Does More RAM Improve Gaming Performance?

Usually, any upgrade to 4 RAM is a good move and will improve gaming experience. But anything in the range of 6-8 GB is pretty good. Going to 12GB you might not really notice any real difference at all since everything will be maximized. Then, it is just an issue of CPU capability and GPU for graphics. If anything, I would strongly recommend upgrading your GPU. But if the GPU is integrated into the MOBO... then, possibly upgrading to 8GB ram might give you a noticeable improvement.

more ram is usually needed when your computer starts to take so much that your laptop is starting to lag, rarely for games, some like The Witcher 3 say that they require 8gb ram.

i believe a good option it would be like Luchingador suggests to have 2 sticks of ram from the same manufacturer and same frequency. From what i checked with your laptop i believe that the max frequency that it supports is 1600 and max ram is 16GB.

so id suggest to ask first what frequency that ram you saw has. and getting 2 ideantical ones from that shop

With that setup: no. Simple as that. It might improve performance a tiny bit, but that GPU will never be able to run modern AAA games. Also, for games the processor speed is more important as the amount of RAM (especially if you already have over 4GB RAM anyway). You're better off buying a couple of good older / indie games for that 40 bucks.

Basically if you want to play modern AAA games, you'll need to get a new pc and I recommend going for a desktop and not a laptop. While there are decent laptops out there, desktops are usually better (and cheaper) for gaming.

...your laptop has the same amount of ram as my phone.
But it's most likely your GPU which is bottlenecking, upgrading ram wont do that much. Just close chrome ;P

Are you using win 32 or 64?

Your GPU is slightly worse than the one from PS3, which is worse than the one from XBOX 360, so it is got about 17% of XBox One GPU performance. So it will run at most games created for last gen consoles. And they had up to 512 MB RAM. Dedicated PC games usually were indie games (and in most cases they will either run at 60+ fps even now, or won't get anywhere near 30 fps) or high performance games which were too demanding to run on consoles. With only few exceptions like Civilization V.

Also integrated GPU does not have it's own RAM, but it shares it with system memory. In short - the memory speed is the problem, not how much you have it. (At least if we are talking in the 6-12 GB range) So switching to 8 GB Dual-Channel configuration with high speed and low latency will bring bigger improvements than jumping to 12 GB. But bigger improvements means increase by 1 fps instead of 0,5 fps.

Skyrim will probably won't improve at all with 12 GB RAM. Witcher 3 would improve, but it probably won't get close to 10 fps anyway. The same is with GTA V.

Sorry, but with that GPU there is almost nothing what you can do. Modern games are usually made for minimum 800 GFLOPS - 1 TFLOPS GPU's, and Intel 4000 is in 200 GFLOPS range. Also it is missing few hardware features so in real life usage it performs more like 100-150 GFLOPS GeForce/Radeon.

Changing RAM won't have any noticeable effect. The only thing that would make a difference is changing the GPU (Video Graphics) which you can't do on most laptops.

Also Skyrim is capped at 4GB, you could have a trillion GB RAM (well you can't really :p) and Skyrim would still only be able to use 4GB max.

You should download more RAM !

i think everyone should be running at least 8Gb at this point so maybe replace your 2Gb stick with another matching 4gb stick. and call it a day but its not going to help a whole lot on a laptop with a integrated gpu:(

More RAM probably won't help too much, probably just a bit. With an Intel graphics card, you won't get too good performance anyway.

Any boost of memory is wasted on a laptop. Save it for a real gaming computer. No need to waste $1000 on them either, for high performance.

Neaa the problem for you is the GPU , I have 16 GB of RAM on my laptop but those are not for games . For gaming you need a good GPU a good CPU and a good HDD or a SDD, 6-8 GB of RAM is enough when you go to 12-16 GB believe me you don't see the difference in games :D

You dont bump the duke, he bumps you

Ram is not your problem, try adding an SSD for the operating sistem and a few games. Helps with "loading" times, and lag. If your laptop supports another hard-disk slot.
Changeing GPU in a laptop ? I will not get into that.

IMHO The small increase is not worth the money, as the benefit will be mostly cut down by your Intel HD graphics 4000 card. You may acquire a good and cheap machine with guarantee at sites like amazon (post-leasing). I would wait for new computer. Joined and thank you.

While adding more RAM won't benefit gaming, if you use your laptop for other things, you could at least swap the 2GB stick with a 4GB one.

Despite the usual warning, getting two identical sticks isn't required at all, although they should have at least the same configuration.

By "configuration", I mean the way the memory chips are placed on the stick, they're either all on one side, or split between the two sides.

You don't even need them to have the same speed, just make sure that the second one is at least as fast as the first, the memory controller would take care of the rest.

It would eventually increase performance somehow if you:

1. disabled page file in windows if you haven't already (you should have with that amount of memory)
2. assigned maximum of memory possible to your GPU

Also make sure the new memory stick has same speed and timing as the second already installed and voltage supported by your motherboard.

only if the RAM is your bottleneck

Okay, this thread is full of uninformed opinions.

Normally, Dual Channel has very little effect on gaming performance for systems with dedicated graphics cards. However, this is not the case with integrated GFX - they benefit greatly from dual-channel memory config:

Benchmarks here:

1

2

3

Overall it's around 20-30% fps increase depending on application.

Save your money would be the better option. Based on those specs, RAM is not your only problem.

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/HP-Compaq/envy-m4-1050la

Although, your GPU is the main problem, there is very little you can do about it.

If you want to talk laptops however, my Lenovo Y40-80 with an Quad core I7, 2Gb AMD R9 275 it a pretty sweet laptop, and is selling for US$400 less than when I bought mine a year ago. You may be able to afford a decent laptop sooner than you think.

My 3DMark test scored 6300 approximately which is bad compared to desktops, but for a laptop, is respectable.

Nope, the benefit of 2GB more ram will be minimal on most games (those that use a lot of ram usually require a really good video card, i.e. GTA V).

No, you have low end integrated graphics and all the RAM in the world won't fix that. Sorry buddy. I feel your pain though.