BF2 woes caused by my ram?

[GhostMjr]

Ok i think you are all familiar with my specs of my computer as there in my signature. Anyway i am sick and tired of bf2 taking some 4 minutes to load a map from cold. Basically load the game and then click on the server it takes me exactly 4 minutes 10 seconds to join from the server menu to when i have verified my game content and am in the game playing. Is this a ram issue? Anyway as the lan is coming up and as norm usually gives good deals and also i ain't got a clue what ram does or is for tbh i wish i knew i wanted to sort this problem out. Anyway as with everything computers i am pretty good but with ram and networks i am close to loosing my hair. I have about £100 to spend maximum if i need an upgrade on some good ram. But this must be able to make my bf2 games load quicker. I bought a while back some crappy 1gb ram ebuyer value. Anyway its ddr400 i think and i have a 128mb pc2100 stick in their too. My first question is that is the 128mb ram slowing the other stuff down? As when i start my computer it comes up with a memory frequency of ddr266?

Anyway my motherboard can cope with ddr400 and dual channel ddr. Is that ddr2?

In bios this is what is says about my memory config

DRAM Frequency [Auto]
Memory time slectable [by spd]
X CAS latency time 2.5
X ACtive to precharge delay 6
X DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay 3
X DRAM RAS# Precharge 3
DRam Data Data Integrity Mode Non-ECC

Ok. Slot one is the ddr400 from ebuyer and slot 2 is the 128mb ram.


My motherboard book states that it supports up to 4gb using either pc3200/pc2700/pc2100. or non ecc dimms to deliver up to 6.4gb/s data transfer. I do know that 3200 is the fastest and newest i think its called ddr400 and the oldest being pc2100. Anyway hope you guys can help because i am all confused


Thanks


Scott aka GM

[Anonymous]

You have a stick of PC2100 and a stick of PC3200 in a computer and you wonder why it's slow?  :blink:  It won't even be running dual channel properly I would guess!

You are best using 2 sticks of same memory so same timings are in use.

Send Norm a PM or an email and ask for a quote for two decent (doesn't have to be top grade) sticks of 1 Gb PC3200 - I recommend not getting 512Mb sticks because it makes your upgrade options more expensive (I'm guessing that your mobo has 4 memory slots so 4Gb would be 1Gb in each slot - buying 2 x 512 stcks would mean having to ditch them and get 4 1Gb sticks if you wanytted to go to 4Gb

[GhostMjr]

Ok got rid of the ddr266 ram now its detecting the 1gb stick as ddr400. I am going to test the startup time of bf2 now.

[DuVeL]

Norm sold me some Kingston DDRram, quit good stuff. As BB suggested, PM Norm.

[Dingo]

Originally posted by DuVeL@Mar 26 2006, 09:20 PM
Norm sold me some Kingston DDRram, quit good stuff. As BB suggested, PM Norm.

[post=119459]Quoted post[/post]

[/b]

I thought that was me at the last LAN.....blondes, I ask you!!  

[DuVeL]

Originally posted by Dingo@Mar 26 2006, 11:45 PM
I thought that was me at the last LAN.....blondes, I ask you!!

[post=119470]Quoted post[/post]

[/b]

True but Norm sold me 1 aswell. :narnar:

[OldBloke]

Slow to get in game has nothing to do with your RAM.

Frenzy and I spent ages researching this (his load times were as drastic as yours) and the consensus was that it's caused by a combination of hard disk and pagefile configuration.

After trying various things we had no joy so in the end we rebuilt his PC and, with exactly the same spec, his load times went from four minutes to 30 secs.

[GhostMjr]

Originally posted by OldBloke@Mar 26 2006, 10:40 PM
Slow to get in game has nothing to do with your RAM.

Frenzy and I spent ages researching this (his load times were as drastic as yours) and the consensus was that it's caused by a combination of hard disk and pagefile configuration.

After trying various things we had no joy so in the end we rebuilt his PC and, with exactly the same spec, his load times went from four minutes to 30 secs.

[post=119477]Quoted post[/post]

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I have removed both the ram and a 5400rpm drive which has now made my load times about 2 minutes. I understand you edited some settings with frenzy's computer. How do i alter my settings to make my load times faster. Bearing in mind this ram i have is only value ram so this may be the issue. I will drop norm a pm/email.

