Sure it'll be fine on low settings, 30 fps'ish.
Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous
- Thread starter Pazmeister
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Sure it'll be fine on low settings, 30 fps'ish.
This would seem an appropriate place to post this... I've got a bit of an upgrade itch. Currently running 8GB ram, would going higher provide any noticeable improvement running ED? Apart from initial loading time, the only other thing that can sometimes take longer than I like would be accessing the system map. That seems to speed up the more I use it in a session, suggesting it is caching after loading? Since last reboot almost 2 weeks ago, it looks like max usage was about 6GB during a previous ED session. But the extra ram could be a rather nice file cache...
In case you're wondering why I'm looking at the ram, that has been unchanged since I built the system almost 4 years ago. Processor is an i7-2600k at stock, so while a couple generations old it is no slouch. GPU wise the R9 280X seems to handle anything I've thrown at it so far, at a display resolution of 1920x1200.
In case you're wondering why I'm looking at the ram, that has been unchanged since I built the system almost 4 years ago. Processor is an i7-2600k at stock, so while a couple generations old it is no slouch. GPU wise the R9 280X seems to handle anything I've thrown at it so far, at a display resolution of 1920x1200.
I have 16GB RAM and I have never seen my system use more than half. Usually it utilizes around 30-40% when I run multiple applications (A game, skype with video conversation active, chrome, and a music player). I think the system uses more RAM the more you have so 8GB should be fine for now.
The bottleneck in my system is currently VRAM (core i7 4790k@4.4GHz, 16GB RAM @1866MHz, Geforce GTX 780 3GB, monitor ROG Swift 2560x1440@144Hz). I can get
I think my next upgrade will be a 6GB latest gen graphics card.
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No, 8GB RAM is more than enough and will be for years to come.
Overclocking the memory is different from adding more VRAM. The first increases memory bandwidth while the second increases the amount of total memory. You don't need more than 3GB for Elite at 1440p that's for sure (I run on basically max settings with a 1GB card at 1080p) and 6GB of VRAM with the same clock speed will almost certainly perform exactly the same.
Norcus, Not sure how our video cards compare, but I can't say I feel limited in that area at the moment. I might be helped in that I'm running almost 40% less pixels than you, and I've left a 60fps cap in place. Then again, I have wondered what performance you can get out of a 3 monitor setup... might need a bigger desk first!
I'm half debating getting the ram regardless if it make a difference in ED, since it is so cheap to get another 8GB anyway. Thinking more I might have applications outside gaming where it could be used.
I'm half debating getting the ram regardless if it make a difference in ED, since it is so cheap to get another 8GB anyway. Thinking more I might have applications outside gaming where it could be used.
Just watched the video on ram in you sig, which I'd only agree with to the limited extent presented. I'm not looking for run/don't run, but I want the scenario where ram quantity is an absolute non-issue. Even if the game itself doesn't need that much instantaneous working ram, the system still has to manage everything else around it. Sat on my desktop right now, no games but a load of other stuff, I'm just over 4GB used with most of the rest as cache. As said, looking at my recent system logs I've reached a peak of around 6GB with ED running. That's not much margin left.
Any excess ram often works wonders as a super-fast file cache too. SSDs might mitigate that limitation somewhat, but SATA ones are very slow compared to ram, and PCIe ones might still be a bit too new. For sure I'd want one in my next build. While it may not help with 1st load speeds, once cached it'll help a lot. My ED folder is just over 5GB. Of course, not all of it needs to be loaded in ram all the time, but if it can stay cached that will help take disk performance out of the equation. I will add I rarely reboot my PC without good reason. That reminds me, I haven't done this month's Windows Updates yet... that's almost the only reason for rebooting!
I will admit the differences I described may be small, but it wont be zero. Anything else to give bigger impact will cost a lot more. Currently waiting to see what the next generation Intel processors will do which should tie in nicely with Win10 launch.
Definitely curious as to what you're running that's using 4GB of RAM. Do you have many browser tabs open at the same time? That's known to take up a lot of RAM.
If so I'd be more inclined to close those down when gaming instead of buying more RAM, as they'll slow the system down in other ways aside from RAM usage.
Obviously having more won't hurt but it's just a case of pointlessly spending money in the vast majority of cases.
If so I'd be more inclined to close those down when gaming instead of buying more RAM, as they'll slow the system down in other ways aside from RAM usage.
Obviously having more won't hurt but it's just a case of pointlessly spending money in the vast majority of cases.
Two browsers, and Skype is taking a fair chunk too. Best part of a GB between them. It doesn't look like there's any single ram hog, just a lot of little things using a bit each adding up. The system is getting on for 4 years since I built it, and quite possibly it has collected some no longer needed software along the way. It is my "do everything" box and micro-managing every software process isn't going to work. I am actually in the process of setting up a 2nd system through KVM/2nd monitor so I can do more in parallel without interfering with ED when running, but that will take some time to configure.
