22 Jun 2006 at 17:00 - 18
10 to 1, your problem is your connection, not your RAM mate.
RAM is Random Access Memory. All it does is hold processes in itself while they are active. Such, you have a program that is saved onto your harddrive and is not being used, then it just basically sits in the harddrive. Now, if you load and or "open" the program, it is loaded into your RAM. Therefore if you think your program is running in your harddrive, it is not, it is runnning in your RAM. The amount of RAM you have determines how many applications you can maintain open at the same time.
This said, the recommendation of RAM on the side of the box for Guild Wars is just to keep you from filling up your memory. Guild Wars is a large program and takes a good bit to run, but it CAN run on 256MB of RAM. The reason 512MB is recommended, is to keep your PC from trying to overdo itself. Now of course, there are multiple other thigns that RAM does help with, and the timing of the RAM is another big thing as well, but seeing as how you do not know very much, it would be best not to go to much into detail because it might get confusing.
Now, a question you may ask is, well, should I buy more RAM? The answer to this question is simple:
"Dude, you got a Dell."
No offence to the great people at Dell, they do make decent home and office PCs as well as excellent servers, but if the rig wasn't made for gaming(like the XPS), then chances are it won't run a game well. Yea, you threw in a nice video card I'm sure, but there are still a lot of other things that can determine the performance of the PC when you are playing a game. (MoBo, CPU, Sound, etc.) Just in hopes to prevent the PC from ever overdoing itself, please get the extra 256MB of RAM. But, from what I am thinking, you most likely will not tell a difference. Although, there is the chance that with your Windows processes and GW running, the RAM is getting full, but you can always check that in the Task Manager while GW is running, and you would experience a constant lag inside the entire game if this was the case. You say you are experiencing lag at the end of a map load. When you are loading these maps, you are not laoding them from the program itself, you are connecting to load these maps. Have you ever noticed when you load a map it says, "Downloading files 2 of 576," or something to that effect? You are using an open connection to download the files for the map, it is the same case when you load the map, you are using an open connection to load the map, therefore your connection speed comes into play.
As for what RAM to buy, there is yet another simple answer to that question:
"Dude, you got a Dell."
On Dell's home and office rigs, unless you pay for one of their more high dollar machines, they are going to use very generic sticks of RAM. Therefore, your timing is going to be off unless you put the exact type of RAM that is in the PC now, but in honesty, the timing really doesn't matter for you. I wouldn't worry to much about what brand to get, yea some brands stick out more than others, but they tend to be more expensive. When buying RAM for a machine like this, I would just look for memory names like: Kingston, Corsair, OZ2, etc. All of these companies have good reputations, and chances are, they won't raid your wallet. With the type and size of RAM you need, it may be hard to find it in your price range. In truth, I wouldn't be to picky, and just go with whatever you feel. Newegg is probably the cheapest place to look though.
Edit: Also, this is something that I came across, and you can read more about it in the thread I started, "At my wits end with CPU usage, Pls View!" You said you added a monster video card, you need to go online and check how many watts your power supply is, and how many watts are recommended for your video card. This most likely has no direct link to your problem, but can cause your whole computer to be fried, if your not careful. If your video card needs more wattage than what your PSU gives out, you need to get a new PSU. If your video cards asks for the exact amount your PSU is asking for, then I would still consider getting a new PSU, something at least 100 watts more.
and idk really the rest.. not a huge computer tech guy. Anyways when entering a new area .. I.E. explorable area/town/outpost the screen will stay for about 30secs-1minute the same in the loading screen even though its done loading. This is Extremely annoying when trying to play PVP because by the time its into the game its 30secs into the game or later and i already lost. it will also lag lil right after the loading screen goes away. HELP! i have run spy sweeps and everything .. the only thing i could possibly think is wrong is all the programs on my comp... cuse its a family comp *glares at family* and it has a lot of programs.... HELP ME!?
