Please clarify memory question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Travis
  • Start date Start date
T

Travis

My computer has 2GB of memory. I have read in these groups and other
places that if I add 2GB more my computer might not see all 4GB.

So the question is: Is adding more memory a waste of money? Will
adding more memory help my computer do it's job better?

Please give the answer in lay terms.

Thank you.
 
Hello Travis,

It depends if you are running Windows Vista 32-bit or Windows Vista 64-bit.
32-bit operating systems are limited by nature to the amount of memory that
they can actually use once you hit the 4 GB barrier due to resources that
devices such as your video card may require, where as Windows Vista 64-bit
will be able to fully address all 4 GB of RAM. If you have a 64-bit
processor, I'd recommend upgrading to Windows Vista 64-bit so that you can
take full advantage of your hardware. You will still likely see a good
performance increase under 32-bit however, so it's really not a waste of
money either way.

Hope this helps and have a great day,
 
If you are running the 32Bit version of Vista (most are), then Windows won't
report the full 4GB of RAM, only about 3.2 GB. It's the nature of the 32Bit
era. Are you having any issues with running out of RAM right now? You will
notice a little increase in speed, especially when using applications with
high RAM requirements.

If you are running the 64Bit version of Vista, you will see all 4 GB there.

It won't be a waste, as you will notice a difference. Although going past 2
GB on normal use is less of an impact than going from 512 to 1GB or 1GB to
2GB. You eventually hit a point where you don't notice as big of a
difference.
 
Travis said:
My computer has 2GB of memory. I have read in these groups and other
places that if I add 2GB more my computer might not see all 4GB.

So the question is: Is adding more memory a waste of money? Will
adding more memory help my computer do it's job better?
Click to expand...

Depends entirely on what job you want to do. Some jobs need much
more memory than others. Examples of memory-hogs would be video
or graphics editing, CAD/CAM, or similar jobs which manipulate
multimedia files. The more programs you run at the same time,
the more memory you need.

I'm running Vista on half a gig of memory, but I'm only testing
Vista at this point. (And I'm not using Aero, which is another
resource hog.)

I will read the other replies you are certain to get :o)
 
Hello,
Your sense of knowledge about memory is false the limit on a 32 bit is
4gig. You don't need a 64 bit proc to take advantage of more then 4gig
there is a thing called PAE, which can be enable by adding /PAE to
boot.ini
 
My computer has 2GB of memory. I have read in these groups and other
places that if I add 2GB more my computer might not see all 4GB.

So the question is: Is adding more memory a waste of money? Will
adding more memory help my computer do it's job better?

Please give the answer in lay terms.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

That is a tough question to answer directly, but Vista can help you
decide. Go to Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del pressed all at once) then
when it comes up switch to the Performance tab. Now this window should
float on top of other windows by default. Next open up and start to
use the applications you normally have running at the same time and
note the effect on memory in Task Manager. If you have half or more of
your physical memory still free you probably won't see much if any
benefit by adding more memory especially if you already have 2 GB, 1
GB is plenty for most people.

A often overlooked issue is your paging file or what was called the
Swap File in XP.

Now go to Control Panel System and Maint System Advanced System,
Settings, click on the advanced tab, then setting, advance again then
finally Virtual Memory. This a area on your root hard drive set aside
by Windows to swap memory pages from physical memory back and forth.
Note the size. The file should be about 1.5 times the size of your
installed memory. So if your already have 2 GB, your Virtual Memory
should be about 3 GB, that combined with your physical RAM or 5 GB
should be pleny for all but the most demanding tasks or 99% of all
users. So no, I doubt you or for that matter hardly anybody would
benefit from having 4 GB of RAM. I do one of the most demanding tasks
you can ask of a PC and what really stress your CPU and RAM; video
editing, and I get by fine with just 1 GB of RAM and have no intention
of getting more.

