt to buy new clothes) But the mod has to keep asking, "does this Sim need to pee? Is it time to woohoo? Should I bring a friend home on the bus? Even when the answer to the question is "no", it still had to use memory to do the checks. Since these checks are always going on in the background, unlike the dress, they have to stay in the active memory.
The exact performance hit imposed by any given item depends on your computer and the item. Some items may not have any visible hit, others, even a single item inexplicably slows your computer to a crawl, like those damn ladybug houses.
Magicmoon:
I think the ladybug houses make such a big impact because of the constant animation. I downloaded more sensible ladybugs from Simwardrobe. Now they only swarm occasionally during the day and never at night although it works the same as it always did. That simple mod stopped a ton of sluggishness.
ZiggyDoodle:
There is no such object at Paladin's Place. I think you mean Jfade's Sensible Ladybug Swarms at djssims.com/
B:
Quote from: Orikes on 2007 July 19, 00:27:16
So does that mean I shouldn't bother getting 4GB?
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this yet, but if you don't have a 64 bit OS it's kind of pointless to have 4 GB of RAM. 32 bit versions of windows can only map to 4 gigs of address space, and since things like your video card need to be mapped somewhere, you generally will only have about 3-3.25 GB of memory for the OS to use. Supposedly, you're supposed to be able to map past 4 gigs on Vista Ultimate, but I still haven't been able to (I've got 8 gigs for my Linux, but Ultimate only sees 3 gigs).
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