if i were to get 10fps hypothetically in a game and i add another gig of ram to my 1 gig what will be my fps now? im just wondering because im getting another gig soon
That depends entirely on the game you're talking about. RAM stores files and instructions that the CPU needs to operate a program. The more files and instructions that can be stored in RAM, the less often the hard-drive will need to be accessed, which translates into better performance. Games with large open environments tend to be RAM hogs, like Oblivion and and Battlefield 2. And if you went from 1GB to 2GB in Oblivion or BF2, you would defiantly see a performance jump. Its not a big jump, but it would be noticeable. You would also probably see faster loading times. However in a game like HL2, which doesn't use too much RAM, going from 1GB to 2GB would not make much of any difference.
Random Access Memory. You can't preload entire level, even though most of it is cached. Whenever u make a quick turn or enter some new room, next object textures load, since RAM is much much faster than HDD, it processes the new info and you don't see any lag. If you don't have enough RAM, some of stuff gets processed by HDD and it causes drop in FPS.
It's more than textures, but this way it makes sence.
RAM on the video card holds texture and object data for rendering, it keeps this data there in case it can be reused in the next frame, which in most cases it can be. But when you enter a new area the data in the video RAM is no longer relevant and is discarded for the new data that is being loaded. Like has already been mentioned, if you don't have enough system RAM to hold everything then the data is stored in Virtual Memory (on the hard drive).The hard drive is much slower than RAM so it takes a split second to load this data into the video RAM. I believe this also gets moved over to the system RAM as well and what data on the system RAM that hasn't been accessed for some time gets moved over to the virtual Memory.
All of this moving dataaround results in bad frame rates when moving around different areas and the screen pausing while entering a new room but performing very well in the same place. If you stand in an area and look in one direction and the FPS are rather high but you turn suddenly or enter a new area and the frames drop and then come back up to being stable, this is why.
RAM is used for storing application data. If say you are at 1gb of ram currently and when the game is running you are using more than 1gb (ie. thrashing) then you will see slower performance. When you add in the extra ram then it will speed up a little depending how badly you were going over the 1gb mark. 2gb of ram is fairly safe these days. Some games will push 2gb but for the most part your safe with 2gb. Supreme commander is about the only game so far i've seen almost max out my 2gb of ram i have.
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