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this sound like swap file access to ye?

  • 05-11-2006 02:20AM
    #1
    generalmiaow
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 865 ✭✭✭


    I recently replaced my aging X850XT and 3200+ with a 512mb 7900 GTX and a 4000+ generously overclocked and stable. I figured I'd check what my games looked like when I upped the details and filters a bit (I'm not talking 1600x1200 8x aa or anything, just enough to impress the flatmate :), and everything's cool in the framerate department, but a fewer of my games and in particular quake 4 seem to be suffering from frequent disk access, which is wreckin' my buzz a bit and which I wasn't getting with my old setup on lower detail levels. I'm not too sure what detail levels and resolutions I was using then so it's hard for me to recreate everything as it was, but the chokepoint of my system IMO is the RAM - as in the fact that there's only 1 GB of it at the moment. It seems likely to me that the disk access I'm getting, and my computer is taking longer getting back to usability upon exiting the games, is because of swap file access because of my relative lack of ram. Having a look at the graph in task manager seems to show page files uage going up to 4 times its normal, around 2GB (I don't know if that's a lot but it sure sounds like it) The drives are the same as I was using before and were fast enough; the only thing that confuses me is that all I'm presumably doing by upping the details is loading more textures into the video memory, which should be enough based on what I've seen before.

    Should RAM shortage and resulting swap file access follow from merely increasing the eye-candy? I need to know so I can justify buying more ram when I do my budgeting. It just seems strange as quake 4 ran okay for me even with 512MB and a 128MB 9800pro ten months ago... albeit at 800x600 with very low settings


Comments

  • #2
    8T8
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,757 ✭✭✭8T8


    The simple answer is yes, running with higher textures at very high resolutions does consume more system RAM. For a "smoother" experience you would want to generally have 2GB. As for RAM well get any old stuff capacity is really more important than low latency stuff unless you can afford both.

    If you have enabled it don't bother with the Ultra setting in Q4 that makes all the textures uncompressed and eats away at GPU & system memory for an IQ improvement that is really isn't worth it, leave it at the high quality setting.

    Also doesn't hurt to defrag your hard disk either.


  • #3
    generalmiaow
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 865 ✭✭✭generalmiaow


    Thanks fot the help 8T8. Turns out Ultra was enabled all right. Auto-detect put it on, then it turns out it was 500MB of texture memory. I was wondering because the framerate was fine, just the crazy disk activity was problematic. Now it runs perfectly with AA and vertical sync at the same resolution - though I'm sure I'll find another reason to buy RAM anyway :) Also good to know I don't need super-fast ram to be playing at reasonable settings, just lots of it.


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