What Does RAM Do For Gaming?

Seasoned gamers would always want to have the best gaming system to make their gaming experience more realistic. However, things may not always be straightforward, especially when it comes to putting your gaming tools together.

There are several things that will help gamers get high gaming performance they crave. And having a fast RAM for your gaming system is one of them. For the system, there is a need to get the right RAM speed to have a great experience.

Again, you will need a good RAM speed if you are building your personalized workstation PC. The question now is, what does RAM do for gaming and how much RAM do you actually need?

What is the importance of RAM?

RAM (Random Access Memory) is the section of your computer that stores contents and variables used by your system. It’s a temporary storage space where all your active variables are stored.

Your game is actually loaded in your RAM. So, it becomes active when you launch the game. If you have faster and bigger RAM, it will have enough space to store more data. This automatically improves your gaming experience.

You are not just able to store your temporary files and information. The RAM reads and writes the information faster. This surely improves your overall gaming experience. Just as RAM improves system performance for word and office processing, it improves system performance for gaming as well.

RAM improves processor-based performance

Gaming requires the system to multitask itself. This is where RAM plays an important role. To store memory of large magnitude, it will require a larger RAM. When you have more RAM, it improves performance.

If your system is too slow to process data and experiencing delays, one of the most obvious solutions is to increase the amount of RAM it has. You can speed up the storage performance with larger RAM. That’s the major importance of a larger RAM. But it may not be the only issue to contend with. You still need to check the system frequency as well as a hard disk.

RAM does not improve visual based performance

A higher RAM will only improve the performance of your processor. It does not improve graphics performance. And to have a realistic gaming experience, you need high graphics performance as well. So, better system hardware (motherboard) should complement your RAM if you need to have the best gaming experience.

But the speed and performance of the RAM depending on a lot of other factors too. These include processor speed, latency, dual data rate, number of channels, bandwidth, and frequency. If you have a bigger ram but a low frequency, it will affect the overall performance of the RAM. Everything needs to be up on the same level of the RAM to actually enjoy its performance.

How much RAM do I need?

Games for PC usually have memory options. But for many games, the barest minimum is 4GB of RAM, whether for desktops or laptops. Remember we said this is the minimum. It does mean there are some high-end gaming that may require more amount of RAM. There are some few games that need better RAM to run them effectively.

Laptops with 8GB of RAM will perform well in almost all gaming situations. On the other hand, you will need a ram of 16GB for a gaming desktop if you are looking at superior performance.

However, you should note that your RAM does not deal with the command process like the CPU. So, you may get better CPU performance with higher CPU frequency. But this is not the case if you have high RAM frequency. That’s the reason why having an additional RAM speed does not always equate to better RAM performance.

How much RAM is enough for gaming?

If you are looking for a RAM strictly for gaming, a capacity of 8 GB will most likely be enough for you. Yes, it is more expensive to choose a higher RAM. But it will be a bonus for you in case you want to play other high definition games in the future. And another important thing is to have a system that supports the RAM size. Otherwise, the large RAM will be a waste.

Your motherboard is not choosy when it comes to latency. But it is better to select a RAM with low latencies. This will keep the performance level in line with your RAM.

Generally, your programs will not run if the executing system programs are more than the amount of free RAM in the system.

Conclusion

RAM plays a very important role in the performance of your gaming system. If you are a seasoned gamer, you will need all the tools to make your experience an enjoyable one. This means you will need a higher RAM of at least 8 GB. However, remember that RAM along will not provide all-round gaming performance. There are other factors like latency and frequency (measured in GHz). So, if you are upgrading your gaming system RAM, make sure it complements another aspect as well.