Hardware advice

[beers]

Need some hardware wisdom;

 

I have a free choice between 4GB DDR2 800 or 8GB DDR2 533. I've tried both and the difference seems minor if at all, leaning toward the 4gb @ 800. Any experience? Advice?

 

And then, what sort of improvement might I expect from 4GB 800 if I purchase a set of 8GB 800?

 

I'm running Win7-64 on a P7N SLI moboard, Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.39GHz), GeForce GTX 260.

 

Without o/c I get frame rates in the range of 30-5 with the typical over-battlefield at 15-20. With o/c (CPU goes up to about 2.88 in either memory config) I get a range of 50-9 with typical over-battlefield at 20-25. So, I'm functional, but only barely.

 

I've gone thru the various config tips on the board here and I'm fine with shadows=0, water=0, medium range, but lighting has to stay, and I didn't find it gave me a massive FPS boost anyway... any suggestions welcome.

 

EDIT: I'm talking about Black Shark here.

Edited November 1, 2009 by beers
Posted to wrong forum and my message was moved

[EtherealN]

As far as I have seen in benchmarks performed by myself (on my e8500) and others (on varying configurations) memory speed seems to have very little impact. However, there is a theoretical possibility of slow RAM creating a new bottleneck.

 

Also, since DCS.exe is a 32-bit application, you will have no added benefit from the added total amount of RAM compared to 4GB. The process can only access 2GB including vRAM anyway.

[beers]

Thanks!!! So, I am looking forward to DCS moving up to 64-bit almost as much as I am hoping that some day it will be multi-threaded :) Love the game.