Question Does RAM reduce stuttering in games?

[Shamba]

My current PC specs are below.

GPU: Zotac GTX 1060 3GB
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB @ 2133MHz
PSU: Corsair CXM550W
Motherboard: ASUS Prime A320M-K
Storage: Not sure about the brand, but it's just x2 1 TB Hardrives

I very recently, (a few days ago) upgraded my RAM to 16GB of HyperX Fury @ 2400MHz and I'm currently awaiting the arrival. This sounds like a stupid question but I was wondering if more RAM would reduce stutters in games. Of course, I imagine games that would exceed 8GB like the new Call of Duty among others would see quite a noticeable boost from a stuttery unplayable mess. But what about games in general? Games that don't exceed 8GB of RAM? Would I see a reduction of stutters in those games? Based on benchmarks it would seem that generally speaking RAM doesn't seem to give much of an FPS increase unless it's a particularly demanding of RAM. Call of Duty Black Ops 3 is a good example. This game stuttered like hell for me. The campaign was unplayable and multiplayer was only just. That game easily reached 7.8-7.9GB of RAM usage. So did Bo4 and I imagine the new Modern Warfare does aswell. I assume the stutters, in that case, would mostly be gone? Just curious Thanks for reading.

 

[richiestang_78]

Unless you are maxing out RAM capacity no adding more wont affect stuttering. Stuttering can also be cause by a CPU or GPU bottleneck as well as thermal issues on both. To start you can simply open up windows task manager, let it run while you game and use the Performance tab to monitor usage on both the CPU and GPU. For thermals you'll need a a program like MSI Afterburner for your GPU thermals and something like AMD Ryzen Master to monitor your CPU.

 

[Shamba]

So in cases where I am maxing out my RAM, I will see better performance? Oh, and I don't have any thermal issues but my GPU could do with an upgrade but in terms of FPS it performs perfectly fine so I see no reason too. Most of the games where I do find stutters they seem to be close to max (7.8GB) I assume that's the max it can use because the rest is being used by the system itself / windows.

 

[lynx1021]

16GB is the recommended minimum for gaming nowadays.

 

[sizzling]

You can reduce stuttering in games that don’t get close to max RAM, I have witnessed it. I believe it is because Windows starts caching long before you get close to max usage.

I notice you have a 3gb 1060, this may also cause stuttering in some games if you have the settings too high.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Games that exceeded 8gb and ran into the slow pagefile on your hard drive will see a big benefit from the increase from 8gb to 16gb.

Games that did not exceed 8gb will still see a framerate benefit from the frequency benefit from the newer 2400mhz kit.

Ryzen needs fast ram to perform its best, so a 16gb 3200mhz kit would likely increase your framerate massively.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

You can reduce stuttering in games that don’t get close to max RAM, I have witnessed it. I believe it is because Windows starts caching long before you get close to max usage.

I notice you have a 3gb 1060, this may also cause stuttering in some games if you have the settings too high.

Currently running 8gb ram with 4gb in use by chrome, steam, and OS. Windows currently has 500mb data paged according to task manager. So I can confirm this.

 

[Shamba]

Thank you all greatly for the replies It's really helped!