The browsers might take up a barely detectable amount of CPU but I don't think I'm significantly limited in that. I suspect I get occasional delays from the game having to load stuff on the fly from disk. Having more of the game files cached in ram would mean less of that, especially if I have enough ram for that cache to persist between games. I think having excess ram as a disk cache is underlooked for performance. I have tended to build my own systems with more ram than average at the time, and when using other systems e.g. work or at friends, the low cost "how little can we get away with" builds there do feel much less responsive. My 2nd laptop, which I use only for the internet at work to avoid going through the work network, is a low spec AMD integrated something or other, roughly comparable to Intel Atom. It is slow. Swapped the hard disk with a hybrid I had spare, which helped a little. I increased the ram from 2GB to 6GB (all it would take) and that gave a tangible improvement in responsiveness. Most of that ram is probably idle, but it does mean once something is read from disk, you probably wont need to read it again until the next reboot!
Finally, as stated I do know of one usage case outside gaming where the extra ram will help, which is astrophotography processing. I really need more CPU for that, but again extra working ram helps. In a quick look earlier looks like another 8GB is about £50 which is insignificant really.
The browsers might take up a barely detectable amount of CPU but I don't think I'm significantly limited in that. I suspect I get occasional delays from the game having to load stuff on the fly from disk. Having more of the game files cached in ram would mean less of that, especially if I have enough ram for that cache to persist between games. I think having excess ram as a disk cache is underlooked for performance. I have tended to build my own systems with more ram than average at the time, and when using other systems e.g. work or at friends, the low cost "how little can we get away with" builds there do feel much less responsive. My 2nd laptop, which I use only for the internet at work to avoid going through the work network, is a low spec AMD integrated something or other, roughly comparable to Intel Atom. It is slow. Swapped the hard disk with a hybrid I had spare, which helped a little. I increased the ram from 2GB to 6GB (all it would take) and that gave a tangible improvement in responsiveness. Most of that ram is probably idle, but it does mean once something is read from disk, you probably wont need to read it again until the next reboot!
Finally, as stated I do know of one usage case outside gaming where the extra ram will help, which is astrophotography processing. I really need more CPU for that, but again extra working ram helps. In a quick look earlier looks like another 8GB is about £50 which is insignificant really.
You need to get more RAM above a certain point sure, and 2GB is really too low. That laptop (an E-350 or E-450 I'd guess) is also probably using at least 512 MB of RAM as graphics memory too, giving you even less that that 2GB to play with. That will be saving to the page file way too often, no doubt about it.
Even with excess RAM (you do still have excess RAM, just not a lot) you'll find many programs still write to the page file though. Mostly the only use for extra is if you can specifically point out a case where it will help, and as you have a use case for that then there's certainly no harm done in getting more. You should get the same type if you can for compatibility, faster stuff will just downclock to the speed of the slowest anyway. Make sure you actually have the mobo slots as well obviously.
Even with excess RAM (you do still have excess RAM, just not a lot) you'll find many programs still write to the page file though. Mostly the only use for extra is if you can specifically point out a case where it will help, and as you have a use case for that then there's certainly no harm done in getting more. You should get the same type if you can for compatibility, faster stuff will just downclock to the speed of the slowest anyway. Make sure you actually have the mobo slots as well obviously.
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To close the story, I got the ram, installed it, memtested it just to make sure, and started ED. Nothing unusual about 1st load, which I didn't expect it to anyway. Nothing different about subsequent loads either, which is where I hoped to see more of a difference. It shouldn't be cycling through the cache as I've still got free indicating.
Would it be total overkill to setup a dedicated ED PC so I can leave it running all the time?
Would it be total overkill to setup a dedicated ED PC so I can leave it running all the time?
Not sure why you expected a difference. We said 8GB was more than enough. Windows will always use the swap file. In fact, windows will increase the size of the swapfile if you buy more RAM. If you use an SSD you can see some improvement. Mostly because the latency is ridiculously low. SSD use no time to find a file, while spinners use 5-20ms just to move to the correct spot on the platters (for each file). The windows swap file (virtual memory) is physically placed on an area of a disk that is spinning real fast (along the outer edge) so the latency is as low as it can be there, but still much slower than an SSD.To close the story, I got the ram, installed it, memtested it just to make sure, and started ED. Nothing unusual about 1st load, which I didn't expect it to anyway. Nothing different about subsequent loads either, which is where I hoped to see more of a difference. It shouldn't be cycling through the cache as I've still got free indicating.
Would it be total overkill to setup a dedicated ED PC so I can leave it running all the time?
Sometimes load times for games, especially games with big resource files, use time not to load necessarily, but to decompress data. Huge sets of compressed textures and various graphical and sound assets needs to be decompressed by the CPU before they can be used.