Now what happens all too often is your Virtual Memory gets badly
fragemented. Many defrag programs don't touch this area because duh...
it is always in use if Windows is running. So the useable size of your
Virtual Memmory shrinks to the largest block of memory that isn't
fragemented which could a chuck far smaller then the size it is
suppose to be. A sign that this may have happened is your hard drive
is churning away a lot more than it used to and/or all your
applications run more slugglish because Windows now needs to swap
memory pages far more often in and out of physical memory and the now
shrunk VM than it would have to if the paging file was in one big
unfragement chuck. Because of their special nature memory pages (what
is in Virtual Memory) these files can't be spread across non ajoining
sectors on your hard drive.

Better defrag utilites can defrag Virtual Memory at boot BEFORE the
system mounts Windows. Or you can just delete the paging file, and
Windows will automatically make a new one in a two reboot process.
First pass you set things to have no paging file, then reboot again
and reset to have a paging file and Windows should find a big enough
chunk of unfragemented memory to use for the paging file. How
successful this is depends on how fragemented your root drive is and
also to a great extend how full it is. So best to defrag that first if
you think this may be a problem.

You see a lot of posts in newsgroups like this where people want to
make their system drive partition as small as possible. That's another
mistake. Windows needs wiggle room to work at it's best. Your root
drive should be at LEAST twice as large as the size Windows itself
takes up to allow room for all the program files you probably will
install, windows updates, the paging file and all the things Windows
does behind the scenes in making shadow files, etc.. So at bare
minimum your system drive (physical drive Windows is on) should be at
least a 25 GB hard drive these days. Anything smaller you're asking
for trouble.
 
Kristan Kenney said:
Hello Travis,

It depends if you are running Windows Vista 32-bit or Windows Vista
64-bit. 32-bit operating systems are limited by nature to the amount
of memory that they can actually use once you hit the 4 GB barrier due
to resources that devices such as your video card may require, where
as Windows Vista 64-bit will be able to fully address all 4 GB of RAM.
If you have a 64-bit processor, I'd recommend upgrading to Windows
Vista 64-bit so that you can take full advantage of your hardware. You
will still likely see a good performance increase under 32-bit
however, so it's really not a waste of money either way.

Hope this helps and have a great day,

--
Kristan M. Kenney
http://www.canucky.net/

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
Click to expand...

Your answer does not help.

I have 32 bit Vista.
 
Dustin Harper said:
If you are running the 32Bit version of Vista (most are), then Windows
won't report the full 4GB of RAM, only about 3.2 GB. It's the nature
of the 32Bit era. Are you having any issues with running out of RAM
right now? You will notice a little increase in speed, especially when
using applications with high RAM requirements.

If you are running the 64Bit version of Vista, you will see all 4 GB
there.

It won't be a waste, as you will notice a difference. Although going
past 2 GB on normal use is less of an impact than going from 512 to
1GB or 1GB to 2GB. You eventually hit a point where you don't notice
as big of a difference.
Click to expand...

I have 32 bit Vista. My video card has 256MB of memory.

I don't want to see my memory and I don't care what parts of the
hardware or software can see or cannot see the memory. If I added 1GB
(2 X 512 matched) or added 2GB (2 X 1GB matched) or just left it with
2GB will my computing power be increased?
 
I went from 2gb to 4gb when moving to Vista (32bit), not that I felt a need
for it, but simply becuz I had an extra 2gb of RAM laying around and plugged
it in out of curiousity. I had measured my pagefile usage with this program:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm just before the 4gb and
after. With 2gb, I found that in memory intensive apps/games that several
hundred mb would be written to the pagefile(s). With 4gb, that was reduced by
about 70-80% using the same apps/games (Oblivion, GRAW, Battlefield2).

However, contrast this with XP where with just 2gb there would be virtually
no pagefile usage (or very minimal, like 3mb peak).

Make of that what you will, but I dont know if I'd go out and spend for an
extra 2gb for it, but since I already have it, I'm happy with it.

=========================
 
Swap files disappeared with Win 9x..


Adam Albright said:
That is a tough question to answer directly, but Vista can help you
decide. Go to Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del pressed all at once) then
when it comes up switch to the Performance tab. Now this window should
float on top of other windows by default. Next open up and start to
use the applications you normally have running at the same time and
note the effect on memory in Task Manager. If you have half or more of
your physical memory still free you probably won't see much if any
benefit by adding more memory especially if you already have 2 GB, 1
GB is plenty for most people.

