GP2: EDO vs. "normal" RAM?

I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... Thanks, -- Tirolintie 2 A 308 90530 OULU ?81-5507134 This is a witty quote. Really.

>I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if >using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price >difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... I found about a 2fps increase with ICR2 when I switched from 70ns RAM to 60ns EDO RAM. Clark

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> >I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if > >using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price > >difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... >I found about a 2fps increase with ICR2 when I switched from 70ns RAM to 60ns >EDO RAM. >Clark

OK... I have a P133 with 16MB 70ns standard 72 pin RAM. What is the difference with EDO? How about from a physical standpoint? When you say "switched" do you mean that you just swapped the memory on your existing board? Is that even possible? Could I add 16MB EDO to my existing system? Curious, -- Ralph Schwarz, Toronto, Canada.

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> I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if > using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price > difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... > Thanks, > -- > Tirolintie 2 A 308 > 90530 OULU > ?81-5507134 This is a witty quote. Really.

Hi Vesa, It depends on what secondary cache(L2) the motherboard is equipped with! Is a "cheap" asynchronous cache or is the motherboard equipped with a more "expensive" synchronous cache? Its a matter of wait-states! The best is to have both(EDO and Synchron L2 cache)! Regards, /Rolf

I doubt it VERY much because GP2 doesn't really use RAM to make the game faster, it's all on the CPU. The RAM is mainly used for storing hot laps etc.

I think the frame-rate increase is due to the drop from 70ns to 60ns. I have an option on my computer o change back and fourth between EDO and NORMAL in my BIOS, But the head guy I bought it from said it wulden't make much differance, "you can change it if you want" --Kai Fuller INR Magazine: http://www.git.net/bretzman/inr.html Team Fuller

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>> I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know >> if using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price >> difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... > Hi Vesa, > It depends on what secondary cache(L2) the motherboard is equipped > with! Is a "cheap" asynchronous cache or is the motherboard equipped > with a more "expensive" synchronous cache? Its a matter of wait-states! > The best is to have both(EDO and Synchron L2 cache)! Regards, > /Rolf

Hi, I got the folloing text from german friend, and it explains how EDO and cache effects on your computers performance when you use modern motherboard: (taken from c't 2/96 page 216) on system ASUS P55TP4XE, P100 CPU, ELSA Winner 2000 Pro/X 4MB, NCR-SCSI Adapter, IBM DPES-31080 HD: BAPCo95 suite benchmarks--win95 benchmark 256kb PBcache/"normal RAM": 328 256kb PBcache/EDO RAM : 338 512kb PBcache/"normal RAM": 331 512kb PBcache/EDO RAM : 342 BAPCoNT suite benchmarks--NT benchmark 256kb PBcache/"normal RAM": 254 256kb PBcache/EDO RAM : 259 512kb PBcache/"normal RAM": 262 512kb PBcache/EDO RAM : 265 These numbers tell you that EDO give 1-3% _overall_ performance boost. When testing memory only, EDO RAMs are 10-15% faster than "normal RAMs". -- Markus Pelkonen

EVERYTHING in the game is held in RAM, and the quicker your CPU can access that data, the quicker GP2 (or any program) will operate, EDO-RAM is faster than standard DRAM, although there's not much in it. Very few DRAM manufacturers are making standard memory any more, so you may have trouble AVOIDING EDO-RAM! :) Cheers! John _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ ________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____/ * Sim Racing News * \____|::|__| \ /______:/ \::/ http://sneezy.dcn.ed.ac.uk/simnews/index.htm \::/ \._____\ http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~harmon/simnews

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> > I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if > > using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price > > difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... > > Thanks, > > -- > > Tirolintie 2 A 308 > > 90530 OULU > > ?81-5507134 This is a witty quote. Really. > Hi Vesa, > It depends on what secondary cache(L2) the motherboard is equipped with! > Is a "cheap" asynchronous cache or is the motherboard equipped with a > more "expensive" synchronous cache? Its a matter of wait-states! > The best is to have both(EDO and Synchron L2 cache)! > Regards, > /Rolf

I can't get to the original Vesa Slotte message so I just post it here. Fist of all, I have a P120/256kB PLB-cache/8MBDRAM->16MBEDO/Stealth 64 1MBDRAM. After I got GP2 I found the fps-rate pretty annoying. At that time I had 8MB DRAM. Because I wanted to get WIN95 anyway, I immediately went out to get 16MB EDO RAM (and found the right place for it, I saved HFL 170,- ($100,-) by calling around first). After I installed the stuff, the first thing to try was GP2 (what's more important ...right?). That was some disappointment. No difference. But than I saw the light (well...I hoped so). The DRAM I had was 70nsec, the EDO is 60 nsec, so timing could be faster. And since I can change RAM-timing in my BIOS.... (BTW it's probably not possible in every BIOS, but in most). Most timing-settings were at maximum, I decided to put them all at minimum (No pain no gain). In cases like this I always test by starting Windows (3.11 at this moment), if Windows runs fine you can be pretty damn sure anything else will run great. And it did (and does). So back to GP2. I tried and found the processor-oc. about 8% lower (with the same options at the same place (pits) at the same track ofcourse, 96% instead of 104%). Happy me. BTW I also downloaded S3SPDUP wich gave me a pretty good boost. (it's only for video-cards with S3 processor, like mine: Stealth 64 1MB DRAM). My processor- oc. went down about 12% (Again with the same options in the pits at the same track {Monaco?....OH YEAH Monaco). I heard it doesn't work with all S3 card's though. If you want to try it, you can download it from : http://wwwmath.uni-muenster.de/~mesched/ For SVGA-mode start the driver with S3SPDUP VESA For VGA-mode start with S3SPDUP VGA And to anyone who wonders how such a link is put in a message : simply type it in your text, it turns into a link by itself (ok...the software does that). BTW I also tried overclocking to 133MHz, but my CPU can't handle it. Damn!! ************************* Dreammaster rules again *************************

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>>I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if >>using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price >>difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... >I doubt it VERY much because GP2 doesn't really use RAM to make the >game faster, it's all on the CPU. The RAM is mainly used for storing >hot laps etc.

