Upgrading RAM
Orikes:
Quote from: magicmoon on 2007 July 19, 07:12:54
I'm curious as to why you feel the need for so much memory. If it is because you believe that Sims will run faster, then you are barking up the wrong tree. While you will see slight improvement in speed, you are much better off spending your money on a high quality video card with as much memory on the card as you can afford. How much memory does your video card have?
Honestly, I wasn't aiming to get 4GB of RAM. It was more that I was seriously considering upgrading to 2GB, but with the comments that were made, I was curious.
As for why RAM over video card, I figured the ram would actually be a cheaper upgrade than the video card. The card I have isn't half bad, though I have had problems with the BSOD since it is Nvidia. Hopefully the new beta drivers will help with that. There was also the cc considerations, though I'm seeing different opinions on that here as well.
Either way, my video card is: eVGA Geforce 6800GS 256MB PCI Express x16
If I have four slots for ram and can add in another set of dual channel ram, I can double my ram for about $80. I'm guessing it would cost me close to $200 to really make upgrading my video card worth it.
Magicmoon:
Quote from: ZiggyDoodle on 2007 July 19, 14:15:40
There is no such object at Paladin's Place. I think you mean Jfade's Sensible Ladybug Swarms at djssims.com/
You are absolutely correct. :-[
Quote from: Orikes on 2007 July 19, 18:20:56
If I have four slots for ram and can add in another set of dual channel ram, I can double my ram for about $80. I'm guessing it would cost me close to $200 to really make upgrading my video card worth it.
You are right. Everyone here has posted a wealth of good info, and although on the surface some things appear to contradict other things, they are all valid points.
Do some experimenting. First upgrade that video driver. Then check the amount of CC that you have now. Are there frequent slowdowns at the moment? If so, divide the CC in half. How about now? Keep doing it until you don't see a difference between a clean game and the one with CC. (Not counting load times as load times will always be longer with CC no matter how much updating you do). This will give you a ballpark figure on how much CC you can have in your game at the moment, although as mentioned earlier, not all CC is equal.
If you find out that removing CC makes a huge impact on the speed of gameplay, then go for the additional RAM. If you find that there is very little difference, then you should probably save up the money for a higher end video card, although your current card is really not out of date yet.
I know this won't be easy for you to decide, but there is enough info on this page for you to at least make a well informed decision. Good luck.
Orikes:
Thanks for all the advice. :)
KatEnigma:
This may not apply to you, since you obviously have at least an AMD 64/FX, if not an X2, but sometimes the problem isn't video card or RAM. The game relies heavily on the processor, as well. It's basically a game of what element is the one holding you back. If it's the processor, no amount of RAM or the shiniest newest video card would do much to improve your gameplay. (The new card will make it look very pretty, but won't necessarily make the game faster)
Then too, the biggest thing that made a difference to my game was switching to the 10,000 RPM hard drive. TS2 reads/writes to the disk a LOT. Oh, and the cheat "vsync off" will gain you about 10 FPS, too, but that makes more difference on a system that's struggling with the game itself, more than one that's just bogged down with CC (only 1.3 GB right now- I've pared down)
Orikes:
I'm not really experiencing any major problems (other than the Nvidia BSOD, which the beta drivers may have fixed). The game is often a little slow on first starting the game up - not the load screen times, but when I actually first enter a lot. Also, I do get a decent freeze when certain events happen (like frostbite or heat stroke). It's nothing that's a deal breaker for me, but it would be nice if I could get it to run a little smoother.
Here's the specs of what's in the machine:
- ASUS A8N5X Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz Socket 939 Processor
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
- 1GB Crucial (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel
- eVGA 256-P2-N389-AX Geforce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
- BenQ 16X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
- COOLMAX "EZ Wire" CU-400T ATX 400W Power Supply
(I included the last two bits of info on the dvd player and the power supply, just in case) It's running WinXP. Home Edition. Service Pack 2. :)
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