DOUBLING THE RAM

Well finally and after an inordinate amount of time my 4GB Corsair RAM Memory finally turned up and was quickly installed inside my laptop.

I got a couple of shocks when I opened the case as firstly there was a second and empty drive by and SATA connector, scratched my head on that one, while the memory sticks were actually manufactured by Samsung?!

I removed the 1GB stick and swapped the 2GB stick into the second slot and fitted the new 4GB Corsair in place, close it back up and booted up Windows 7.

The one thing I knew I could run to see if there was a difference was Microsoft Office, albeit STARTER, as just running Word would previously take around 15 seconds before I could start typing?! I ran it and there was a slight pause and just when I was starting the think nothing would change it then appeared in a flash, not gradually as it would previously. Oddly, and likely due to being held in the Cache Memory after this clicking on it would have it appear IMMEDIATELY and this had never happened before, not even close!

So that was nice!

Was not sure, as I have been out of this tech research for awhile now, if the Graphics shared portions of RAM with the OS so did not know if it would make any difference to actual gaming at all and though frame rates might not be affected, only played Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion this far, I did suspect strongly that the 3GB RAM having these games and Windows 7 vying for it would make a difference. I had some curious peculiarities before hand and often Elder Scrolls would crash upon starting and this would always be due to another program firing up late and while Oblivion was first loading. Rather amusingly this particular and late loading program turned out to be a gaming one called Origin which for all intents and purposes seems to be Electronic Arts answer to Valve's Steam!

Well I have run Oblivion a few times and have not had that crash so far.

What I did think would change is that I ordered a game that I thought was somewhat ambitious to try and run if I am honest and this was only because I was having doubts I would get the previous versions to run on Windows 7. That games is the car rally game called DiRT 3 and in this the between game graphics go slow, VERY SLOW. Indeed when I first installed it I could not believe how slow it started up and how long it took to get to the first menu screen, choosing options or even just moving around the menu was absolutely excruciatingly painful and I nearly un-installed it and tossed it to one side until later in the year.

This was just bad programming and all other games I had installed checked out the graphics hardware first and then set it appropriately so it was instantly smooth and I could then easily adjust the settings and bump things up a bit. Even when the hardware was NOT recognised the settings were suspiciously always set to MEDIUM.

DiRT 3 did not do that and gave me the impression this was a none starter, but NO. I now run the game and it runs very smoothly but not before several fist clenching and keyboard headbutting first!! LOL!!

I have not run DiRT 3 yet nor any of the others, X3 Reunion/Need for Speed-Hot Pursuit/Fallout 3 yet so cannot comment on them. But as far as X3 is concerned it would bot be relevant because this game runs on MAXIMUM SETTINGS?!

Oddly and I have not looked into it yet the resolution on X3 only goes up to 1600x900 and I am curious about this as I am sure that this is a resolution for a 4:3 screen and kept thinking surely the monitors were largely wide screen 16:9 when this was launched? So now I think I should have bought a more up to date version of the game!! Like one out about now called X3 Albion Prelude or the earlier X3 Terran Conflict and maybe even the forthcoming X REBIRTH?! Now that running on maximum settings on my laptop with no problems would be kinds cool while at the same time disappointing as if I did manage to build a desktop PC at some point I would want that new X REBIRTH to look as good as is possible on the latest hardware!

So I guess I hope it would run and look fantastic on my laptop while only being on medium setting?! HAHA!

After seeing the empty hard rive bay I have been thinking now about an SSD and an Upgrade Kit and I am also wondering if another 4GB stick would no make much of a difference.

Now telling myself to resist these urges for more RAM and an SSD!!