what must RAM do su you can play a game???

[timmyhawky]

wtf must RAM do to play a game?
when i think about that, i think always the processor or video card

[GCFreak]

Your entire PC is lagging when it comes to games, not just your RAM. Tell us your budget and we can give you links to what specific parts you'll need to build a new computer.

Wow, lucky I can understand n00b Lol just joking.

[TerraPhantm]

RAM is basically a high-speed storage. The game loads the data it needs to access quickly in the RAM. If you don't have enough ram for the game, it has to resort to the harddrive which is very slow compared to ram.

[timmyhawky]

thx TerraPhantm, but WHAT loads it??? i meant i want a eXample of what e.g. showing worlds
too thx 2 gcfreak, but i don't have enough money 2 buy new parts( and the system specs i entered are not mine, the ones of my pc are cpu:150mhz
gpu: 2mb RAM:32mb )
i only wanted 2 know what RAM must do

[Trotterwatch]

If you want to run something it must be stored in some sort of memory, you can have it stored in cache (on the proccessor - very small) - in memory (RAM) or on the Hard Disk.

Cache is fastest, yet smallest. Ram is faster than cache but more plentiful, and HD is slow but is guaranteed to have the data on it.

If you are running a game and you hear your Hard Disk making a lot of sound (working a lot) that will most likely be due to the fact your RAM isn't enough for the application you are using.

Note:

Having a lot of RAM doesn't make up for shortcomings in your other hardware - having 9gbs of ram wouldn't make up for having a 150mhz CPU for example.

[Doomulation]

Typically, for a fast processor, 1 ghz of ram is adequate. Or at least, recommended, when playing games.
The ram is quite slow, if I may say so, but still much, much faster than the HD, so having plentiful of RAM is a good thing.
The fastest memory available is the processor cache. It is much, much faster than the ram.

[ScottJC]

All applications large and small (yes a game is an application too) use your computers ram to store instructions, textures, text... what have you. If you do not have a lot of ram the operating system stores these things in a thing called the page files (or virtual memory) which is located on the hard drive.

So in that situation what is happening is the computer loads from hard drive, then writes back to the hard drive immediately. the Hard drive cannot read/write to itselfs very quickly and this is called Hard Drive Thrashing. with a lot of ram this is far less likely to happen.

Coupled with the fact that the hard drive is slow anyway, it becomes up to 10 times slower when reading and writing to itself. Like others have said, compared to ram the hard drive is a very very slow piece of kit.

The reason we don't use ram for hard drives is because ram will lose its content when you turn the machine off, also its more expensive. All of this what i've said is just how the hardware is designed to operate, it was a great idea to begin with and it just continued.

[timmyhawky]

Note:

Having a lot of RAM doesn't make up for shortcomings in your other hardware - having 9gbs of ram wouldn't make up for having a 150mhz CPU for example.

but i've heard about hardware emulators so u can use hardware 2 increase the peformance of other hardware, so i think 9mb RAM shall help(but not a lot)

[Doomulation]

Uh... emulating is slow. You can't speed something up through emulation, so that's no true. And you meant "gb" not "mb."
Furthermore, 9 gb memory is a waste pretty much, because that much memory will not ever get used today (not to mention motherbords don't support that much ram), thus it will just lie there, untouched as to say. Waste of money - and space.

[Trotterwatch]

And you meant 1 GB ram earlier Doomulation, and not 1 Ghz

Anyways this topic is going nowhere.