How do you know if its ram or processor slowing a game?

[yoda313]

Ok. I've got halo 2 for vista and it works pretty well. However there are interminable slowdowns during mission loads and initial startups.

The darndest thing is gameplay itself seems uneffected. I have recently upgraded to an nvidia geforce 8400 256mb pci-e video card. So this shouldn't be the real problem. It is a real direct x 10 graphics card so halo2 should like it.

I have a 1 gig of ram installed on my vista pc. Is this the bottleneck? The minimum requirements for the game are a 1gig of a ram. Is this the problem? I have ddr2 ram on my system. Here are the cpuz stats:

ddr2 dual channel

1gig installed

12clocks cycle time

fsb:dram cpu/5

512mb module size -

pc2-4300 (266mhz)

qimonda - manufacturer - serial number 64t64000hu3.7b

Should I consider buying at least a single 1gig ram chip to bump up to 1.5 gig total ram? Would that make a difference? Or are today's games so demanding that 2gigs of ram should be considered minimum?

By the way I have an amd 64 3800 2.4ghz processor. The game requirements are for a 2ghz processor so that would not seem to be a constricting factor.

Edit - supposedly hp is saying my computer can only do a max of 2gigs even though 32bit vista can handle 3.3gigs. Here is the type I can upgrade too:

2GB (2 x 1 GB) DDR2 PC2-4200 (2 DIMMS)

Now does it matter about the number after pc2? The 4200? Can that rating be any number? Can you have any mhz rating on the ram? What are the restrictions?

[rallynavvie]

Load times and such I'd wager it's your hard drive. I'm unsure how Vista utilizes pagefile with it's new file system (or if it even still does) but you may want to mess with that some. It may also be incompatibilities with Vista. Does the game actually say it supports Vista?

More memory probably wouldn't hurt, especially since you're running Aero and IIRC the minimum for running all that is 1GB. 2GB is going to free up more for application that are not the colossal-resource-grab that Vista Aero is.

And shouldn't this be in the computer forum? Have a mod move this topic

[yoda313]

And shouldn't this be in the computer forum? Have a mod move this topic
_________________

Actually its concerning video games hence the reasoning in putting it in off topic

It may also be incompatibilities with Vista. Does the game actually say it supports Vista?

Actually HALO 2 is one of the first VISTA only games on the market new this year.

minimum for running all that is 1GB. 2GB is going to free up more for application that are not the colossal-resource-grab that Vista Aero is

Good point. I hadn't considered that.

Thanks for the info.

Another question on ram:

With dual channel DDR2 do you have to purchase new ram in equal sets? Would I be able to buy just a gig stick and bump it to 1.5gigs? Is that doable in this setup?

[guns1inger]

1 GB is fine for the OS and Office. 2 GB is required to do anything meaningful

[yoda313]

thanks guns1inger.

[rallynavvie]

You should probably get a matched pair. Anything that says "dual channel" makes me think it needs two equal sticks.

[yoda313]

Well first things first I'm downloading the latest nvidia drivers. The set that came with the card are 158.18 and the newest is 162.22. I'm gonna see if that might offer some improvement.

Another thing is I'm gonna hope over to microsofts website and see if there are any updates for Halo 2 itself. There may be a patch available. I'm still running off the initial install straight off the disc. There may be tweaks avaialble.

I'll see if this helps at all.

EDIT - It was the drivers!!!

I guess the ones that came with the card were from the winter this year. The new set works great. Even the cutscenes are working now. There is still some stuttering in load times but its a zillion light years better than before. Well this saved me about a 100.00 in ram. I may still upgrade the ram down the line but at least now I know that I can run these games well enough now.