RAM/Graphics question. PB

Ok so I have two of these both 15" (look at link below)

http://support.apple.com/specs/powerbook/PowerBook_G4_15-inch_Double-Layer_SD.html

My question is this.. The only difference between the two is the fact mine has 2gb ram and 120gb hd. my wifes has 1gb ram and 80gb hd. Hers is in the shop so she loaded her game on my computer Sims 2. She is trying to tell me that her graphics are better on her machine than on mine. all the sims settings and computer settings are the same. We have the exact same graphics card. Is it possible that 1gb more of ram will somehow make the graphics on my machine worse than hers somehow?

Thanks!

kodorsean said:

Ok so I have two of these both 15" (look at link below)

http://support.apple.com/specs/powerbook/PowerBook_G4_15-inch_Double-Layer_SD.html

My question is this.. The only difference between the two is the fact mine has 2gb ram and 120gb hd. my wifes has 1gb ram and 80gb hd. Hers is in the shop so she loaded her game on my computer Sims 2. She is trying to tell me that her graphics are better on her machine than on mine. all the sims settings and computer settings are the same. We have the exact same graphics card. Is it possible that 1gb more of ram will somehow make the graphics on my machine worse than hers somehow?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

No it's not possible. Your wife is either teasing you or is looking at her own machine with a little more fondness. Or, it's possible, that the graphics settings have been tweaked within the game on her machine.

Besides, the GFX quality on thatgame is determined almost entirely by the gfx card.

Zoolook said:

No it's not possible. Your wife is either teasing you or is looking at her own machine with a little more fondness. Or, it's possible, that the graphics settings have been tweaked within the game on her machine.

Besides, the GFX quality on thatgame is determined almost entirely by the gfx card.

Click to expand...

I thought it was just crap

I figured with 1gb more memory it might actually be faster and look a bit better?

kodorsean said:

I thought it was just crap

I figured with 1gb more memory it might actually be faster and look a bit better?

Click to expand...

How the game looks is dependent on the rendering capabilities of the gfx card and the in game settings. You say they are the same, so there should be no difference. The performance (i.e. the frame rate) may be affected by the amount of RAM or the configuration of your machine. More RAM should equal better performance.

Now if her machine had 256MB of GPU RAM and yours only 128MB, it would be possible for her machine to render higher quality textures at a higher resolution than yours, at the same frame rate. As soon as the GPU runs out of RAM is starts storing textures on the system RAM, which is slower, but this should not affect IQ.

There are two other things you could check. One is the Anti-Aliasing settings of the gfx card - I think this can be set system wide, so if she has a higher AA setting than you, then her gfx will look better. The other is AF (Anisotropic Filtering), which can make textures look a lot better so if her settings are forcing this in game, it may look better than yours.

Can you see a difference yourself?