Viewing photos on a Pentium 1 Desktop.

[e.271828.p.31415]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.
I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

 

[kony]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.

Yes, though it's not the output display resolution that
would matter, it is the decompressed size of the image that
would need fit within real + virtual memory, meaning if they
were very large it could be a bit sluggish to display or
very very large, that it couldn't decode.

I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.

That's enough for the desired 800 x 600 @ 24 bit output.

Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

ACDSee may be a bit heavy consumer of memory compared to
some old picture viewer but today I can't tell you what old
software is the lightest memory footprint. So you might
look around for very old software as they all tended to get
more bloated (or back then, even legitimate features people
frequently desired might add to that). Of course it would
need support Win95 and I don't know if ACDSee does or at
that version #3.0. You might find it uses less memory if
you don't install all the picture decoding filters, only
support for those image formats you're sure you need like
JPG. I recall at some point ACDSee allowed choosing what it
installed and on slower systems you can also see it loading
these support files when it starts.

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

Yes it would do 32 bit but 24 bit is sufficient if the
display driver supports it, and Win98 uses more memory. You
might use "98lite" to make a very lightweight hybrid Win98
using Win95 shell, it could end up the most versatile.

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Not really but keep in mind that it might be old and die on
you. If it has a Realtime Clock module instead of a coin
cell battery it might also be needing the clock set every
time even if it doesn't also stop during posting and require
manual intervention to complete the boot sequence. Other
parts like capacitors on the motherboard (and fans, if it
had ran for most of these past years) may be weak and
shorten lifespan... or it could run for another 10 years or
more instead, as back then the currents were lower and if
kept in a mild environment, kept clean and ventilated enough
that era of hardware tended to last a long time.

 

[e.271828.p.31415]

Thank you for the great answer. This really cleared thing up.
So basically the decompressed image size does not even need to fit
into RAM but can be stored in virtual memory?

 

[GT]

Thank you for the great answer. This really cleared thing up.
So basically the decompressed image size does not even need to fit
into RAM but can be stored in virtual memory?

Yes, but the more RAM you have the faster things will be. An older PC like
that will no doubt have a slower hard drive, so swapping an image between
RAM and hard drive will be slow and jumpy. Best thing is to try it and see -
you might be able to pick up a little more memory on ebay or from the back
of a drawer somewhere, but just try it out first.

 

[Lord Weazel Nobilis]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.
I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

I am almost always greeted with little surprises when I open models of
this vintage. See if you can find an open memory slot, OR, if it will
take a 32. Forthwith take your memory module (pref. in an
electrostatic bag) to the back of a large thrift store (Goodwill is
great for this) near the computer stuff & compare. See what you can
pick up. I once had tons vintage artifacts -I should have opened a
museum, anyway, it's fun to look! And learn (computer history at your
fingertips)!

 

[paulmd]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.

Sure, it can do that. More RAM is better, though. Especially if you
upgrade to win98 instead of win95.

I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

It's a function of the video card, not the os. With most 2mb video
cards, I think you get a compromise of 16bit color at a high
resolution or 24bit color at a lower resolution.

 

[kony]

I was wondering if I could simulate the photo watching experience by
installing windows 95 in a VmWare virtual machine and then tweaking
the amount of memory available?

Perhaps to some extent but it would not be so useful when
you aren't using the same hardware.

It only takes a few minutes to install Win95 (if it wasn't
installed already), why not just set it up and see how it
does, and if not good enough, see what you can tweak to
improve performance.

You never did tell us the purpose though, for all we know it
might run as a DOS application if you can find some old DOS
picture viewers... JPG has been around for awhile.

 

[kony]

now I have another question: How much RAM do windows 95 and 98 use
just by themselves with absolutely nothing running?

It doesn't necessarily matter. Once OS has loaded, some of
it can be swapped out to virtual memory to make room for the
image viewing code and image itself... and it would never be
swapped back into main memory since this is a single-purpose
system.

Win98 as a default installation is too large a memory
footprint for a system with only 16MB memory unless you are
content with a lot more swapping of virtual memory. Use
98Lite to improve that, with less of the OS installed and
running it will use less memory.

Win95... been too long since I used it, I think it needed a
little under 2MB just to run and would run on an 8MB system
fine before considering the application, which would leave
at least 8MB for the image viewer app plus image, or using
paging (slight delay when first starting the image viewing
app) would leave 16-2= 14MB for the app plus image.

IMO a lot of whether it will work ok for your needs could
have to do with other factors like whether the system
supports ATA33, supports a drive that isn't really old so
it's faster (but then is a higher capacity requiring bios
support from the old system OR an ATA(nnn) PCI controller
card for the capacity support).

 

[paulmd]

I was wondering if I could simulate the photo watching experience by
installing windows 95 in a VmWare virtual machine and then tweaking
the amount of memory available?

