I am running a program called SysMatrix allowing me to see how often my games are using way more RAM than I ever thought possible. Computers these days are equipped 128MB and up. RAM is temporary storage, when the computer is turned off or restarted, anything in RAM is erased. RAM is actually a physical chip inside the computer.
When running Star Wars Galaxies, the system often uses more than 900MB of RAM . Everquest II does exactly the same thing. Now I know the game will only allocate up to 750MB of RAM but this doesn't account for the RAM that is used for HDD activity and other things that might be going on in the background.
I have quite often had people tell me that RAM can't possibly be slowing down their PC, I have 1GB! But if Windows XP is only been left with less than 100MB of RAM , expect some pretty serious slow downs in your gaming experience! In the two games I have tested so far, Star Wars Galaxies and Grant Theft Auto, both have given me similar results. You get slow downs and pauses when using only 1GB of RAM and they are almost 100% eliminated when you go to 2GB. So today boys and girls, it's 2GB for the win on anything that has large maps and lots of models - ie. most large world games.
