RAM & gaming

I've been out of the gaming loop for a while...

This is probably a really broad question, but how much RAM is considered the norm for most PC games today?

I was reading on some various sites/googles that people play games on max settings with only slightly more than the game's recommended amount of RAM (just random scenarios and amounts. Like I said, I don't know if today's PC games have a 'standard' amount of required RAM). So, would I be correct in understanding that (in this order) CPU speed and GPU specs (more GPU RAM = better) affect gaming much more than amount of RAM sticks?

So I'm wondering, what effects do RAM have on gaming? Also, is it possible to have "too much" RAM when gaming (ie. overkill)?

 

well vista requires 1.5 gigs. and say crysis would need 1.5 gigs for recommended play. so i would say a good amount to have is 4 to 6 gigs of ram. if you were to get 8+ ram you may (depending on what you want to do) just be wasting money.

 

The amount of ram you have affects how many programs you can run on you computer
and as for GPU ram, (don't quote me on this but i think the more ram your GPU has the better the card can filter the game your playing. in anisotropic or antialiasing. and what that does is make things smoother by blending colors. for example if you had a black and white pixel it would be turned into a gray pixel.)

Have fun Shredding up them noobs

 

RAM like all system components can be a bottlemeck.
Currently all high end gamers are running at least 4Gb and Win64 of some type to take full advantage of it.
Video ram should be at least 512. Hard drive speed will also be a bottleneck as you enter new areas and they need to load. Most dual core CPUs can keep up as long as they have the above support from other hardware.

 

Not really. More than 6GB won't really be utilized in a while though, since most applications, including games, don't know how to make full use of that much. 64-bit apps do, but a lot of games are still written for 32-bit. They go for the largest market segment...

However much you put in, put it in dual channel though.

 

Nope, definitely no such thing as too much. Most games are being written not only to take advantage of 64-bit, but also the larger RAM it offers, and dual or quad core processors. However, it still has to be written for the LowestCommonDenominators possible, which is single-core, 32-bit processors.