what is RAM????!!

[warmerplace212]

well i thought RAM is just something that transfer the data between your processor and your graphics card but a friend of my said that RAM stands for that you can open more applications in the back ground and my other question is,is it necessary to have high ram and yes i think at a minimum of 8gb would be anought for gaming 

 

P.S sry if i typed something wrong  basic english 

[79wjd]

8 is enough for gaming right now (although we're getting close to when it won't be enough). 

 

RAM is basically a large cache for the CPU to help imrpove performance. Anything you're working on will be loaded from your HDD (which is very slow) into RAM to make your computer and your programs run faster. 

[TidaLWaveZ]

It's storage in the form of integrated circuits that allow the stored data to be accessed in any order, Hence the name Random Access Memory.

[warmerplace212]

so none of neighter were right actually  and still thank you djdwosk97 <3 

[TheCaptain53]

RAM, or Random Access Memory, is a temporary storage medium to hold stuff that needs to be accessed quickly by the CPU to process it. For example, you fire up an application, some RAM will be allocated to it. The CPU will be able to access the data quickly to process it rather than relying on slow storage mediums, such as an SSD or HDD, to retrieve on-the-fly data.

VRAM is a specialized type of RAM that is optimized for graphics cards. They have incredibly high bandwidth and hold things like shadow maps, textures, etc etc.

[ImBleu]

Random Access memory, It's a super fast (but volatile) hard drive. Basically your harddrives/SSDs are too slow to keep the programs/process being used active, so thats where ram comes in, it takes anything used from the HDD/SSD and makes it easier to access.

 

Thats a very dumbed down explanation.

 

Anywhere from 8GB - 16GB is sufficient

[TidaLWaveZ]

2 minutes ago, warmerplace212 said:

so none of neighter were right actually  and still thank you djdwosk97 <3 

 

Actually my comment is 100% correct, I don't know what kind of RAM you're talking about if you think otherwise.

[warmerplace212]

no sry i meant that i was wrong and my friend was wrong  sry for that 

[Paralectic]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory

[warmerplace212]

nice example huilun02  

[TidaLWaveZ]

3 minutes ago, warmerplace212 said:

no sry i meant that i was wrong and my friend was wrong  sry for that 

 

LoL ok.  I was about to say what the hell is this dude talking about.

[SaladFingers]

What you had in mind was probably VRAM, which is pretty much your GPU's RAM. Graphics cards have their own memory to ensure faster communication between it and the graphics chip without having data go through the motherboard and to the system's memory instead.

 

RAM on the other hand, like others have correctly mentioned above, is for the whole system. It's a very fast form of storage that is volatile (that means it only holds on its data while it's powered on, once the power is cut it loses everything) that's supposed to work as some kind of cache to make things faster. Non-volatile storage options are HDDs and SDDs, but are considerably slower. Anything stored in RAM will be accessed really fast and that's why the more you have, the more stuff you can have running without lag. Since there is space for programs to put the files they constantly need to access in there, saving up constant read/writes on your drives which would wear them out and result in a much slower performance.

[SaladFingers]

15 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

If your store room is a hard drive (or storage drive), then RAM would be a table.

 

A room can hold a lot more items, but it will take you some time to dig out what you want.

A table grants you visibility and quick access to whats on it.

Great analogy.

[Jokerlolz]

57 minutes ago, warmerplace212 said:

well i thought RAM is just something that transfer the data between your processor and your graphics card but a friend of my said that RAM stands for that you can open more applications in the back ground and my other question is,is it necessary to have high ram and yes i think at a minimum of 8gb would be anought for gaming 

 

P.S sry if i typed something wrong  basic english 

This(a video from Linus) might be just what you need to get a better idea of what RAM is:

 

 

 

[Djole123]

RAM or Random Access Memory is a type of volatile memory (it means it's gone whenever you lose power or turn off your PC) which serves as a help for a CPU to finish given tasks, for example, if you are editing a text file in Office, RAM temporarily stores your document, and because it's faster than a harddrive, you can edit it without seeing a lag. When you close it, you are prompted to save or discard changes. If you save, the data from the RAM is copied to an HDD, and stored. Most typical types of RAM are DDR2, DDR3 or DDR4, depending on how old your computer is. 

 

For normal day to day use, 1GB is enough, but if you don't have enough RAM, it will use your HDD or cause an overflow, resulted in reboot.

[Prolapser]

4 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

8 is enough for gaming right now (although we're getting close to when it won't be enough). 

 

RAM is basically a large cache for the CPU to help imrpove performance. Anything you're working on will be loaded from your HDD (which is very slow) into RAM to make your computer and your programs run faster. 

barely. games are using more than 8gb. get your facts right.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Prolapser said:

barely. games are using more than 8gb. get your facts right.

What game requires more than 8gb of ram.... BO3 is the only thing that comes to mind and it was fixed within a week. 

 

[Prolapser]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

What game requires more than 8gb of ram.... 

just look at gta 5 or advanced warfare.. personally they ran better with more ram.

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, Prolapser said:

just look at gta 5 or advanced warfare.. personally they ran better with more ram.

if you're streaming and doing tweleve other things in the background, sure. Otherwise, no, both of those games run just fine on 8gb of RAM.

[Prolapser]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

if you're streaming and doing tweleve other things in the background, sure. Otherwise, no, both of those games run just fine on 8gb of RAM.

I notice you have 8gb and therefore haven't experienced it yourself.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Prolapser said:

I notice you have 8gb and therefore haven't experienced it yourself.

Why don't you go find me a single benchmark (that isn't from within the launch week of a game) showing that a game needs more than 8gb of RAM. 

 

And I've had 16gb of RAM in my system, I just didn't need more than 8gb so I through the other 8 in a different build. Hell, for a couple weeks I managed with 4gb in most games when I had to RMA a bad DIMM. 

[Prolapser]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

Why don't you go find me a single benchmark (that isn't from within the launch week of a game) showing that a game needs more than 8gb of RAM. 

 

And I've had 16gb of RAM in my system, I just didn't need more than 8gb so I through the other 8 in a different build. 

I didn't say need, I said it ran better. and there is a ue4 tech demo that requires more than 8gb to not run like utter shit! boy and kite.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Prolapser said:

I didn't say need, I said it ran better. and there is a ue4 tech demo that requires more than 8gb to not run like utter shit! boy and kite.

Really, so your only source is a tech demo, not even a game...and you don't provide a source of any kind. More memory isn't going to magically improve performance if you already have enough (and 8gb is still enough). 

[Prolapser]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

Really, so your only source is a tech demo, not even a game...and you don't provide a source of any kind. More memory isn't going to magically improve performance if you already have enough (and 8gb is still enough). 

I didn't say it wasn't enough, but games will use more than 8gb for sure and call of booty ran better with 16gb

[79wjd]

36 minutes ago, Prolapser said:

I didn't say it wasn't enough, but games will use more than 8gb for sure and call of booty ran better with 16gb

I'm still waiting for a source.