How much RAM is enough? How much do you have?

[lieb39]

Hello,

I have a XP pro machine, amd 1900+ processor. Right now i'm running with 256mb sdram, and its killing me. i fill my ram as soon as i log in, or i think so . In the performance tab in task manger it says my pagefile usage is 317mb, and my physical memory (k) avaiable is 74452 (k?) I am going to DDR no doubt, as I can support it and I have tons of applications open all the time. How much DDR should I get? I'm looking at either (a) 512 mb DDR or (b) 1gb DDR. I know more is better, but to save money I want to get what is needed.

What do you guys recommend? What type/how much RAM do you guys have?

Thanks,

Dan

 

[SPeedY_B]

512mb of PC133 here, Used to only have 256mb and everything ran fine, i wouldn't have upgraded but it was free, so i couldn't say no :happy:

Windows XP runs fine on 256mb i think, i've used it on 128mb and it runs ok, bit slower obviously, but still usable in my opinion

 

[Heeter]

1.383gigs of pc133, what a waste of cash. 2% difference in speed between this and 512megs. I highly recommend not wasting your cash on anything past 512megs. I am running WinXP as well. Cut back on your services you are running in the background and rearrange (clear) your page file. There is usually no need to have such a heavy startup load.

Heeter

 

[Taurus]

pagefile usage at 317mb?!? mines at like 95mb when i get into windows. i'd definitely check the processes you have running and find out what eating all of it up.

anyway, i used to have 256mb... everything ran fine (!!!), except battlefield 1942. if i fired a new gun or a new explosion had to be loaded, it would pause for about half a second while it loads it from the hd and puts it into memory. i saw a good deal on crucial's banner up top and got myself 512mb more for 768mb total. game runs perfect now... maps load quite a bit faster, too. i'm sure it will help future games, as well.

and the fact that i have pc133 doesn't hinder anything.

so first i'd fix your pagefile usage problem first, if i were you. after all, it's free. if you still need more, i'd just buy another 256mb or 512mb stick to go along with what you have.

 

[djwhite]

I use 512MB DDR, and everything runs fine, don't think it's worth going to 1GB

 

[Taurus]

heeter.. with all that memory, you should put it to use and make a ramdrive. then, say, put your favorite game folder in there and have the fastest loading times out of all your friends.

or just assign temporary internet files to it and you'll browse a little faster. or so i've heard.

bad thing is, whenever you restart/shut down your comp, everything in the ramdrive would vanish.

 

[lieb39]

alright, i checked my services and nothing extra is loading, but its still loading that much mb at startup. A virus? I checked task manger and the #1 item that takes up the most ram is Iexplore.exe Any suggestions?

-dan

 

[Heeter]

Hi Lieb.

Also try adjusting the virtual memory as well. bring up to 10% of your HD capacity.
Taurus,
All this ram was just for me to thump my chest compared to my friends. After removing 700megs out of my 'puter for a little while, I sadly realized that it was them that was laughing at me because of the money I spent.

Heeter

 

[Taurus]

lied. if it's not out of the question, i'd reformat. it will get rid of an background apps you're not aware of. after you do, check your pagefile usage, then. you'll notice a big difference.

heeter... yeah, i had a feeling that's why you had all that memory. i know people like that. but i was just suggesting you put it to good use since you're stuck with it.

 

[Sazar]

you might say that...

it all depends how you have setup your rig and what 'optimizations' you have run to streamline it... even with the free space I have on my hdd's and the amount of ram I have I don't bother with ram drives... my memory is noticeably faster than when I had 1x512mb though not in the way you think...

I multitask a lot and all my applications are loaded and open faster than before... some of my menus that had a slight lag before open up faster and when I am running large programs concurrently I do not have only about 50mb RAM left

about the pagefile usage... I multitask quite a bit.. have 5 IE windows/mirc/usual taskbar apps open and my tv tuner and winamp and I am using approx 150mb... over 300 usage seems a little high to me...

 

[Burpster]

2 - 512 PC2700 Samsung

 

[Henyman]

i use 256mb of p133 sdram. if 1 user is loged on then it's fine....but i normally have 3 users on so it slows down. if i was goin 2 upgrade i'd only go up as far as 512mb. btw xp CAN handle upto 4mb (but who would normally use this much?)

 

[madmax1345]

I use 512mb of pc2700. I had 1ghz but computer went haywire. Turned out to be a bad 512mb stick so I removed it with very little proformance reduction noticed. So unless you are doing some really intensive graffic, video, or sound projects I would stick to no more than 512mb

 

[gothic]

I use 1024 of PC2700 on my AMD 2200XP......very quick.....very nice!!

TOK

 

[lieb39]

Alright if I have to I will reformat, but I really do not want to because its a "family" computer with important documents, etc. Is it possible that I give, or post a image somewhere on the internet of all my (a) services (b) msconfig's startup tab? From that infomation could you guys help me out?

 

[Taurus]

do you have a burner? or more than one partition on your hd? or an extra hd laying around?

 

[lieb39]

So your saying the only good way to get rid of the problem is to backup, reformat, start clean? Its not that easy... I also have dial-up :-(

 

[freightgod]

Just for S**ts and Giggles set up a new user account and use that for a while, just to see if things seem to run smoother for you. It may be your personal user settings that are robbing resources; starting fresh may be one answer.

Simple and pain free to try, anyway.

 

[Taurus]

sorry, leib... didn't mean to sound like an ass. was actually trying to help.

yeah, if i had dial-up, i'd never reformat. lol

 

[lieb39]

I did what you suggested, and I came up with this, 205 mb PF usage at login, nothing loaded except for task amnger. Available physical memory is 86464 k. So I'm guessing that the reformat would do me good? let me know...