memory upgrade

[thatruth]

For the longest time my pc had 512mb of ram so today I went and bought myself an early xmas present and got two 1gb sticks.

Just installed them and already noticing faster load times on the web. Will I notice anything faster when playing SoZ single or playing on the server? I'm hoping for faster load times between transitions. Those who have partied with me probably noticed I'm almost always the last one through when transitioning.

Also, does it matter what rank the new sticks are in? When I viewed setup it said the 256's were in rank 1 while the 1gb's were in 2. If i switch the bigger ones to rank 1 will it make a difference?

[Beldar]

Pretty much everything should be quicker.

It should not matter which rank the sticks are in, but you want to be sure that you have them arranged so that you get dual channel operating properly. Usually, your memory slots will be color coordinated so that this is straightforward to do. Just be sure that the 1gb sticks are in the same pair of slots. You might check your motherboard documentation - I think some boards have issues with heterogeneous (different size sticks) in different ranks. This issue would most likely manifest by disabling dual channel. Your BIOS screen might tell you if dual channel is enabled. If not, you can always try benchmarking with the 512 installed and with it removed. If performance is better without the 512 installed, then dual channel operation is probably getting disabled.

I did have a bargain basement ECS motherboard at one point in time that had to run slower timings on one of the ranks. You probably should check your motherboard documentation to be sure.

Congratulations! I am sure you will enjoy the extra memory for virtually everything you do on your computer.

[mammothtruk]

pull your old 256 sticks out of the board truth. then stagger your new 1gb sticks so there is a space between them. this will ensure dual channel mode. that extra 512 isnt going to do as much as you want AND dual channel is much much faster on access time so you will see a speed improvement from there. the old sticks will have different timings than the new sticks and this will disable or cause issues with dual channel.