Here are the RAM usage measurements for some games that I've tested. For reference, WinXP +SP3 by itself takes up 168 MB on startup on my system. Now for the games:

2001

• Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal - 272 MB
• Max Payne - 301 MB
• Gothic - 351 MB

2002

• Grand Theft Auto 3 - 438 MB
• Morrowind - 288 MB
• Neverwinter Nights - 466 MB
• Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2 - 445 MB

2003

• Gothic 2 - 536 MB
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - 359 MB
• Splinter Cell - 257 MB
• Unreal 2 - 396 MB

2004

• Doom 3 - 958 MB
• FarCry - 662 MB
• Half-Life 2 - 702 MB

2005

• Battlefield 2 - 1126 MB
• F.E.A.R. - 1160 MB
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - 469 MB

2006

• Battlefield 2142 - 1103 MB
• Gothic 3 - 1572 MB
• Neverwinter Nights 2 - 630 MB
• Oblivion - 845 MB
• Tomb Raider: Legend - 589 MB

2007

• BioShock - 681 MB
• Colin McRae: Dirt - 753 MB
• Crysis - 989 MB
• Unreal Tournament 3 - 857 Mb

Feel free to add your own game testing results as you like. These are just basic examples, as RAM usage probably varies depending on the level/map that you're playing, the number of characters on the screen and so on.

Added a few more games. Based on these findings, it looks like 512 MB RAM was fine until around 2002. From 2003 onward, games start exceeding that amount, and going over 1 GB in 2005.

Surprisingly, the 2006 and 2007 games that I tested weren't that RAM hungry. Maybe a larger sample size is needed.

So early 2000 games would have gone to memory swapping a lot

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-04-28, 06:27:

So early 2000 games would have gone to memory swapping a lot

Pretty much, yeah.

From personal experience, I can say that this was certainly the case with both Gothic games. Didn't help that most of us were using slow, mechanical hard drives at that time.

Nice !!, thanks Joseph, I will definetly try this, specially on this game GTA 3, under windows xp sp3, according to MSi afterburner readings it takes like around 900mb of ram which is way to much for a game that asks for a maximum of 256mb, which is weird for me, I will definetly give it a try a post my results here.

Thanks again !!

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-28, 21:34:

Nice !!, thanks Joseph, I will definetly try this, specially on this game GTA 3, under windows xp sp3, according to MSi afterburner readings it takes like around 900mb of ram which is way to much for a game that asks for a maximum of 256mb, which is weird for me, I will definetly give it a try a post my results here.

Thanks again !!

Cheers!

And yeah, I was initially going with MSI Afterburner as well, but it kept showing me some weird results, like Quake 2 using 598 MB RAM. That's kinda hard to imagine for a game from 1997. 😁

this is interesting, it would be good if the same stats could be gathered for a system with 512mb of ram, to see if demand is less, if its using virtual and so on.

Applications can 'request' ram based on what's available, relax its garbage collection and increase caching - all of which increase performance a little bit

The biggest hit for games would be if a) they just didn't work with 512 or b) they were noticeably slower (I mean using disk like the Gothic example, not losing a few frames that gamers wouldn't notice without measuring it)

I'd have expected the 2006/7 games to use more ram, so maybe there is something here about games 'booking up' ram rather than actually using all of it - not sure.

the gta series would be a good test, i played all of these on a XP with p4 and 512mb ram, games were fine to play but SA seemed to push the computer a bit more

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-28, 21:34:

Nice !!, thanks Joseph, I will definetly try this, specially on this game GTA 3, under windows xp sp3, according to MSi afterburner readings it takes like around 900mb of ram which is way to much for a game that asks for a maximum of 256mb, which is weird for me, I will definetly give it a try a post my results here.

Thanks again !!

Didn't MSI Afterburner also have a per process mem usage? What does it say?,

gerry wrote on 2025-04-29, 06:31:

I'd have expected the 2006/7 games to use more ram, so maybe there is something here about games 'booking up' ram rather than actually using all of it - not sure.

