RAM

[Rich Barry]

Ward, what program do you want to install? To get the best performance
from WinXP it is recommended that you have
512MB of Ram. It will run with only 256MB but somewhat sluggish. If
the program you want to use will require the
use of the full 256MB at times then your PC resources will be tapped
out. That's my understanding, but maybe a
MS-MVP will weigh in on this and clarify.

 

[Guest]

A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states I have
248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on the Hard Drive.
Not too informed on this so any help or advise will be appreciated.

 

[Daave]

A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states
I have 248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on
the Hard Drive. Not too informed on this so any help or advise will
be appreciated.

Go to http://www.crucial.com and determine what kind of RAM you need to
purchase. (It depends on your PC/motherboard and what kind you already
have installed.)

Or you may want to install the program regardless and see what happens.

If you'd like more help here, please give us the following information:

-- make and model of your PC and motherboard
-- type of RAM and how many sticks you currently have installed
-- name of program you wish to install/use

 

[Jim]

A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states I
have
248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on the Hard
Drive.
Not too informed on this so any help or advise will be appreciated.

RAM means random access memory which is installed on the motherboard. You
may indeed have plenty of room on the hard drive, but the message is not
referring to disk space.

So, just install more RAM.
Jim

 

[Poprivet]

A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states
I have 248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on
the Hard Drive. Not too informed on this so any help or advise will
be appreciated.

"Recommends" and "requires" are two different things, so I'd say go ahead
and try it; it's likely to work.

If you can find your way to adding more RAM to your computer you'll find it
speeds up a lot of things for you. 512 Meg is a good number for most
people, even for some fairly high processor-usage programs. 512 is actually
the "recommended" amount of RAM for XP but as you can see, it will still
work with less.

HTH
Pop`

 

[mikeyhsd]

your computer is probably set to do video memory sharing and it is using that much of computer memory to help video memory.

regardless, 256mb is not near enough ram.
you should have 512mb or more.



(e-mail address removed)



A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states I have
248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on the Hard Drive.
Not too informed on this so any help or advise will be appreciated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states I have
248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on the Hard Drive.
Not too informed on this so any help or advise will be appreciated.

You probably have 256MB of RAM, with onboard video using 8MB of it. At
any rate, the difference is so small as to be inconsequential. I can't
imagine that you would see any difference in performance between 248MB
and 256MB.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

your computer is probably set to do video memory sharing and it is using that much of computer memory to help video memory.

regardless, 256mb is not near enough ram.
you should have 512mb or more.

I don't agree with that last statement. How much memory you need for
decent 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
around 256-384MB works well, others need 512MB. Almost anyone will see
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 page file usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.

 

[mikeyhsd]

its not necessary a performance issue.
the program he is trying to install requires a minimum of 256mb and he does not have that much available.



(e-mail address removed)

A program I want to install says recommends 256mb of RAM. and states I have
248MB of Ram. I am not sure what I can do. Plenty of room on the Hard Drive.
Not too informed on this so any help or advise will be appreciated.

You probably have 256MB of RAM, with onboard video using 8MB of it. At
any rate, the difference is so small as to be inconsequential. I can't
imagine that you would see any difference in performance between 248MB
and 256MB.

 

[Ron Martell]

its not necessary a performance issue.
the program he is trying to install requires a minimum of 256mb and he does not have that much available.

A more appropriate wording of that comment would be:

"The shoddily designed program he is trying to install ......."

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Bill Sharpe]

A more appropriate wording of that comment would be:

"The shoddily designed program he is trying to install ......."

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

His original post says the program recommends 256 mb, not requires that
amount. As one who runs Office 2007 satisfactorily on an XP laptop with
256 mb I'd say go ahead and install the program and see what happens.
And before anyone asks, I don't run Word, Excel, and Access at the same
time...

Bill