What can I expect from more R.A.M.?

[neroroxxx]

Hi Guys, did any of you guys upgrade your ram lately? did you notice a big change in DCSW?

 

Currently I have 16GB of DDR3 ram and I'm planning to upgrade to 32GB in the next month or so, when I upgraded from the stock 4GB to 16GB my computer was a lot faster right away but that's on the Mac side using final cut, logic, dreamweaver and illustrator, and that was way before I had DCS or any other sims on it.

 

So if any of you did a similar upgrade, could you share your experiences and what was the first improvements you noticed?

 

Either way I gotta get it for work but I'd love to know what difference it made for others.

 

Thanks!

[KLR Rico]

I went from 4 to 20 GB, and didn't see much performance increase with DCS... until I put the game on a ramdisk, it decreased the loading time and took care of a some of the little stutters when new sounds/objects loaded. Although, loading the image into RAM kind of offset the saved time while the game is running. It took about 2-3 minutes to load the ~8GB image from a pair of 10K RPM raptors in RAID 0.

 

When everything went to DCSW I didn't put it on a ramdisk, and I don't really feel bothered by running straight off the disk; but YMMV depending on your system, and it's easy enough to try.

[Supersheep]

@KLR Rico

I'm not planning to implement a ramdisk myself anytime soon, but which of the many ramsdisk programs do you use?

Can it mount a ramdisk directly at system startup?

 

I have an SSD, I guess I could have it loaded in a minute and I need more time than that checking my mail, the boards and Skype ;)

 

 

Super-

Edited September 25, 2012 by Supersheep

[cichlidfan]

I seriously doubt you will see a difference in DCS since you already have 16. From 4-8 yes, 8-16 maybe a little, from 16-32 probably not.

[neroroxxx]

ahhh I was hoping I'd see a difference, I know the 27" iMac have the space for a second SSD but I don't really want to add it myself but then again with prices coming down little by little maybe I can get a 500GB SSD and share the mac os and the windows partition.

[FreeFall]

I seriously doubt you will see a difference in DCS since you already have 16.

 

Agree. With DCS you don't need more RAM. If you are going to run virtual machines or do heavy video editing with your PC, then there might be some advantage of the extra 16 gigs. But not with DCS gam... errr...sims. :D

[Deigs]

I have 6 gig at the moment, so I should update to 12? I'm running 4 x 1080p monitors so any proformance upgrade would be lovely if I get a noticeable difference.

[KLR Rico]

@KLR Rico

I'm not planning to implement a ramdisk myself anytime soon, but which of the many ramsdisk programs do you use?

Can it mount a ramdisk directly at system startup?

 

I tried several of the free ones, and settled on ImDisk. http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk

 

It is pretty easy to use and has no size limit, unlike many other free utilities. I'm not aware of any way to make it load on startup, but I didn't dig into it too far.

 

There are so many variables, it's hard to say how much benefit you'll see with a ramdisk, but like I said, it's easy enough to try.

[PeterP]

I have 6 gig at the moment, so I should update to 12? I'm running 4 x 1080p monitors so any proformance upgrade would be lovely if I get a noticeable difference.

 

 

If you are running DCS+Helios in "Windowed" mode:

 

To get more "juice squeezed out" of your system you can't dismiss SoftTH.

The possibility are very high to get at least a 15% performance increase without spending a single €.

(but I encourage you to donate something to kegetys - when it was successful - as SoftTH is donation ware. Rule of the thumb: 1€ for every frame you gain.)

 

Have a look at this thread to know what route you have to go if you don't want to spend money on Hardware-upgrades:

 

Seeking best connection method for optimal multi-monitor-performance

Adjusting everything back to windowed mode and without SoftTH felt pretty stupid and inefficient I must say.

 

Anyways... running the first instant mission this way on High settings with this setup gave me 27fps (min 22 max 30)

 

Reverted everything to SoftTH I have 45fps (min 35 max 49)

 

Pretty impressive I think!

With a bunch of lua modifications to enhance details and viewing distance of structure and cities etc even more I still fly 38 (min 33 max 43)

 

since my display inputs are limited to 60Hz I cap my frames at 30 for smoothness anyways so...

PERFECT!!!

[Deigs]

Cheers mate, I'll have to check it out :)

[MadTommy]

I don't understand peoples' obsession with boat loads of RAM.

 

Simply run resource monitor and monitor your RAM usage.. that should tell you if you need more RAM.

 

If you are not utilising all your RAM why get more? 8 GB RAM is more than enough for DCS and just about anything else. Going from 16 - 32 just seems crazy unless you are using very specific RAM hogs.

 

Sure if you want RAM disks, its a different matter.