You could.... but WHY??? If you're going to virtualize win95, you
should have a better reason. There are photo viewing programs for
every OS since before the days of DOS.

 

[paulmd]

now I have another question: How much RAM do windows 95 and 98 use
just by themselves with absolutely nothing running?

Win95 will BOOT on 4mb. It'll suck, but it'll boot. 8mb is the bare
min if you actually want to DO something. It's OK on 16mb. If you got
more than that, you might as well install win98se, as things will work
better all around. Surpisingly I found ie6 was more responsive on a
486 than ie5 was.

Win98 will run on 16mb, with basic functionality (internet, wordpad,
etc). 32 or more is better. 128 is better still. 512 is ridiculous,
and anything beyond 512 is impossible in win9x.

 

[kony]

Win95 will BOOT on 4mb. It'll suck, but it'll boot. 8mb is the bare
min if you actually want to DO something. It's OK on 16mb. If you got
more than that, you might as well install win98se, as things will work
better all around. Surpisingly I found ie6 was more responsive on a
486 than ie5 was.

Win98 will run on 16mb, with basic functionality (internet, wordpad,
etc). 32 or more is better. 128 is better still. 512 is ridiculous,
and anything beyond 512 is impossible in win9x.

??

I've had a system running Win98SE with 1GB in it for several
years. Had to edit the system.ini to specify a lower vcache
value, but otherwise despite what MS et al claim about
improved memory management of later OS, it responds
similarly with a performance increase on larger jobs.

I couldn't say 512MB is ridiculous either as I used to edit
quite a lot of audio in the 98 era and a system would chug
along for several minutes if it didn't have (approaching
that, at the time it was as much memory as the budget and
some motherboards allowed) 384MB, then 512MB. Putting in
512MB was like magic, reducing paging made 3 minute jobs run
in a fraction of the time.

 

[jameshanley39]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.
I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

course it can view darn pictures!!!

people were playing Doom on those, easily.

some people were still using win98 even in 2005 , because of fear of
win xp !!

you could make the resolution small enough to have to strain your
eyes. Higher than 800x600. this is more about video card memory than
OS restriction. I'm not that into ultra high resolution, i guess it
depends on application. I just use cheap video cards, they let me
watch video clips or anything..

 

[ProfGene]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.
I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

When I was using such machines they were able to view jpg's but the
quality is probably no where near what it is with the newer graphics cards.

 

[ProfGene]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.
I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

I remember viewing jpg's on a 486 but the best color you could get was
256 colors. They didn't have agp slots. I think the same is true of the
machine you are talking about if you are willing to view them in 256
colors you can do it but of course the quality is not as good as 32 bit
highest of the new machines.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I remember viewing jpg's on a 486 but the best color you could get was 256
colors. They didn't have agp slots. I think the same is true of the
machine you are talking about if you are willing to view them in 256
colors you can do it but of course the quality is not as good as 32 bit
highest of the new machines.

This Pentium must have a more powerful graphics card than you mention. I
was using 486DX machines that were clearly quite old in 1994, when I was at
university. They had 800x600 screens running at 16-bits.

Later, in 1997 I had a Pentium I machine with 1024x768 screen in True colour
with 32-bits.

ss.

 

[kony]

This Pentium must have a more powerful graphics card than you mention. I
was using 486DX machines that were clearly quite old in 1994, when I was at
university. They had 800x600 screens running at 16-bits.

Later, in 1997 I had a Pentium I machine with 1024x768 screen in True colour
with 32-bits.

As always, graphics depended on what board you plugged into
the slot. Around that era there were changes very
substantial to whether it could support 800x600, 24bit, or
higher... for example the move from 2MB to 4MB or 8MB
onboard memory and fast enough ramdac that it wasn't so
fuzzy an output.

 

[ProfGene]

Hello everybody!
I have a friend with an old Pentium 1 desktop with windows 95 lying
around. I think that the processor is rated at 90 MHz and the system
has 16 MB of ram.
I was wondering if the computer is still powerful enough to be still
used to view .jpg images. The images do not have to be larger than
800x600 resolution.
I also have no idea about what graphics card the system has, but I
think that it definatley has 2 MB of onboard memory.
Otherwise I do not know anything else about the specs, and I would not
be able to provide additional information.
I was thinking of trying to get it to work with ACDSee 3.0. I tested
the program on my Windows XP machine, and it used about 10-12 MB of
ram when viewing .jpg's of these resolutions.
What are your thoughts on this? Can it be done?

Also I was wondering how many colors does Windows 98 support? Can it
go to 32-bit?

P.S. the computer was purchased around the year 1995, if this helps.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

It should but you will not likely get the high definition graphics of
newer graphics cards. I used to view and edit photos on a 486 but with
256 colors as the best quality picture. These older computers did not
have AGP slots so the graphics cards were more limited.