Which computer component upgrade will enhance my SoR performance the most?

[xenofur]

component importance in ryzom:

1. ram - the more you have the faster you load and the less lag due to caching you experience.
2. motherboard - ryzom is hard on ALL data transfers on the computer without exception, that means between: ram, hdd, cpu, gfx card. if you have a cheap motherboard you will ALWAYS be downing your fps, since more time will be spent in simply moving data instead of actually processing it.
3. cpu - ryzom is a very complex game and besides displaying the landscape the client is always very busy doing thousands of other tasks. the difference between a good and a bad cpu is most obvious when many people are around. normally there is not much to do for the cpu, but as soon as a lot of action happens on the screen it goes into overload. with a crappy cpu you might have 40 fps during normal hunts and 3 as soon as more than 20 toons are on your screen.
4 - gfx card, obviously draws all th enice images, but as long as the other components are sub-standard it will not be running at full power, but always waiting on the others to get done, so in terms of upgrading it is the least important. (unless you have an nv gf4mx or something)

[ajsuk]

Thanks, Aina & Morg.

[foxarius]

I'd say go with the second gig of ram first, and then the new GFX card if you've got cash to spare. You can also upgrade your processor extremely cheaply since you're going with AMD...with the release of Intel's new Conroe chips, AMD had to/is slashing prices since they just got their butts handed to them.

[amitst]

There is too much conflicting information here.

Most people's bottle neck is the processor. Most people's instability is from non-Nvidia graphics cards. Some people's instability is heat issues,

Ryzom only needs a basic card if you get Nvidia. Geforce fx5200 or better pretty much. Only use the High graphics setting if you have more than 128 megs of ram, as the game uses a little more than it says it does always, and if you ever go over your video ram then you suffer greatly.

Ryzom only gets the best benefit from about 600 megs of RAM, so if you have a gig your good. If you want more then whatever, RAM is alot cheaper than a processor.

Ryzom won't take advantage of a dual core, so getting a faster single core processor will directly increase your FPS.

So it depends where you start from for what matters most. Ryzom loves fast processors. For AMD I would say the minimum for a truly smooth experience all the time is a amd64 3800+. For Intel I would expect that anything over 3 GHz would perform well.

[rushin]

i know it really doesnt help any with you deciding but

Ryzom only gets the best benefit from about 600 megs of RAM, so if you have a gig your good.

that is so not true. i've built my pc from scratch started playing ryzom with a 3200+, 9200SE, 512mb and now have x-2 4200+, 6800 ultra, 4gb. upgrading the ram from 512-1gb, 1-2gb, and finally 2-4 has done the most to improve my enjoyment. the difference between having 1 and 2gb is massive, ask anyone i played with when i upgraded to 2 how long i spent ranting about how amazing it was

the gfx card made it look pretty (from this to this) but the ram removed lag, slashed loading/tp times, took away crashing completely.

[ajsuk]

i know it really doesnt help any with you deciding but



that is so not true. i've built my pc from scratch started playing ryzom with a 3200+, 9200SE, 512mb and now have x-2 4200+, 6800 ultra, 4gb. upgrading the ram from 512-1gb, 1-2gb, and finally 2-4 has done the most to improve my enjoyment. the difference between having 1 and 2gb is massive, ask anyone i played with when i upgraded to 2 how long i spent ranting about how amazing it was

the gfx card made it look pretty (from this to this) but the ram removed lag, slashed loading/tp times, took away crashing completely.

Have to agree with Rushin here. I was pretty much in the exact same boat. I've been there from 512, to 1gig to 2gigs noticed improvments each time. 2 was finaly something I was very happy with and removed all my lag & crashing issues.

[cogent]

I've got 2 gigs of RAM coming for my PC this week. I'm going to put it to the test. I've got a good card (ATI X800XT Platinum) but CPU isn't that great.

I'm hoping the 2 GB of RAM is going to make a difference. It's not that the game is unplayable now with 1 GB, I'm thinking the extra 1 GB is going to make a good difference.

Here's to hoping!

[ajsuk]

I'm sure it will, enjoy!

[magick1]

Additionaly (since we are on the RAM thread. Get it? RAM, thread. :rolleyes , note that performance can increase when you go from single stick (512) to two sticks (1024), since most motherboards can run in dual channel and interleave. Also why performance can increase when you go from two to four stick.
Timeings on the RAM is important too, DDR400 (to pick one) only tells you the speed of the data bus, not how fast the RAM performs.
*starts to speak in techno babble*

[qatzer]

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that 1 gig of ram is only £40.

I personally would not recommend buying "cheap" ram. I've been building pc's for 10 years now and cheap ram has proved to be the biggest cause of crashes and incompatibility. I've had a lot of cheap ram eventually go faulty too. Cheap = slow with all things pc related, ram is no exception.

I currently have 2 Gig of OCZ ram (£160), along with an Athlon 64 4000+ and a 7600GTX Extreme and this game runs absolutely perfectly with all settings at full (including AA and AF). I never get any lag and I haven't had a single crash. My son has a Radeon X800 and a 3.2Ghz P4 and his runs great too (again, 2 gig of decent ram) proving that the graphics card and processor, while important, do not have to be "uber" to get good performance in this game at the best graphics settings. (incidentally, we're both running at 1280x1024, if you're using a higher rez than that then the graphics card will be more of an issue)

Ram is definitely the single most important thing where mmo's are concerned no doubt about it. If you want smooth gameplay you need 2 gig. If you can stretch to 4 gig you can turn your windows swap file off which is even better. But don't buy cheap rubbish.