Optimum memory size for Windows XP

[James Silverton]

Hello All!

I wonder if there are any good reasons to increase my onboard memory
beyond 1 Gig? http://www.kingston.com/tools/assessor/winxp.asp suggests
1 Gig to the max but I wonder if it is pointless even if I could go to 3
Gig. I have an Athlon 1800 running at 1.53 MHz.

--


James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I wonder if there are any good reasons to increase my onboard memory
beyond 1 Gig? http://www.kingston.com/tools/assessor/winxp.asp
suggests 1 Gig to the max but I wonder if it is pointless even if I
could go to 3 Gig. I have an Athlon 1800 running at 1.53 MHz.

None of the information you have provided can help anyone help you decide
what to do.

With Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) - many people will perform fine with 512MB of
memory and would not notice much (if any) increase if they went to 1GB and
would not likely notice anything going above 1GB.

Now - if they play certain types of games, edit videos/pictures, do certain
types of data manipulation, etc - they may benefit from more memory.

There may even be those people out there who run just fine (acceptable to
them) with 256MB and less.

In short - not knowing what you utilize your computer for - I cannot say
whether or not *you* would benefit from more memory or not.

 

[Unknown]

Unless you are very deep in graphics it is usually a waste of time and
money.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I wonder if there are any good reasons to increase my onboard memory
beyond 1 Gig? http://www.kingston.com/tools/assessor/winxp.asp
suggests 1 Gig to the max but I wonder if it is pointless even if I
could go to 3 Gig. I have an Athlon 1800 running at 1.53 MHz.

Unless you are very deep in graphics it is usually a waste of time
and money.

I would not limit the usefulness level of more memory to just *graphics*.

Audio, Video, Large Datasets, MMPORGs, etc can also be memory hogs. ;-)

 

[J]

if you do find a lot of disk activity every time you switch amongst
applications, then increasing Memory may help. However now that upgrade kits
are cheap, you should weight the cost benefit and your desired expenditure.

Even the low end system are so much powerful and not all that expensive $399
for
3 GB 800Mhz Ram, AMD Athlon64x2 5200+ Dual Core AM2. 500GB SATAII 7200RPM
with one year warranty

 

[Mick Murphy]

If you are right into Graphics, you would upgrade your Video Card, which
would have its own independent Memory, not shared memory.

 

[db.·.. >]

well, if you look at ram as
"work tables" and you being
the cpu.

it is always helpful to have
lots of room for working on
projects.

a magazine layout, numerous
financial tables, etc...

the more room you have the
more information you can
lay out for processing.

but lets say you are a
writer or author.

then one little table with
a typewriter on it and
an in basket could be
maintained by a stick of ram.

 

[JS]

If at some point in time you plan to upgrade to Windows Vista,
then yes increasing the memory/ram to 2 or 3Gig is a good idea.

If however the computer is going be a Windows XP only box,
then 1GB should be fine for every day use and even some photo
scanning and editing.

Just using the PC for email, web browsing and creating MS Word
documents, then 512MB is more than enough ram.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Gerry]

Some thing fisht here.

The layout of none of your posts suggest you believe this to be true!

"the more room you have the
more information you can
lay out for processing."



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[James Silverton]

JS wrote on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:12:59 -0400:

If however the computer is going be a Windows XP only box,
then 1GB should be fine for every day use and even some photo
scanning and editing.

Just using the PC for email, web browsing and creating MS Word
documents, then 512MB is more than enough ram.

Thanks everyone! It looks like 1 Gig will be enough for my present uses.
Gaming and fast graphics are not my enthusiasms! I don't intend to go to
Vista ever, tho' I might buy a faster machine in a year two. I have
distinct feeling that I will go to Ubuntu before Vista.


James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

 

[Leonard Grey]

The amount of memory you need is entirely dependent on the software you
are running. Trite, but true. Your question can't be answered in a vacuum.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

"A Day in the Life of a Web 2.0 Hacker" - PC Magazine
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2330952,00.asp

 

[db.·.. >]

if you invested in
several hundreds
dollars in msoffice,
then it won't work
in non microsoft
o.s.'s.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello All!

I wonder if there are any good reasons to increase my onboard memory
beyond 1 Gig? http://www.kingston.com/tools/assessor/winxp.asp suggests
1 Gig to the max but I wonder if it is pointless even if I could go to 3
Gig. I have an Athlon 1800 running at 1.53 MHz.

That depends on what apps *you* run, but probably not.