You can force windows to use less virtual memory by manually setting it low (ie. 200MB). In the early days of SSDs this was actually one of the optimization steps. It was meant to increase longevity on SSDs by reducing frequent writes. In my experience this invariably leads to an unstable system with frequent BSODs. Read about it on the internets
new pc for ED
My old laptop isn't up to running ED so I'm going to get a new desktop, I searched for old posts about crossfireX but can't find much from after November, is crossfireX supported? Or am I better getting a better single card or even getting an SLI mobo? I was thinking of crossfireX with twin R9 270x's what's your experiences/recommendations?
My old laptop isn't up to running ED so I'm going to get a new desktop, I searched for old posts about crossfireX but can't find much from after November, is crossfireX supported? Or am I better getting a better single card or even getting an SLI mobo? I was thinking of crossfireX with twin R9 270x's what's your experiences/recommendations?
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As I said, the time it takes to "load" may simply be time the CPU uses to decompress assets. And no, the prefetcher will not cache an entire game in RAM. If that is what you want you should install the game on a RAM disk, but that might not help much depending on how much time is used by the CPU for decompressing and preparing assets.
Fair enough. I can only speak of observation, where the Windows file cache does seem to hold any already accessed files in ram until it is filled. I don't know what its policy is once that happens in how it chooses what to keep or release. With the now increased ram, I don't easily fill the ram up any more, so anything accessed could remain cached for much longer.
I'm going to have to set up more system performance monitors on my 2nd display to see what it is doing and when... forgot to say, I did keep an eye on ED ram usage while in game, and so far I've seen it peak around 900MB.
A new box is on my radar hopefully later this year assuming the next gen desktop CPUs from Intel are available then. My box will be 3 generations old then so it had a good run. It is feeling really old now, it predates USB3 and UEFI!
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No experience of running multiple cards, but my R9 280X seems to run fine at 1920x1200.
I'm going to have to set up more system performance monitors on my 2nd display to see what it is doing and when... forgot to say, I did keep an eye on ED ram usage while in game, and so far I've seen it peak around 900MB.
A new box is on my radar hopefully later this year assuming the next gen desktop CPUs from Intel are available then. My box will be 3 generations old then so it had a good run. It is feeling really old now, it predates USB3 and UEFI!
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No experience of running multiple cards, but my R9 280X seems to run fine at 1920x1200.
I wouldn't use SLI or Crossfire for anything, both are just too dependent on driver support and there are latency issues that no amount of extra FPS can help with.
here are my specs.
running ed on max settings (even tweaked the files to boost settings higher) on 1920*1080 just fine.
Core 2 Duo E8500
8 GB DDR2
Geforce GTX 760 (4GB ram, overclocked)
Installed on a Vertex 3 SSD
have only upgraded the biggest bottlenecks (GPU and HD) in last pff.. cant realy say 6 years?
running ed on max settings (even tweaked the files to boost settings higher) on 1920*1080 just fine.
Core 2 Duo E8500
8 GB DDR2
Geforce GTX 760 (4GB ram, overclocked)
Installed on a Vertex 3 SSD
have only upgraded the biggest bottlenecks (GPU and HD) in last pff.. cant realy say 6 years?
If it helps
old pc q6700 oc @ 3.0ghz ,p5k mobo , 4gb 1066mhz 7870 gpu oc @ 1120mhz , 600w psu, seagate 1tb hdd , sony 40"tv , oculus rift
new pc g3258 oc @ 4.4ghz , 8gb 1600mhz 7870 gpu oc @ 1120mhz , 600w psu, samsung 120gb ssd , sony 40"tv , oculus rift
new pc stutters more , looks like the extra cores of the q6700 make a differance , my advice if you cant afford to upgrade in one go (like me) mobo and cpu combo £100 then up to i5 4690k later ,
then maybe asus maximus ranger mobo later when funds permit
should be able to eb@y old mobo and cpu for not far off brought price . (didnt oc ram cus cpu wont support ).
old pc q6700 oc @ 3.0ghz ,p5k mobo , 4gb 1066mhz 7870 gpu oc @ 1120mhz , 600w psu, seagate 1tb hdd , sony 40"tv , oculus rift
new pc g3258 oc @ 4.4ghz , 8gb 1600mhz 7870 gpu oc @ 1120mhz , 600w psu, samsung 120gb ssd , sony 40"tv , oculus rift
new pc stutters more , looks like the extra cores of the q6700 make a differance , my advice if you cant afford to upgrade in one go (like me) mobo and cpu combo £100 then up to i5 4690k later ,
then maybe asus maximus ranger mobo later when funds permit
should be able to eb@y old mobo and cpu for not far off brought price . (didnt oc ram cus cpu wont support ).
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