How much RAM before it is wasted

  • Thread starter Thread starter DCA
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DCA

I have 1Gb DDR HT PC3200 RAM in my Dell Dimension 8300

I play games (Doom3) and use for general browsing and email.
I already have an ATI 9800pro 256Mb graphics.

Is there any point in doubling my RAM? Will I really notice any difference?
Can Windows XP pro actuall manage this much memory properly?

Thanks
David
 
DCA said:
I have 1Gb DDR HT PC3200 RAM in my Dell Dimension 8300 I play
games (Doom3) and use for general browsing and email. I already
have an ATI 9800pro 256Mb graphics. Is there any point in doubling
my RAM? Will I really notice any difference? Can Windows XP pro
actuall manage this much memory properly?
Click to expand...

Use Performance Monitor to determine how much RAM you are using
while running a big game and some Windows applications.

Yes, Windows XP can handle 2GB of RAM.
 
John Doe said:
Use Performance Monitor to determine how much RAM you are using
while running a big game and some Windows applications.

Yes, Windows XP can handle 2GB of RAM.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this advice but how do I use a performance monitor with games
like Doom3 that seem to devour windows access (no task bar and ALT-TAB does
not work)
Thanks
David
 
Thanks for this advice but how do I use a performance monitor with games
like Doom3 that seem to devour windows access (no task bar and ALT-TAB does
not work)
Thanks
David
Click to expand...


windows key + m
might work, been a while since playing doom
 
DCA said:
Thanks for this advice but how do I use a performance monitor with
games like Doom3
Click to expand...

The same way you use Performance Monitor in any other situation.
that seem to devour windows access (no task bar and ALT-TAB does
not work)
Click to expand...

Sounds like a software problem to me.
 
Howdy!

Thanks for this advice but how do I use a performance monitor with games
like Doom3 that seem to devour windows access (no task bar and ALT-TAB does
not work)
Click to expand...

After you're done and exited Doom, and before you reboot, do a
Control-Alt-DEL and pull up the Task Manager. Pick the performance tab. In
the bottom, there's four boxes of three lines of text each.

Look at the top right box, the top number. This is the RAM that
Windows knows about.

Now look at the bottom number in the bottom left box. This is the
max usage of RAM that Windows has used since the last reboot.

If the bottom left number is SMALLER than the upper right number,
more RAM only costs you money and does absolutely nothing.

If the bottom left number is LARGER than the upper right number,
that's how much swap you actually needed, and depending on how much bigger
(5 percent? 250 percent?) you can usually SWAG how much more RAM will help.

RwP
 
Ralph Wade Phillips said:
Howdy!




After you're done and exited Doom, and before you reboot, do a
Control-Alt-DEL and pull up the Task Manager. Pick the performance tab.
In
the bottom, there's four boxes of three lines of text each.

Look at the top right box, the top number. This is the RAM that
Windows knows about.

Now look at the bottom number in the bottom left box. This is the
max usage of RAM that Windows has used since the last reboot.

If the bottom left number is SMALLER than the upper right number,
more RAM only costs you money and does absolutely nothing.

If the bottom left number is LARGER than the upper right number,
that's how much swap you actually needed, and depending on how much bigger
(5 percent? 250 percent?) you can usually SWAG how much more RAM will
help.

RwP
Click to expand...
Thanks for this - helpful
I have in bottom left box:
Total: 448308
Limit: 2519100
Peak:800320

top right:
Total: 1047548
Available: 467192
Cache: 336808

From what you are saying I'd be wasting money right now?
Thanks
David
 
Another factor is stacks allocated. I'm not sure about this,
but I remember from my micro-controller days, that stacks
grow and grow and grow until they can hit the OS, and
other programs loaded to RAM. Trick was to write op code
so that never happened. I even had a program for garbage
collection on my Apple II to help prevent this. Fat chance!
Seems everything a computer does requires starting a
stack, and I am guessing that games don't give a hoot.
They just keep piling it on to the limit of RAM. If I have
problems with crashing in a game, I find that I can just
reach a save point .. reboot .. and the game runs fine
because all that poop history has been unloaded. Call
it what you will ... I call that unlimited stack allocation
that is not counted as "used" RAM.

johns
 
Win XP Pro can manage up to 4 GB of RAM, but you get diminishing returns
when adding RAM over 1 GB, unless you work with incredibly large video or
photographic files.
 
Howdy!

DCA said:
Thanks for this - helpful
I have in bottom left box:
Total: 448308
Limit: 2519100
Peak:800320

top right:
Total: 1047548
Available: 467192
Cache: 336808

From what you are saying I'd be wasting money right now?
Thanks
David
Click to expand...

Yep.

Now, if you load, say, a new photo editing program - thrash it about
a bit, and check the numbers again before you reboot.

That way you'll know how much it's actually using! B)

You can also reduce the swap file - I'd say about 512M max on C:
That'll reduce the "limit" since the upper limit for the swap file is now
about 1.5G, and you're not really needing but the small stub WinXP will want
to use.

RwP
 
Ralph Wade Phillips said:
Howdy!



Yep.

Now, if you load, say, a new photo editing program - thrash it
about
a bit, and check the numbers again before you reboot.

That way you'll know how much it's actually using! B)

You can also reduce the swap file - I'd say about 512M max on C:
That'll reduce the "limit" since the upper limit for the swap file is now
about 1.5G, and you're not really needing but the small stub WinXP will
want
to use.

RwP
Click to expand...
Does that achive anything apart from released a small ammount of HDD?
 
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