How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* a
one-size-fits-all situation. You get good performance if the amount of
RAM you have keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on
what apps you run. Most people running a typical range of business
applications find that somewhere in the 256-512MB range works well,
others need more. Almost anyone will see very poor performance with
less than 256MB. Some people, particularly those doing things like
editing large photographic images, can see a performance boost by
adding even more than 512MB--sometimes much more.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.

 

[James Silverton]

Ken wrote on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:24:21 -0700:

That depends on what apps *you* run, but probably not.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more
memory will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your
performance. If you are not using the page file significantly,
more memory will do nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That
should give you a good idea of whether more memory can help,
and if so, how much more.

Thanks! That sounds like a useful program. It's about the first
practical solution I've seen for page file usage, most others have
mentioned usage as a factor but not ways to measure it. I've got 512MB
at the moment but Adobe Photoshop Elements can be slow to load and save
pictures.

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

 

[db.·.. >]

it is an interesting
little utility and
will provide some
enlightenment.

however, your windows
o.s. provides you with a
personal recommendation
about your pagefile/v.m.

it's notated on the dialog
windows where you set
the vm stats.

however, since you mentioned
photoshop elements, be sure
to have 1 gig of ram and 1.5
gigs of pagefile, that is if you
want to benefit from the power
the program provides.

otherwise, while you are in the
middle of touching up your
images, the pc will crash as
it attempts to increase the vm
in the middle of your project(s).

 

[James Silverton]

wrote on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:59:53 -0500:

however, your windows
o.s. provides you with a
personal recommendation
about your pagefile/v.m.

it's notated on the dialog
windows where you set
the vm stats.

however, since you mentioned
photoshop elements, be sure
to have 1 gig of ram and 1.5
gigs of pagefile, that is if you
want to benefit from the power
the program provides.

otherwise, while you are in the
middle of touching up your
images, the pc will crash as
it attempts to increase the vm
in the middle of your project(s).

It's never crashed yet but I am more or less convinced that I should go
to 1Gig of memory and I have a very large disc. I thought that there
were reasons for not having too large a page file but is that a wrong
impression?
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken wrote on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:24:21 -0700:




Thanks! That sounds like a useful program. It's about the first
practical solution I've seen for page file usage, most others have
mentioned usage as a factor but not ways to measure it. I've got 512MB
at the moment but Adobe Photoshop Elements can be slow to load and save
pictures.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

But if you run programs like Photoshop Elements, my "but probably not"
is very likely wrong. That's a good example of the kind of program
that can benefit from significant larger memory sizes.

 

[db.·.. >]

yes, allow me to explain.

when you work on a
rough draft of a photo
it begins at a nominal
file size, which is
something windows
can nominally handle.

however, as you begin
to create layers of that
image, then the file size
increases as well.

then when you apply
effects to one layer the
file sizes continues to
increase.

then when you apply
different effects to
different layers, then
the file continues to
increase.

and if you become really
fancy, you will have multiple
files/rough drafts open with
different effects and layers that
you may decide to use via your
cutting and pasting feature
between these files.

so if you begin with one
file at say 3 megs directly from
your media card, it is not
uncommon for that file
to increase to 40, 60 or
80 megs while you are
working on it.

then if you add up the sizes
for multiple photos that are
opened at the same time, your
computer will be taxed.

therefore during this process of
working on the rough drafts of
your photos/images, you will need
lots of mem and cpu power

it is not unlike in real life or in the
olden days where one would need
lots of table space for working
with multitudes of photos and
images.

another tip is that while you
and your pc are dedicated to
working on images you may as
well disconnect from the internet
and turn off your anti virals
too.

in doing so you will release
additional memory and keep
the a.v.s from scanning your
images.

after you are satisfied with
your rough drafts, then you
will need to merge your
layers into one layer.

in which case your large files
that may be 80 megs will be
converted and compress into 300k
which is needed for professional
quality printing.

the point of having the maximum
amount of memory and power
to your system, is to permit you
the freedom of creativity in the
rough stages of working on your
photos or graphics.

something that may need to
be said is that the utility ken
mentioned is helpful but not
absolute nor is my suggestion
to utilize the recommended size
your o.s. provides.

this is because your clicks of
photo effects cannot be predicted
by windows or anyone else, including
yourself.

it is real simple to modify an
the size of a simple/raw image
into a dramatically large and
complex one with a simple click
of a photo effect.

as another suggestion, if
you have any questions about
photos or images, you can
post them here:

microsoft.public.windowsxp.photos

have fun!

i love photoshop and the
convenience of walmarts'
online photo store.