Well, my posts keep getting deleted off the MC forums (arguably mostly because they are responses to a troll, but damn, trolls can be amusing).

Anyway, there was a discussion where some members seemed to agree that RAM never equals performance. My post on the matter was:

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Run Vista/7 on a system with 512MB of RAM.

Upgrade that system to 4GB. The performance improves. If RAM doesn’t increase performance, than this is only explanable because of MAGIC.

RAM improves performance, but only to a certain point. (which is what you guys are saying, just not very well).

For example, even for Minecraft, RAM matters; less physical memory means more swapping means more jerkiness loading chunks. But beyond 4GB, I doubt MC would see any performance improvement, at least not directly; superfetch might cache chunk file data, which would increase chunk loading, and it can only do that with extra memory which wouldn’t otherwise exist, so there is that; but there is a point of diminishing returns. However to state that those returns do not exist is foolish. MC would run better with 32GB of RAM than with 16 or 8; but the difference would be nearly inperceptible, and certainly not worth the massive price difference.

In response, I got the following:

Hey look dumbo fumbo is back…
YOU ARE STUPID!
READ THE POSTS
IT SAYS: Ram isn’t everything, though each system should get a fair amount of it.
CentrallyProcessed just said that.
No one mentioned 512mb of ram, what are you 2002?
No one needs a 10 minute wall of text…
You probably got that off WIkipedia, since that is pure bs in there.
The only time you need 16gb of ram for minecraft is using a biomebuster…
Plus Minecraft only takes up 912mb of ram…
Press f3 and see that…
Unless you change it of course.
If Notch made it so that minecraft takes 912mb of ram, then you can’t argue with him.

Which though an obvious troll, could not go unpunished:

Hey look dumbo fumbo is back…

AHHH MY FEELINGS!

YOU ARE STUPID!

Well that’s not very nice, but I suppose a true friend would be honest. Perhaps everybody else is just trying to protect me from that truth. I commend you on being a true friend and pointing out where I falter. Thank you.

READ THE POSTS

I did. In fact, the one I was responding to- which was echoed in a few other posts, was quoted quite clearly in my posts.
[quote]IT SAYS: Ram isn’t everything, though each system should get a fair amount of it.[/quote]
I find this curious. You say I am stupid, but you are unable to use the appropriate pluralizations. You speak of “posts” (plural) but then you say “it says”. Obviously this is just a slip-up, easily forgiven, but it makes it difficult to understand what specifically you mean, since I wasn’t addressing all the posts, only those that shared in the thought that I felt was mistaken that more RAM never speeds up a PC. One could argue also that I was attempting to dissolve what certainly looked to be a circle-jerk, too.

CentrallyProcessed just said that.

He also said:

“It entirely depends on the CPU and GPU” < No one mentioned 512mb of ram, what are you 2002?

They didn’t have computers in 10 A.D so I don’t follow your logic. If I was that old I’d probably be pretty famous.

People mentioned Memory. are you arguing then, that 512MB of memory is not memory? At what size does RAM become RAM? 512MB is a valid amount of memory, and when you add memory to a system with 512MB of memory using a modern OS, performance improves. This is an undeniable fact. replacing 4GB of memory in a system with 8GB will improve performance as well; same with 16GB over 8GB. Whether it improves to a point that makes it worth that investment is questionable, but the improvements do exist.

No one needs a 10 minute wall of text…

Actually, the length of text is typically measured in characters, or words- not time.

You probably got that off WIkipedia, since that is pure bs in there.

Possibly; I am certainly open to refutations of that which I said that are based on intelligent arguments, observations, and other such evidence. Unfortunately, calling me a “dumbo fumbo” does not constitute either an intelligent argument, and observation, or evidence, so I cannot rightly accept that as a valid refutation.

The only time you need 16gb of ram for minecraft is using a biomebuster…

I never said anything about minecraft needing any particular amount of Memory. I said performance would be better, for the most part because of the better utilization of the memory in most cache schemes for keeping file data- in minecraft’s case chunk information- in the standby pool. Whether that increase is negligible was not debated; in fact I specifically pointed out that the difference would not be worth the investment. However whether something is worth the investment and whether there is a difference that exists are two separate points.

