Will going from 1GB RAM to 2 make a difference in XP?

[PW]

Hi,

It is getting harder and hardar to find RAM for my aging/aged system
and would like to upgrade before I can't find it any more. I need
PC3200 184-Pin DDR RAM for my ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard.

I finally found some Corsair Value Select and Crucial memory at
mwave.com (nothing at NewEgg, Corsair, ...). It is darn cheap at
$72.50 a GB. My system has 1GB (2x512) of Patriot RAM so I need to
replace them with 2 sticks of 1GB RAM.

Will I see improvement or will it slow my system down as I have read
it does to some systems with XP? I develop software, play some
intensive games like flight sims and FPS games, and do some graphic
stuff.

What do you think?

-paulw

 

[Juan Perez]

Hi:

In my personal experience, the "feeling" of general improvement will be
slightly lower than when you update from 512MB to 1GB. But for in any case I
do not have any problem or slow down in the performance of my Sempro
machine.

In you need more info let me know.

 

[JohnO]

What do you think?

Open up Task Manager, click the Performance tab. Lower-left, look at Commot
Charge. How does Peak compare to the total physical memory installed? If
it's 90% or more of total physical, you'll see a benefit. The amount of
benefit depends on how much swap file you're really using. If you just hit
the swap once in a while you won't notice a lot of difference.

-John O

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi,

It is getting harder and hardar to find RAM for my aging/aged system
and would like to upgrade before I can't find it any more. I need
PC3200 184-Pin DDR RAM for my ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard.

I finally found some Corsair Value Select and Crucial memory at
mwave.com (nothing at NewEgg, Corsair, ...). It is darn cheap at
$72.50 a GB. My system has 1GB (2x512) of Patriot RAM so I need to
replace them with 2 sticks of 1GB RAM.

Will I see improvement or will it slow my system down as I have read
it does to some systems with XP? I develop software, play some
intensive games like flight sims and FPS games, and do some graphic
stuff.

What do you think?

-paulw

Adding more memory can noticeably improve performance only if the
added memory results in reduced usage of the virtual memory paging
file. Therefore if the paging file is not currently being used to any
significant extent then adding more memory will not provide a
significant improvement.

Unfortunately there is no ready way of determing actual paging file
usage provided with Windows XP - it does not have an equivalent to the
'Memory Manager - Swap File In Use" reporting provided by the System
Monitor utility in Windows 95/98/Me.

There is a free utility that you can download and run which will
provide this information for you. It was written by MVP Bill James and
you can get if from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/

If that utility shows actual page file usage of 50 mb or more on a
regular basis then that is indicative of fairly significant paging
file activity. Adding more RAM will reduce or even eliminate entirely
this activity thereby improving performance.

This apples regardless of how much or how little RAM is currently
installed in the computer, at least up to the 4 gb RAM maximum for
Windows XP.

Good luck

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."

 

[PW]

Open up Task Manager, click the Performance tab. Lower-left, look at Commot
Charge. How does Peak compare to the total physical memory installed? If
it's 90% or more of total physical, you'll see a benefit. The amount of
benefit depends on how much swap file you're really using. If you just hit
the swap once in a while you won't notice a lot of difference.

-John O

534/3996 but I am not doing anything right now (like playing an
intense game or writing software or having more than one application
running).

I was using a couple of applications yesterday, along with listening
to something over the Internet with WMP, and when I tried to open a
graphics program I recieved "There is not enough memory to open this
application". So, I checked my swap file size and it was set to
2000/2000. I switched to 3072/3072 (I have 1GB of RAM) and I haven't
seen the slow downs, lock ups, or that message again under the same
scenerios.

Thanks! Great information!

-paulw

 

[PW]

Hi:

In my personal experience, the "feeling" of general improvement will be
slightly lower than when you update from 512MB to 1GB. But for in any case I
do not have any problem or slow down in the performance of my Sempro
machine.

In you need more info let me know.

Thanks Juan!

 

[PW]

Adding more memory can noticeably improve performance only if the
added memory results in reduced usage of the virtual memory paging
file. Therefore if the paging file is not currently being used to any
significant extent then adding more memory will not provide a
significant improvement.

Unfortunately there is no ready way of determing actual paging file
usage provided with Windows XP - it does not have an equivalent to the
'Memory Manager - Swap File In Use" reporting provided by the System
Monitor utility in Windows 95/98/Me.

There is a free utility that you can download and run which will
provide this information for you. It was written by MVP Bill James and
you can get if from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/

If that utility shows actual page file usage of 50 mb or more on a
regular basis then that is indicative of fairly significant paging
file activity. Adding more RAM will reduce or even eliminate entirely
this activity thereby improving performance.

This apples regardless of how much or how little RAM is currently
installed in the computer, at least up to the 4 gb RAM maximum for
Windows XP.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

More good information Ron! I am glad I posted my question here. I
downloaded that utility and will try it tomorrow.

Thanks!

-paulw