[suicidal_monkey]

I doubt it's the speed of your ram...quantity perhaps, but only perhaps. I run my ram at 266fsb (pc2700 - to match my cpu) rather than at the 333 (pc2700) or 400 (pc3200) speeds it is supposed to be capable of. Made absolutely no noticeable difference to the running of my computer in any way whatsoever. BF2 takes some time to load levels for me although this seems to mainly be the verification segment - in the prwmm mod the levels loaded and verified very quickly indeed for some reason

More system ram typically helps load times, as does more graphics ram, though at 256 you should be okay unless you're trying to run at silly resolutions with uncompressed textures or something? check all your drivers including motherboard/hdd drivers are up to date.

...have you optimised/tweaked your pc for BF2 as linked to in several threads (and I think one of the stickies) on here? That helped my pc's performance no end!
...is your gfx card pcie/agp bus/connection/thing at full speed?

[GhostMjr]

Originally posted by GhostMjr@Mar 26 2006, 06:56 PM
Anyway my motherboard can cope with ddr400 and dual channel ddr. Is that ddr2?

[post=119432]Quoted post[/post]

[/b]

Can my board cope with ddr2? How do i know and which brand/ types do you guys recommend .

Cheers

[Carr0t]

Dual Channel is *not* DDR2. Dual channel is when you run 2 sticks of identical (or at least as identical as possible. It generally requires buying a box of 2 sticks as a 'matched pair') RAM in the correct slots that the motherboard can access them together and gain greater bandwidth (thus faster access times) than on a single stick of twice the size by spreading the load between the two sticks.

I think. I'm not a hardware guru, so wait for clarification from Norm

[TeaLeaf]

Dual channel is a way of using DDR RAM that enables faster throughput of data.  It is not the RAM that enables dual channel, it is your motherboard.  

If your motherboard suppports dual channel RAM operation then you can choose to run your RAM in that mode as long as you have more than one stick of RAM! (even numbers)

You will get the best chance of your RAM operating properly in dual channel mode if you use a pair of 'matched' RAM sticks.  This is because even though RAM sticks are made to a specific specification they will have differences in real life performance - for example there are well publicised examples of batches of the same memory sticks being tested, some of which run at their rated speed, others which do not.

Put simply, RAM when used in normal (non-dual channel mode) it goes through a cycle: of fetching the data, using the data, clearing it's buffer and then preparing for the next batch of data.  Clearly in this case such a cycle means that the RAM is not supplying data to the CPU all the time, the data is delivered only once per cycle, so the RAM stick has 'dwon time' where it does not help the CPU by supplying data.  RAM manufacturers try to make the bits of the cycle where the RAM stick is not delivering data as short as possible as this increases performance, this is why RAM with 'tighter' or is described as high performance and why CAS3 is slower than CAS2 etc.  These tighter timings help both normal and dual-channel operation.

Dual channel RAM attempts (via motherboard chipsets) to put the data delivery cycles of the two RAM sticks out of phase, so that whilst one RAM stick delivers data to the CPU the other is recharging and fetching the next batch of data.  The roles then reverse and the first recharges and fetches more data whilst the second stick delivers its data to the CPU.  Theoretically this gives a faster throughput of data to the CPU (ie higher memory bandwidth) as the CPU experiences less down time (ie higher memory bandwidth) and this is therefore more efficient.

This is greatly simplified, but hopefully explains what Dual Channel is.

TL.

[GhostMjr]

Superb post Tealeaf i may drop another message of what ram i am looking at in due course. Thanks again that was a very interesting and informative post .

I owe you a beer .

[suicidal_monkey]

Originally posted by TeaLeaf@Apr 7 2006, 09:49 AM
Theoretically

And practically? I've seen a good number of articles (anandtech, tomshardware, etc) where different ram speeds/cas/etc whilst performing better in specific ram-testing applications, are shown to have next to no effect in "real-life" applications? ...out of curiosity (and a healthy mistrust of manufacturers specifications any idea how dual-channel shapes up in "the real world"?