Plus Minecraft only takes up 912mb of ram…
Press f3 and see that…

The minecraft F3 debug screen displays the size of the java heap, which directly relates to the size of data that is being used by the uncollected game objects, but has no bearing on the other structures used by the Virtual Machine, nor does it contain memory consumed by objects resurrected during finalization (which hopefully doesn’t happen). The real information on the memory usage can be readily seen using task manager, process explorer, or, on linux, ps -a -v. I started minecraft on my windows system when I started this post, about 5 minutes ago at this point, though don’t put too much weight on that, I’m also conversing in IRC and uploading a few files via FTP); it has been paused since. it’s virtual memory usage- according to process explorer- is now idling at 1.2GB; This was sitting in one place, so that is essentially the minimum it will probably use, at least at the various settings I’ve chosen. if I was to play the game, memory usage would undoubtedly go up as new objects were created, and more chunks were kept in memory and lazily unloaded. However, whether Minecraft uses more memory than is installed cannot be used as the single judge of whether it would improve performance.

You see, Windows, like all modern operating systems, is a protected mode, pre-emptive multi-tasking environment. Processes share memory; this is done by mapping physical memory into the virtual address space of each process, so they all think they “own” memory. this also isolates the memory of each process (‘protecting’ the memory of each application from other applications, giving us the moniker “protected mode”.). Of course, in order to act on memory, it needs to be in physical memory. Memory data in is swapped to and from physical memory as needed by way of a pagefile; if you run an application that allocated over 2 gigabytes of memory, but leave it sitting there, eventually none of it’s data will be in physical RAM, instead replaced by the data of other applications that needed it, and entirely swapped into the pagefile. If you then switch to that application and it accesses some of what it allocated, the required pages will fault, and the memory manager will swap that data back into physical memory.

The advantage here is that because various applications, services, and other applications run at the same time, you cannot think in terms of what a single application would need, because you never have a single application running.

Also, of particular note is that much of the performance improvement from more memory on modern systems is seen by way of disk caching technologies such as Superfetch; more memory means that more of the “unloaded” chunks that minecraft has saved to disk will in fact be saved in memory, meaning that reloading that data from the disk (from the perspective of the game) will occur much faster. These benefits can be seen by comparing a 4GB and a 8GB system; wandering around a world, chunk loading will be slowed by I/O, but returning to some areas will load faster, because those chunk files’ data is still in the cache. with more memory, more of that data can be cached for faster access. Chunk management is a central task performed by minecraft; it is indisputable that improving the speed of that chunk management would improve the overall performance of the game itself. The fact that the memory that is used to create that increased performance isn’t mapped into the virtual address space of the game is not relevant.

If Notch made it so that minecraft takes 912mb of ram, then you can’t argue with him.

Notch didn’t make it that way. that is how the Java Virtual Machine manages the default java heap size. However, as I noted, the java heap size in no way reflects either the total commit charge of the process nor does it have any bearing on the availability of memory for use in tasks such as Superfetch. While I was amused by your attempts at derogatory comments toward me, I refuse to respond in kind. Which is most certainly a benefit in your favour, for my ability with language would certainly come up with something more creative than “dumbo fumbo” which in no way makes sense.

See, the best way to insult somebody is to take advantage of their weaknesses. At the moment, I am unemployed, (well, not legally, but let’s not confuse the issue, we’re trying to insult me, not write a book) so if I may suggest, you should certainly make light of that. Perhaps an insult such as “if you’re so smart why don’t you have a job” or if you want to condense it, “dumbo jobless”. however I think we might be best to eliminate the “dumbo” element altogether, particular since it, at least in my case, provides the image of elephants with big ears, which is actually kind of funny. My ears are not of a disproportionate size, either, so it doesn’t really fit, nor am I sensitive about the size of my ears. However, I’m sure you can think of something! Good luck. I look forward to your intelligent witticisms. Or perhaps you will simply make light of how long my post is! You could surely do that, and it saves you even reading. the bad part is that if somebody does read it, they will see this last part, see your reply, and realize that I in fact predicted your behaviour, which could reflect poorly on your character as being far too predictable.

Unfortunately the post was deleted, both mine and the trolls, which was sort of shame. Good thing I drafted it in gedit. Past here for posterity. Also because it has some interesting info on memory management.