Vesa, As a general rule EDO RAM plus Sync-burst pipeline cache is much faster than normal DRAM. Just make sure that when you upgrade, it is to a 'triton' chipset MB with 256K Sync-burst pipeline cache. Then you can use the EDO & get full benefiet from it. Putting EDO in a normal MB probably wouldn't do much compared to normal DRAM. But using EDO with the sync-burst cache will have a big performance gain.

>I think the frame-rate increase is due to the drop from 70ns to >60ns. I have an option on my computer o change back and fourth between >EDO and NORMAL in my BIOS, But the head guy I bought it from said it >wulden't make much differance, "you can change it if you want" I have a triton II 430HX chipset board (THE performance chipset, if you believe the hype) and I could only afford 16mb EDo to put in it. I benchmarked the video performance with various utils before sticking another 8mb of FPM RAM in to make 24mb total. I set the BIOS to FPM timings and benchmarked again - zippo difference. In the end, no combination of EDO and/or FPM RAM had any effect at all on frame rates. Just my experiance but I'd say don't get your hopes up guys..... - ....We are dreamers, shapers, singers and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner. Holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ.... -

>I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if >using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price >difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... I doubt it VERY much because GP2 doesn't really use RAM to make the game faster, it's all on the CPU. The RAM is mainly used for storing hot laps etc. -------------------------------------------------------- eh??? Now there's a unique theory!

: >I'm planning to upgrade my 486/66 into a P133, and I'd like to know if : >using EDO RAM would make any difference in framerates? The price : >difference isn't that big, but it's a few pints o' beer anyway... : I doubt it VERY much because GP2 doesn't really use RAM to make the : game faster, it's all on the CPU. The RAM is mainly used for storing : hot laps etc. This reply is rather ill-informed. There is a correlation between CPU performance and RAM performance. Be real, the CPU has to use RAM to store the instructions to run the game. As others have pointed out, there is no yes/no answer to the posters question. First, how is Vesa gonna upgrade his 486 into a P133. What type of motherboard is he going to use (will it take full advantage of EDO RAM)? What size L2 cache will he have and what kind (a 512 cache can increase CPU performance on a 133 by 7%). What BIOS will be on the machine (will he be able to tweak memory speeds/timing)? In other words, there is no easy answer to the question. However, if his motherboard fully supports EDO-RAM, I would say that a few pints o' beer are well worth going for EDO-RAM. Now if the price was a keg o' beer.... -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

difference with EDO? How about from a physical standpoint? When you say "switched" do you mean that you just swapped the memory on your existing board? Is that even possible? Could I add 16MB EDO to my existing system? << It depends on if your mother board supports it (edo ram). Take a look at its documentation. If it does support, just snap them in and you're done. !^NavFont02F0164000FMGJHGECMGEEHH6513FF -- 08/14/96 18:48 --------- Using: OUI PRO 1.5.0.2 from http://www.dvorak.com

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>>> OK... I have a P133 with 16MB 70ns standard 72 pin RAM. What is the >difference with EDO? How about from a physical standpoint? When you say >"switched" do you mean that you just swapped the memory on your existing > board? Is that even possible? Could I add 16MB EDO to my existing >system? << >It depends on if your mother board supports it (edo ram). Take a look at >its documentation. If it does support, just snap them in and you're >done.

I changed my P133 from 60ns standard ram to 60ns EDO ram and the gplog.txt file didn't change a bit. I used another benchmark test, and it showed no improvment either. I also added extra Pipeline Burst cache, was 256 now 512, and computer seems to run a little better in windows, but again, no change in gplog.txt file. Just an "informal" test, though. Craig Marcho

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>>> OK... I have a P133 with 16MB 70ns standard 72 pin RAM. What is the >difference with EDO? How about from a physical standpoint? When you say >"switched" do you mean that you just swapped the memory on your existing > board? Is that even possible? Could I add 16MB EDO to my existing >system? << >It depends on if your mother board supports it (edo ram). Take a look at >its documentation. If it does support, just snap them in and you're >done.

THis is true. Generaly if your MB has sync BURST pipeline cache it will work. EDO with normal cache with function but you probably would not see a performance gain. You need the BURST pipeline cache...

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>!^NavFont02F0164000FMGJHGECMGEEHH6513FF >-- >08/14/96 18:48 >--------- >Using: OUI PRO 1.5.0.2 from www.douglasellison.co.uk

... Ehhh, isn't it the other way around? If you have PB cache you won't see any difference but if you have asynchronous cache EDO will make your computer (much) faster. I would like to check with you people out there though: What about going for 512 KB instead of 256 KB PB cache with 32 MB EDO and a P166 (running mostly simulations). Will there be any difference over the 256 KB m/b cache only? Michael -- Michael Legner Tel: +46 13 18 55 64 Saab Military Aircraft Fax: +46 13 18 41 22