Upgrading RAM for better gameplay/speed ???

[spiegel549]

Hey everyone. I have been playing some recent games on my late 2009 white macbook like World of Warcraft. I have to play on the lowest settings and its very slow when running other windows in the background. With my current specs below I was wondering what my MAX amount of RAM would be that I can upgrade to? and if someone could please offer me a link with the type of affordable RAM that I should buy. Also will upgrading the RAM help with running faster??

Current Specs:

Late 2009 Macbook (White)
Processor: 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB graphics

Thanks!

 

[throAU]

RAM will most likely NOT help.

RAM will only help if you can confirm that the machine is spending a LOT of time writing and reading the disk. If lowering detail helps, its more likely your GPU not keeping up and that has nothing to do with RAM.


Bear in mind your GPU is 4 years old now, and a mobile GPU which was not cutting edge when it was released.

You can't expect it to run things on high detail, when games are aimed at the current mid-range desktop GPU and above - and even they won't run most games on full detail properly. Depending on the game, running full detail may require a top of the line, current desktop GPU.

My MBP below needs to run most current games (e.g., Borderlands 2) on lower detail settings (and lower res, like 1280x720) as well to get properly smooth performance.

 

[spiegel549]

RAM will most likely NOT help.

RAM will only help if you can confirm that the machine is spending a LOT of time writing and reading the disk. If lowering detail helps, its more likely your GPU not keeping up and that has nothing to do with RAM.


Bear in mind your GPU is 4 years old now, and a mobile GPU which was not cutting edge when it was released.

You can't expect it to run things on high detail, when games are aimed at the current mid-range desktop GPU and above - and even they won't run most games on full detail properly. Depending on the game, running full detail may require a top of the line, current desktop GPU.

My MBP below needs to run most current games (e.g., Borderlands 2) on lower detail settings (and lower res, like 1280x720) as well to get properly smooth performance.

Thank you for the information. If I wanted to put 2x 4GB memory sticks on RAM into my macbook. Could it handle it? I read somewhere on an official apple site it takes max of 4GB but I have read in forums such as this that it can take 8GB.

What do you recommend? Can it take 8GB? It is worth the upgrade of $70? I don't want to go for a new computer. Couldn't hurt adding all that RAM right??

THANKS

 

[throAU]

RAM won't hurt and if you can take 8 gig it will help other stuff.

Your best bet would be to look up your model on www.macsales.com and verify what it can take.

 

[scbond]

I wouldn't go beyond what Apple recommends. They do so for a reason and that reason will usually be stability based for RAM. For example, the 2012 MBP can have 16GB max. but is recommended to have 8GB if upgrading from 4. People have upgraded to 16GB and often found that it causes more problems than it solves. Even seen some people claim it slowed things down but how valid that is I don't know.

The issues your having, as said earlier, will be down to the GPU and CPU. If you want to run the game on higher settings then look to upgrade to a more capable computer and not waste money on RAM which won't hurt but won't do anything either.

 

[minifridge1138]

I haven't come across anyone that said adding more ram (assuming it was faulty or defective) that saw their machine slow down. They may take longer to boot because part of the Boot process is a hardware / ram check. The more ram it has to check, the longer it takes to check.

Often, Apple rates the max ram for a model based on what RAM is common at the time.

When the 2009 Mac Pro dual CPU came out, 4GB sticks were common (but expensive). It has 8 ram slots, so they rated it at 32 GB of ram. Four years later and 16GB ram sticks are common (but expensive) and they work just fine in the computer, but Apple didn't go back and re-verify that the computer is stable.

There is an upper limit on how much RAM OSX can see at 96GB.

Good Luck!!!

 

[spiegel549]

RAM won't hurt and if you can take 8 gig it will help other stuff.

Your best bet would be to look up your model on www.macsales.com and verify what it can take.

THANK YOU all for your responses. I just ordered 8GB of RAM from the site you recommended from the above quote. If it does not help with my gaming, at least it should speed things up for multitasking and running several programs at once. THANKS AGAIN!

 

[throAU]

I wouldn't go beyond what Apple recommends. They do so for a reason and that reason will usually be stability based for RAM. For example, the 2012 MBP can have 16GB max. but is recommended to have 8GB if upgrading from 4. People have upgraded to 16GB and often found that it causes more problems than it solves. Even seen some people claim it slowed things down but how valid that is I don't know.

Thats pretty much BS.

Apple list specs for a max of whatever they max out at because they don't like providing an excessive amount of options.

The chipset (which determines RAM capacity) is made by intel, and intel spec the chipset for X GB of ram, which is often double or more what apple state, or provide options for.

If you buy garbage ram (super cheap and dodgy), buy the wrong spec, or have faulty RAM then of course you will have problems. But that is the case whether you go for the size apple lists, smaller, or larger. It also happens on PC as well - I've hard to return/replace faulty RAM in PCs.


Modern Macs are just PC boards with a very nice enclosure and peripherals, apple's EFI and OS X. In terms of the chips used they are nothing particularly exotic any more.