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Lower memory timings and Command Rate is still the main factor influencing performance in this game. However, what the graphs doesn't show is that with 2 GB and 4 GB, there's no stutter at all on the first run. That's good, since in reality you don't really play the same level over and over again to avoid stuttering.


Despite being a quite 'new' game, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory behaves pretty much the same whether you have 512 MB, 2 GB or 4 GB with any kind of timing.


Performance graphs are poor indicators of just how smooth a game runs with large amounts of memory. But then again, they're meant to show performance over a span of time (average fps) and of course, can't capture per second frame rates (or with less than a second time measurements). We could display an fps progress graph, however, some stutter occur at random points (Battlefield 2) or occur in less than a second. So, even an fps progress graph can't really capture it. In this situation, a subjective evaluation is more appropriate - we can tell you that from experience during testing and gameplay, 2 GB and 4 GB plays exactly the same with no stuttering as opposed to 512 MB. At least in games that do need the extra memory such as Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R and Quake 4.

Let's look at the load times.

	In msec			In percent
	CL 2 1T 256 MB	CL 3 1T 2 GB	CL 3 2T 4 GB	CL 2 1T 256 MB to CL 3 1T 2 GB	CL 2 1T 256 MB to CL 3 2T 4 GB
Battlefield 2	152692	44108	44903	-71.11%	-70.59%
Call of Duty	5061	4910.33	4987	-2.98%	-1.46%
FEAR	33988.33	3594	3778	-89.43%	-88.88%
Quake 4	256521	19782	19767.33	-92.29%	-92.29%
Serious Sam II	9960.33	8270.33	8198	-16.97%	-17.69%
Average				-54.55%	-54.19%

Well, the most obvious differences will be in Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R and Quake 4. 70 to 90 % less time to load is quite something - from basically 4 minutes to just about 20 seconds in Quake 4. Of course, those savings are actually the same regardless. of whether you have 2 GB or 4 GB. The games (or all applications for that matter) only care about memory larger than what it needs, not how much larger. So, why choose 4 GB? Well, despite what the developers and everyone suggest, some people do like to run other programs on the background when they're playing, particularly if you're online. More programs running at the same time means you have to have more resources, so if you're one of those people, you might want to consider 4 GB instead of 2 GB. After all, the performance difference if you're using an Athlon 64 system is minimal and memory modules are cheap these days. Those who might need that extra bit of performance could opt for 2 GB, probably with 4 single banks 512 MB modules capable of lower latencies (2.5 or maybe 2). They are available, but you have to be willing to pay more money for them than the standard, value oriented modules.

Conclusion:

Having more memory won't provide you with higher performance (lag free gaming), but it will help stuttering issues with some memory hungry games. Only timings does, but your mileage may vary with your processor. However, not all stutter will disappear, only those related to memory. Stuttering caused by loading a map / level or saving a savegame will probably not disappear with having more memory. These are storage related stuttering, and we'll look into solving those issues in another article. As we said before, if you're experience lag in gameplay and you've updated your drivers and apply the latest game patches, you will likely have to use a faster processor and / or graphics card or turn down some details or the resolution you're using to play the game.

With an integrated memory controller, the Athlon 64 is less prone to memory tweaks. Processors with less bandwidth potential such as a smaller cache processor (like the Sempron) or a bandwidth starved one (higher multipliers) will probably benefit more than our Athlon 64 3500+. However, the impact will likely be at most 10%, which is consequently the same performance difference between the Athlon 64 3500+ and it's higher clocked sibling (the Athlon 64 3800+).

Even with lower timings and Command Rate, you will likely experience an increase in performance no more than 3 to 7 percent, with the most gain (overall) is achieved by changing Command Rate from 2T to 1T. Using low latency modules does provide some performance increases, but they either don't have as big of an impact or you have to pay more for these low latency modules.

That said, there are other benefits to having more memory - if your applications and games are able to make use of it. Much less stuttering (what we're focusing on this article) and far shorter load times are what we've shown here today. Newer games are making use of higher resolution textures and more texture layers (texture, specular, normal maps, etc). If you're planning to run games at their highest setting, preferably with a fast, high end graphics card, your PC must have the extra memory to store all those data. 2 GB should be enough for these new games and for most users, but if you can tolerate the slightly lower performance of using Command Rate 2T, you can upgrade to 4 GB. For lag free gaming, we still recommend 2 GB over 4 GB, since games requiring more than that is unlikely to appear within 1 or 2 years down the road.

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