How much ram do you need for XP?

[paulmd]

I'm puzzled by replies like this. Thats only true if you think you need
to run out and grab vista as soon as its available, and from eveything
I've read so far I dont think most technically aware people will choose
to. Let alone need to.

Problem is most people just aren't technically aware (including,
unfortuantely some people who are techs). And at some point, no more
than 2-3 years after Vista release, even technically aware people will
begin to use Vista as their main system. At that point, it will become
a need rather than a want issue.

For myself, win2k works just fine. Though I recently went to XP.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

Yes. 4 Mb will do 1024*768 at 32bit color depth. As long as you've got
no special need for either DVD/WMV/MPEG, or games(in which case you
should get an add-on card anyhow) , or Google Earth. There's no special
reason to allocate a huge amount to video.

I am not talking about video, my computer is using 500 meg at the moment,
for 'everything', meaning it swops applications closer the speed of light
than
a mechanical hard drive!!!

 

[paulmd]

I am not talking about video, my computer is using 500 meg at the moment,
for 'everything', meaning it swops applications closer the speed of light
than
a mechanical hard drive!!!

Ah, hence the confusion, the 'shared' memory referrs to the amount of
memory stolen (reserved) by integrated video. No wonder you thought I
was insane! But you can, if you have no particular need for that much
video (64 mb is a lot for integrated video), go into the BIOS to reduce
'shared' memory. Thus freeing up considerable RAM for other things.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

It depends on your definition of "need".

If you had so little memory that the system was hitting the
swapfile during larger jobs, they'll be painfully slow. If
only to load another app with small working data set, it's
not too bad.

So one definition is based on the Task Manager reading.
Another is based on a lesser slowdown, but nevertheless
present. The effect of the filecache, and that windows can
run apps from it. If you don't reboot your system very
often you may find a fair percentage of the files are coming
from cache hits which is naturally faster than going to HDD
again. Even when there is HDD writing for misc things,
having it limited still helps.

So need is a moving target, some people can run WinXP fine
on 256MB, but others make 1GB seem insufficient.

Well I used to have 256 but I notice a considerable improvement
in speed now with 1.25GB faster startup etc and application
switching requires no drive access. I also have a digital TV
application running which gobles a fair chunk of memory.
Even for a light user 256 is a bit low, A few explorer windows
and OE, anti-virus and a bandwith meter put the brakes on
my machine at that level. 512 would be better but you don't
have much 'breathing space' left.