I just tested a few more games from that time period (second post has been updated). Unsurprisingly, Gothic 3 takes the crown with over 1.5 GB RAM usage. And that's during the initial battle at the very start of the game. I imagine later battles in some of the larger Orc settlements might be even more demanding.

Aa mentioned before, RAM usage often depends on which area/map/level is being tested. For my part, I usually just start the first level of the game, which may not always be the most demanding scenario.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-29, 08:43:

I just tested a few more games from that time period (second post has been updated). Unsurprisingly, Gothic 3 takes the crown with over 1.5 GB RAM usage. And that's during the initial battle at the very start of the game. I imagine later battles in some of the larger Orc settlements might be even more demanding.

Aa mentioned before, RAM usage often depends on which area/map/level is being tested. For my part, I usually just start the first level of the game, which may not always be the most demanding scenario.

that is huge! it prompted me to check the requirements:

https://technical.city/en/system-requirements/gothic-3

so I wondered what happens if ram is 512 - does it really take up 1gb of hdd space?

the specs suggest 1gb for comfortable play (its a 2006 game after all!), but even then it would be interesting to see if it needs 500ish gb hdd space to run, given the above

I think there is some more complex interplay here between what the application requests, what its given by the OS and how much ram both OS and application 'hang' on to while running rather than reusing, as well as how much is swapped to drive, and then the overall effects on gameplay amidst all the other factors like cpu speed, memory speed, graphics card and so on. It's interesting stuff!

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-04-29, 07:54:

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-28, 21:34:

Nice !!, thanks Joseph, I will definetly try this, specially on this game GTA 3, under windows xp sp3, according to MSi afterburner readings it takes like around 900mb of ram which is way to much for a game that asks for a maximum of 256mb, which is weird for me, I will definetly give it a try a post my results here.

Thanks again !!

Didn't MSI Afterburner also have a per process mem usage? What does it say?,

Well I just have the ram usage option activated and not the per process, although readings are high.

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-29, 18:37:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-04-29, 07:54:

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-28, 21:34:

Nice !!, thanks Joseph, I will definetly try this, specially on this game GTA 3, under windows xp sp3, according to MSi afterburner readings it takes like around 900mb of ram which is way to much for a game that asks for a maximum of 256mb, which is weird for me, I will definetly give it a try a post my results here.

Thanks again !!

Didn't MSI Afterburner also have a per process mem usage? What does it say?,

Well I just have the ram usage option activated and not the per process, although readings are high.

Other than that, I wonder if some games had an option to freely allocate more mem than required, just like VRAM does, even though they explicitly don't need it

Doing the test with the rammon file I got surprisingly results!!! While playing GTA 3 I got readings of 438mb of ram, it makes more sense instead of those crazy readings from afterburner, here is the picture of my readings, so maximum I got 458657792.

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-29, 18:51:

Doing the test with the rammon file I got surprisingly results!!! While playing GTA 3 I got readings of 438mb of ram, it makes more sense instead of those crazy readings from afterburner, here is the picture of my readings, so maximum I got 458657792.

Yup, your results seem to match my observations that MSI Afterburner takes up around 500 MB RAM by itself.

I've added your GTA 3 measurements to the list.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Yesterday, 04:50:

bosquetor0602 wrote on 2025-04-29, 18:51:

Doing the test with the rammon file I got surprisingly results!!! While playing GTA 3 I got readings of 438mb of ram, it makes more sense instead of those crazy readings from afterburner, here is the picture of my readings, so maximum I got 458657792.

Yup, your results seem to match my observations that MSI Afterburner takes up around 500 MB RAM by itself.

I've added your GTA 3 measurements to the list.

😃 thanks, I have a lot more games in my Windows XP pc that are not on your list so Im gonna tried them out I bring the results here, as the quote said "For the good of the science" 😄

Nice to see additions.

What is really being measured though? I see it as - "Given plentiful RAM on this system this is how much is taken by these games" more so than indicating the environment in which gameplay benefits or suffers. To do that i guess would involve more laborious tests, e.g. each game on a 512, 1gb, 2gb system and measure fps over time on each or something - to see the actual effects.

Still, as it is we can see some games really do request all the ram! Doom 3 is hungry!