A often overlooked issue is your paging file or what was called the
Swap File in XP.

Now go to Control Panel System and Maint System Advanced System,
Settings, click on the advanced tab, then setting, advance again then
finally Virtual Memory. This a area on your root hard drive set aside
by Windows to swap memory pages from physical memory back and forth.
Note the size. The file should be about 1.5 times the size of your
installed memory. So if your already have 2 GB, your Virtual Memory
should be about 3 GB, that combined with your physical RAM or 5 GB
should be pleny for all but the most demanding tasks or 99% of all
users. So no, I doubt you or for that matter hardly anybody would
benefit from having 4 GB of RAM. I do one of the most demanding tasks
you can ask of a PC and what really stress your CPU and RAM; video
editing, and I get by fine with just 1 GB of RAM and have no intention
of getting more.

Now what happens all too often is your Virtual Memory gets badly
fragemented. Many defrag programs don't touch this area because duh...
it is always in use if Windows is running. So the useable size of your
Virtual Memmory shrinks to the largest block of memory that isn't
fragemented which could a chuck far smaller then the size it is
suppose to be. A sign that this may have happened is your hard drive
is churning away a lot more than it used to and/or all your
applications run more slugglish because Windows now needs to swap
memory pages far more often in and out of physical memory and the now
shrunk VM than it would have to if the paging file was in one big
unfragement chuck. Because of their special nature memory pages (what
is in Virtual Memory) these files can't be spread across non ajoining
sectors on your hard drive.

Better defrag utilites can defrag Virtual Memory at boot BEFORE the
system mounts Windows. Or you can just delete the paging file, and
Windows will automatically make a new one in a two reboot process.
First pass you set things to have no paging file, then reboot again
and reset to have a paging file and Windows should find a big enough
chunk of unfragemented memory to use for the paging file. How
successful this is depends on how fragemented your root drive is and
also to a great extend how full it is. So best to defrag that first if
you think this may be a problem.

You see a lot of posts in newsgroups like this where people want to
make their system drive partition as small as possible. That's another
mistake. Windows needs wiggle room to work at it's best. Your root
drive should be at LEAST twice as large as the size Windows itself
takes up to allow room for all the program files you probably will
install, windows updates, the paging file and all the things Windows
does behind the scenes in making shadow files, etc.. So at bare
minimum your system drive (physical drive Windows is on) should be at
least a 25 GB hard drive these days. Anything smaller you're asking
for trouble.
Click to expand...

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/
 
Swap files disappeared with Win 9x..
Click to expand...

I bet I'm not the only one that wished certain clueless MVP's would
disappear. The term "swap file" also MEANS paging file. Always has
since it has always done the same thing, oh... SWAP memory pages.
Thanks for playing. Got any more useful advice?
 
Adam Albright said:
That is a tough question to answer directly, but Vista can help you
decide. Go to Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del pressed all at once) then
when it comes up switch to the Performance tab. Now this window should
float on top of other windows by default. Next open up and start to
use the applications you normally have running at the same time and
note the effect on memory in Task Manager. If you have half or more of
your physical memory still free you probably won't see much if any
benefit by adding more memory especially if you already have 2 GB, 1
GB is plenty for most people.
Click to expand...

I have almost 1/2 free.
A often overlooked issue is your paging file or what was called the
Swap File in XP.

Now go to Control Panel System and Maint System Advanced System,
Settings, click on the advanced tab, then setting, advance again then
finally Virtual Memory. This a area on your root hard drive set aside
by Windows to swap memory pages from physical memory back and forth.
Note the size. The file should be about 1.5 times the size of your
installed memory. So if your already have 2 GB, your Virtual Memory
should be about 3 GB, that combined with your physical RAM or 5 GB
should be pleny for all but the most demanding tasks or 99% of all
users. So no, I doubt you or for that matter hardly anybody would
benefit from having 4 GB of RAM. I do one of the most demanding tasks
you can ask of a PC and what really stress your CPU and RAM; video
editing, and I get by fine with just 1 GB of RAM and have no intention
of getting more.
Click to expand...

