Graphics cards can be pricey for high models, very pricey. Ram is a GREAT way to upgrade. It will really help keep steady framerates even when more objects are on screen. I don't want to get too much into tweaks here; because it's not really the place, but you may want to consider setting your virtual memory to a higher, locked in, amount; as it can really help a lot, on both performance, and fragmentation rates. When you don't control the size of the pagefile, windows keeps using system resources to change the size of it, using a lot of system resources and leaving all kinds of sloppy fragmentation all over your drive. As for upgrades, upgrading to 1 or even 2 gb can make a HUGE difference. I've got 1, and I've been strongly considering 2 for that little extra performance boost. It's cheaper than a top of the line video card; and if video memory is an issue, you can upgrade your ram and set some of it for the AGP video aperture; not quite as fast, but very helpful. I use 256mb of my 1024 ram for additional video on my 256mb GeForce 5700LE. I can run BF2 very at 1280x1024 well in mid/high settings because of this, and UT2k4 at full settings in 1600x1200, although that one isn't really hard at all these days. Bottom line, memory can really boost performance for multiple reasons. Tigerdirect and Newegg have excellent deals on that.
lol I play it at 1920x1200, but fair enough. Upping to 1GB of RAM (if you only have 512) is the best value approach by far, but of course it's limited if your graphics card is slow.
thanks,a lot i'm going to buy a gig a ram. samor as you know im also experiencing that problem with the message irql_not_less_or_equal peoplme have told me that rtam will fix this,is this true
Not usually. IRQL not less or equal tends to suggest something's gone wrong with your drivers, so check they're all up to date and not conflicting. It can happen, but that's not usually the BSOD you get if you have dodgy RAM.
Make sure you get a good, reputable brand; this can have very adverse effects otherwise... PNY, Kingston, just to name a couple. Make sure you have a lifetime warranty. There's no better way to buy. (Errrr, when will this Newbie status go away, so I don't have the three minute rule?)
Go on to the relevant manufacturers websites, look up your product whether it's graphics card, CD/DVD drive or input, and get their latest software. Generally, conflicts will come up as yellow warnings in Hardware Manager. If there's a RAM problem, then brands I'd recommend as replacement are Kingston, Corsair, Crucial, Mushkin, PNY and Samsung.
thanks but to complicated for my computer knowlede is there not a program i can download that will aoutomatically update my drivers?
thanks but to complicated for my computer knowlede is there not a program i can download that will aoutomatically update my drivers?
Not to my knowledge, you'll have to do it yourself. It's not hard, go to My computer, then hardware, then device manager. Tell us what you're CD/DVD drives appear as, and what your graphics and sound cards are and I'll try and find the appropriate websites to go to and save you some work.
hey i just bought 1 gig of ram and put it in my computer. i don't notice an amazing speed difrence is thi normal?
There won't be any "speed" increase per se, it's when you run out of RAM that the PC slows down. Adding more RAM just prevents this slowdown from occurring. If you never ran out of RAM you won't notice a difference though.
The noticable differences are generally not raw 'speed'. One noticable difference I see on most systems is the startup. Systems with low amounts of ram tend to need a minute or so to open various background programs, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spy/Malware, Sound and Video Drivers, etc, etc. When you have more ram, that goes smoother, and you'll notice the ability to run programs almost as soon as the desktop is up, with better reaction times. That's a very miniscule change. Here's what you should notice more. First, you can now run more processes at once without seeing a huge performance hit like you would have. So if you're running you're favorite Brittany Spears track through winamp in the background while you check out the new trailer for star wars episode XII, and have your e-mail client open with firefox underneath it, so that you can reference it in the e-mail you're writing to your girlfriend who you tell everyone lives in Canada; you won't see lag that you might have before. Now; that is not the most practical for everyone. So I will elaborate more. First, their is a tweak for overall gaming performance. You can go into windows and set virtual memory. You should try setting it to 1.5 times your system's ram for both the minimum and maximum; and it makes games run a little better, make sure you set it like that for both drives. Also; for slightly better video, try enlarging your video aperture through your CMOS bios. You can get better performance that way too. When I first learned this trick; I saw boosts of a good 20-30 fps; and have applied it to every system I work on ever since. Then load up a very detailed game that challenged your system, and see if it still holds the same challenge. Hopefully you'll see the boosts we mentioned not in speed perse; but in stability, and constant framerate, you're now much less susceptable to slow down.
SORRY THAT WAS A FALSE ALERT I DON'T NOTICE ANY SPEED increase when im opening a program its more things like copying dvds i can do 5 at a time and it goes a lot FASTEZR
It's not that we don't want to communicate, it's just that sammorris and handsom are doing so well at guiding you, that any other advice might end up just confusing you - and we wouldn't want that to happen Also, don't be afraid to build yourself a new system instead of buying a pre-built one. The benefits of building one yourself far out weigh one that has been pre-built. It just takes planning and patience plus when it is done, you'll get that warm fuzzy feeling ..... sometimes called pride
Hypocrite though I am saying so, you save tonnes of money and aren't bound by warranty statements when you home build. The only reason I'm put off is because I made a little costly mistake last time (not strictly my fault, a bad component (PSU) caused the issue, but you know). My parents don't trust me with PC building now. I know the score, but don't put it into practice, not with expensive systems anyway!
how old are you samor? and again i thank you so much i have gotton rid of a big problem thanks to you guys.
Funnily enough I'm 18 tomorrow. Don't be scared though, I've been a technophile since about 12, and I'm one of the IT admin at school.
