Luthier, anyone; which ram is which?
 

With the release of Oleg's new sim just around the corner, I look forward to streaking low over London (either in pursuit or being pursued). I'm thinking of finally building a new gaming rig, and have a question about those scenes being rendered fluidly: which ram (spec) will that be most impacted by? System ram, or video ram? Or am I way off base as to what will help render smooth frame rates low over London?
thanks for the advice/technical sharing,
Flyby out

During the expo there was pronounced stuttering over land and towns/cities. They said that the machines provided had only 2GB of RAM. I'm thinking that you're going to want 4GB minimum. A huge amount of Video RAM is usually more helpful when rendering massive textures or resolutions (most of the time).

I'd probably say, "buy what you can afford".

BTW: What is your monitor's native resolution? This will help dictate your decision.

For low over cities you're gonna need as much raw MHz from your CPU as is humanly possible. Multi-core will help and all that but sims like this are very CPU dependent, especially with all the polygons in those buildings, AI, FM, DM, etc.

Go for fast low-latency ram and hey, if you can afford it, it wouldn't hurt to install the game (and OS) on a RAM-drive either.

Unless you are running muliple monitors 2 gb video memory is a waste of money. (not completly true today though since for ex. 6950 1gb/2gb costs almost the same)

More ram would be better than faster ram. Lower latency is good but not at the expence of total ram. You be better with 4GB of average speed DDR2 than 2GB of fast DDR3.

Thank you all for the replies. My intent is to buy a 27 inch monitor, but with only 19x10 or 19x12 resolution. I already have an i7-920 (for over a year, and it's never been installed in a mobo! DO stepping, btw; it's been hard times up to late). My wife's pc has a nice 24 inch Asus monitor with 2ms gtg. I like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236103
Since I intend to OC the 920, I'll select at least 6gigs of some good ram. The rest is just picking an OS, mobo, power supply (in case I want to go either X-Fire or SLI) HDD, and peripherals. I have a Cougar setup and some Elite Rudder pedals ( I even have an extra Cougar, NIB).

I've been without a gaming PC for several years, and now I can afford one, finally. So I want to get as much video card as I can. The GTX570 and the AMD?ATi 6970 look to be in my price range. Can't have too much GPU ram, imo (near term future-proofing). Plus, when the time comes, I can buy another card when prices drop, and double up.
Now to just remember how all this stuff goes together! :D
thanks again!
Flyby out

Try and put off the new system as long as possible since components are only going to get cheaper. You never know when Intel/AMD or Nvidia/ATI will decide to cut prices to move more product before the next big release or something to that effect.

Up to a point, but yes, go for 4GB over 2GB for sure but not 8GB over 4GB. Ram's cheap enough anyway so it's best to get a good reliable brand, maybe with some overclocking room.

Just dont go under 4gb of ram whatever you do.
Try to get 6gb if possible, that seems the current sweet spot for mid range PCs.

He could as well wait and see what AMD offers, they are due in Q2 with the bulldozer(i7 920 is enough for CoD)
If the Bulldozer sux he can still invest a crapload for a mobo - if it doesn't; he could sell off the intel stuff and switch the whole system.

Furthermore it remains a mystery to me why ppl buy a GPU in January when they need it no earlier than end of March.
Gpu prices only go one way, but hey, whatever makes you tick.