Graphics Card vs Integrated

[Bribe]

Talking budget. I have the laptop already and it has not dedicated card. It has no PCI bus so I cannot buy a graphics card to plug in.

It has 1GB of RAM currently and I have read I can upgrade to 2GB (and it would not cost much for me to do so).

The thing is I am just trying to find out, will adding more RAM also help in supporting wc3 gaming (by giving the integrated card something more to chew on)?

 

[Gilles]

More RAM would help a little, so it just depends on how much you're paying for it. Personally I probably wouldn't bother upgrading my laptops RAM, I'd just save for a new one.

 

[Magtheridon96]

Don't worry about that
Warcraft III uses 132 MB of RAM.
While playing a well-coded map, it would use no more than 180 MB
Leaky maps however tend to consume GBs of RAM quite fast :/ (Not my EatRAM() function's fault )

 

[Bribe]

Well the thing is when you have lots of processes in the background, such as World Editor and some Notepad program are typical, plus all the system processes and antivirus,

Yeah I need to upgrade the RAM

 

[Gilles]

It seems you've already made you're decision.

 

[BlargHonk]

Well the thing is when you have lots of processes in the background, such as World Editor and some Notepad program are typical, plus all the system processes and antivirus,

Yeah I need to upgrade the RAM

Why spend $50 on a stick of outdated RAM when you could just save that $50 for getting a new laptop, which you will have to eventually.

 

[Bribe]

Because the new laptop won't be within the wife's tolerance for a few years.

 

[Gilles]

Because the new laptop won't be within the wife's tolerance for a few years.

Save the $50, spend it on her, buy a new laptop after.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Programs that run in the background with no majorly active threads do not consume as much memory as you would imagine. If your system starts to be memory starved it pages out the majority of such programs. Additionally, WC3 itself might not need all its data that it has loaded so areas may be paged out.

More RAM would reduce page faults. The only time this would be noticable is if you really run out of memory (WC3 suddenly upgrades to SC2 so the working set is stupidly large) or if you alt tab from WC3 to a program that has almost entirly been loaded onto disc (many survear page faults).

Although modern intel chips are getting there with their intigrated graphics, I think even the most basic dedicated card works better.

 

[Bribe]

Save the $50, spend it on her, buy a new laptop after.

I just spent 90 euros on her yesterday, she has no problem with using my money

I can treat myself!

And Dr. SuperGood, yes I am having pagefaults sometimes. During some phases of debugging I might have IE, Notepad++ WE and WC3 open at the same time, plus all the background nonsense that Win7 Starter generates.

 

[Magtheridon96]

Now I know why my computer is so fast!
I don't have Anti-virus
XD

 

[Edhel-dur]

As far as I know from my experience and experience of other people....

90% of the time it's always best to have a graphic card rather then an integrated one.

 

[Gilles]

As far as I know from my experience and experience of other people....

90% of the time it's always best to have a graphic card rather then an integrated one.

So 10% of the time it's better to have integrated? I'm curious when integrated is better than dedicated.

 

[Bribe]

When you need a low power solution.

Or when you're too dumb to use a computer for anything besides internet browsing, checking emails and some word processing.

 

[Gilles]

When you need a low power solution.

Or when you're too dumb to use a computer for anything besides internet browsing, checking emails and some word processing.

Well yeah, costs wise, but it's still not "better" in any measurable sense.

 

[Bribe]

I know a graphics card equipped machine will be better for me I was just wondering if upgrading the RAM helps at all with handling the graphics. Even 1%.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The low power excuse is not going to be valid much longer. Already with OSX machines they turn off dedicated graphic cards when the intigrated card is more than is needed as to save power. Windows 8 will most likly also support this.

Only with Windows 7 and older OS machines is having a dedicated card a waste of energy as they lack the ability to seemlessly switch between dedicated and intigrated graphics.

 

[Gilles]

I know a graphics card equipped machine will be better for me I was just wondering if upgrading the RAM helps at all with handling the graphics. Even 1%.

Yes, it will help you run games on higher settings. Barely.

 

[Dr Super Good]

More memory could allow you to run games with high quality textures as texture resolution has limited to no effect on performance at all with enough memory.

However, textures alone will not compensate for the fact you will have to run shaders on low (so many texture layers might not even be loaded or used).

 

[Bribe]

Thanks DSG, that makes sense that textures would run faster, because
that's just the kind of thing you'd think would depend on RAM.

For me, I have been having to run my textures on low to get good FPS,
so this should be an immediate improvement.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

The general idea is that RTS games are heavy on the CPU rather than RAM and GPU. So if your interest is to have better performance in WC3, upgrading RAM won't have a significant effect.

 

[Bribe]

Well playing warchasers, for example, there are lot of handles generated so you need a lot of RAM to support it.

I think this game is more RAM-heavy than anything else.

 

[BlargHonk]

Right, Wc3 usually takes under 256mb.

And I can run Warchasers fine with a Pentium 3 and Rage 128 Pro :/


DirectX 6 is where it's at baby

 

[Bribe]

Well consider the earlier posts where I mention how much shit I have running. 256 is 1/4 of my RAM, and I've seen my wc3 go up to RAM in the 300-400 range easily.

 

[BlargHonk]

Still within range

And once again, 600mhz Pentium 3, ATI Rage 128 Pro, 256mb of RAM

Ran fine. Except in Farmers vs Hunters, the sheer spam of sheep and pigs overwhelmed it.

 

[Dr Super Good]

plus all the background nonsense that Win7 Starter generates

And once again, 600mhz Pentium 3, ATI Rage 128 Pro, 256mb of RAM

Yes BlagHonk, it does work fine at those specs but do remember that Windows 7 does expect more memory than XP or whatever out of date OS that old system used.

 

[Bribe]

I miss Windows 2000, the last stable build of Windows.

 

[BlargHonk]

Yes BlagHonk, it does work fine at those specs but do remember that Windows 7 does expect more memory than XP or whatever out of date OS that old system used.

I miss Windows 2000, the last stable build of Windows.

Yep.

 

[Gilles]

Ran fine. Except in Farmers vs Hunters, the sheer spam of sheep and pigs overwhelmed it.

Likely the limits of the engine, not the computer.

 

[Adiktuz]

oh, a win7... yeah, I guess you better upgrade that RAM...