My computer is set to let Vista manage the swap file. It is almost 1.5
X the physical memory.
Now what happens all too often is your Virtual Memory gets badly
fragemented. Many defrag programs don't touch this area because duh...
it is always in use if Windows is running. So the useable size of your
Virtual Memmory shrinks to the largest block of memory that isn't
fragemented which could a chuck far smaller then the size it is
suppose to be. A sign that this may have happened is your hard drive
is churning away a lot more than it used to and/or all your
applications run more slugglish because Windows now needs to swap
memory pages far more often in and out of physical memory and the now
shrunk VM than it would have to if the paging file was in one big
unfragement chuck. Because of their special nature memory pages (what
is in Virtual Memory) these files can't be spread across non ajoining
sectors on your hard drive.

Better defrag utilites can defrag Virtual Memory at boot BEFORE the
system mounts Windows. Or you can just delete the paging file, and
Windows will automatically make a new one in a two reboot process.
First pass you set things to have no paging file, then reboot again
and reset to have a paging file and Windows should find a big enough
chunk of unfragemented memory to use for the paging file. How
successful this is depends on how fragemented your root drive is and
also to a great extend how full it is. So best to defrag that first if
you think this may be a problem.
Click to expand...

What is the name of a "better defrag utility"?
You see a lot of posts in newsgroups like this where people want to
make their system drive partition as small as possible. That's another
mistake. Windows needs wiggle room to work at it's best. Your root
drive should be at LEAST twice as large as the size Windows itself
takes up to allow room for all the program files you probably will
install, windows updates, the paging file and all the things Windows
does behind the scenes in making shadow files, etc.. So at bare
minimum your system drive (physical drive Windows is on) should be at
least a 25 GB hard drive these days. Anything smaller you're asking
for trouble.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the explanation.
 
What is the name of a "better defrag utility"?
Click to expand...

There are several that can defag Virtual Memory. Right now I'm
sampling Perfect Disk 8. It did a full defrag on my 750 GB drive in
just under 4 hours. So pretty fast for a drive that was reported to be
4% fragemented.
 
Travis said:
I have 32 bit Vista. My video card has 256MB of memory.

I don't want to see my memory and I don't care what parts of the
hardware or software can see or cannot see the memory. If I added 1GB
(2 X 512 matched) or added 2GB (2 X 1GB matched) or just left it with
2GB will my computing power be increased?
Click to expand...
Well, that depends upon your definition of 'computing
power'? Your 'computing power' is restricted by the slowest
bottleneck/component in your system, and that could be the
amount and speed of your memory, speed and bit width of your
cpu, hard drive write/read/access speed, etc., and depends
upon the particular program(s) you are running at any one
time. Your question above is kind of like asking " can I
pump more water out of a lake if I put two hoses on the
pump?". There is no easy straight forward answer as there
are many factors that have a bearing upon your particular
situation.
 
I just have this to add to the RAM memory issue. I got in the doghouse when I
upgraded my son's computer to Vista Ultimate from XP. All of his games
performed worse even after updating to the Vista drivers. It is a 2.8 GHz
Pentium 4, ATI x850 and Creative xtrememusic sound card.

I went to the store and got four sticks of 1 GB memory and put it in the
four slots. There had been four sticks of 512 MB before. The memory was more
expensive than I had thought that it would be.

I booted up and it showed 4 GB of physical memory but only 2 GB of usable
memory. Then I did a Windows Update that recognized the new memory setting
and prompted a download. I had just checked Windows Update hours before
without this showing up. After the download I had to reboot and now it shows
3.2 GB of usable memory. I also have a 2 GB USB 2.0 flash drive set for
Readyboost.

I have noticed substantial improvement. The performance of Battlefield 2142
is pretty much where it was before upgrading from XP and I do not have to
listen to complaints about why I "couldn't just leave things they way they
were".

I just mentioned this so that if anyone puts in more than 2 GB of memory
they may want to do a Windows Update.
 
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