tell me exactly how more ram helps, even if you dont use big programs

[here4yagurlz]

tell me. no games running, but how does more ram help in general? from say 512 to 1gig or 1.5 for ex.

[sleepyguy]

Depends what apps your using. RAM is just fast memory and HD is just slow memory. Plain and simple. The more you have of fast memory the less your system has to access the slow memory to cache the data.

working with photoshop/databases/videoediting/etc will definetly help if you have lots of ram. I don't do these things but I run vmware and that eats up alot of ram.

tell me. no games running, but how does more ram help in general? from say 512 to 1gig or 1.5 for ex.

[ShadowVlican]

tell me. no games running, but how does more ram help in general? from say 512 to 1gig or 1.5 for ex.
there will be no difference from 512 to 1.5GB if all you're doing is word processing

my celeron with 256MB feels the same as my xpm with 1GB when i'm just typing documents for school

only when you start to do memory hogging and intensive stuff like gaming, video editing, multitasking, etc will you feel the difference

[ProfessorChaos]

my celeron with 256MB feels the same as my xpm with 1GB when i'm just typing documents for school

only when you start to do memory hogging and intensive stuff like gaming, video editing, multitasking, etc will you feel the difference

There is def. a difference when loading programs...and rendering video,audio,images,etc.

theres a bigger diff in loading times if u have a fast hdd tho(or a RAID array)

[here4yagurlz]

programs:

winamp
mp3
msn
email
firefox
word
antivirus
dvds
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
flash

[here4yagurlz]

There is def. a difference when loading programs...and rendering video,audio,images,etc.

theres a bigger diff in loading times if u have a fast hdd tho(or a RAID array)


i have a 4200rpm hd, as its a laptop.

also should mention, i do like to multitask. on my 512 right now, im able to run 12-15 firefox browsers, photoshop with about 5 files open, winamp, 4 windows folders, msn, thunderbird, anti virus and still have 200mb free.

but lets say i leave photoshop or other big programs in idle for few hours, when i go back to it, itll take some time to refresh it. also going back from file to file in PS can lag at times, while hearing the h.d. scan.

[here4yagurlz]

when it says so and so mb is free, is that just a #? meaning even if it says 200mb is free, doesnt nessecarily mean itll run smoothly.?

[CodecX81]

i have a 4200rpm hd, as its a laptop.

also should mention, i do like to multitask. on my 512 right now, im able to run 12-15 firefox browsers, photoshop with about 5 files open, winamp, 4 windows folders, msn, thunderbird, anti virus and still have 200mb free.

but lets say i leave photoshop or other big programs in idle for few hours, when i go back to it, itll take some time to refresh it. also going back from file to file in PS can lag at times, while hearing the h.d. scan.
12-15 browser windows.. gah! I hope u mean tabs..

I'd say with your multi-tasking needs, 512 more would really help. You are probably limited to 2gigs of memory since its a laptop (only 2 ram slots) But for what you with it..The more memory you install, the less time your computer will need to 'wake up' after being idle with all that open.

[here4yagurlz]

12-15 browser windows.. gah! I hope u mean tabs..

I'd say with your multi-tasking needs, 512 more would really help. You are probably limited to 2gigs of memory since its a laptop (only 2 ram slots) But for what you with it..The more memory you install, the less time your computer will need to 'wake up' after being idle with all that open.

ya i guess tabs would be alot better on the resources eh?

ummm, ya suppose 512 more wouldnt hurt. just dont wanna get it unless ill notice a difference.

[MrWizard]

More ram isn't always necessarily good. You could have 2 gigs of ram, but if you have a crappy processor, then you will get a bottleneck.

[here4yagurlz]

More ram isn't always necessarily good. You could have 2 gigs of ram, but if you have a crappy processor, then you will get a bottleneck.


true, mine is 1.6centrino. a buddy of mine told me, i would notice much more performance increase going from 4200 to 5400 rpm hd, as opposed to the ram. and both are priced around the same.

[ShadowVlican]

i have a 4200rpm hd, as its a laptop.

also should mention, i do like to multitask. on my 512 right now, im able to run 12-15 firefox browsers, photoshop with about 5 files open, winamp, 4 windows folders, msn, thunderbird, anti virus and still have 200mb free.

but lets say i leave photoshop or other big programs in idle for few hours, when i go back to it, itll take some time to refresh it. also going back from file to file in PS can lag at times, while hearing the h.d. scan.
ok... if you're running all that... of course more ram will help..

[CodecX81]

Also consider the size of your page file

c:\pagefile.sys

If its big, its either set that way by default, or your computer is dumping the contents of your RAM into it to make more room for other applications.

Trust me on this..On my PC I had 512 for a long time, and I put in another 512 stick. when I had 512 I could alt+tab out of full screen games or something and it'd chugg away until I was at my desktop. Now when I alt+tab out of the games, it'll be as quick as switching between say MSN and Firefox.

In an XP environment, I say there are huge gains from 512 to 1024.

[here4yagurlz]

ok you how sometimes on some computers u get choppiness when multitasking? like say u open a window and part of it will open and show up part by part at a time? as opposed to an instant load up. or when u drag windows and u can see a trace or frames get caught behind? ghosting effect.

i dont get it but on my desktop i do.

is that from slow cpu or not enuf ram?

[here4yagurlz]

Also consider the size of your page file

c:\pagefile.sys

If its big, its either set that way by default, or your computer is dumping the contents of your RAM into it to make more room for other applications.

Trust me on this..On my PC I had 512 for a long time, and I put in another 512 stick. when I had 512 I could alt+tab out of full screen games or something and it'd chugg away until I was at my desktop. Now when I alt+tab out of the games, it'll be as quick as switching between say MSN and Firefox.

In an XP environment, I say there are huge gains from 512 to 1024.

ok thx

my page file i was told min. should be 1.5x your ram size and max. 3x the size.

So 512 would be min. 768 and max. 1536.

1gig would be 1500 min and 3000 max.

Is that correct? what if i went with a larger max. size, is that better? like 10,000.

[CodecX81]

ok thx

my page file i was told min. should be 1.5x your ram size and max. 3x the size.

So 512 would be min. 768 and max. 1536.

1gig would be 1500 min and 3000 max.

Is that correct? what if i went with a larger max. size, is that better? like
10,000.

ok you how sometimes on some computers u get choppiness when multitasking? like say u open a window and part of it will open and show up part by part at a time? as opposed to an instant load up. or when u drag windows and u can see a trace or frames get caught behind? ghosting effect.

i dont get it but on my desktop i do.

is that from slow cpu or not enuf ram?



Yea, that advice is solid. But there are also people that have high ram and no page file, people with high ram and large page file..

For a 4200.. its pretty slow compared to memory..Besides which, it'd take up permanent harddrive space. the max a page file can be is 4096 mb anyhow ;)

[here4yagurlz]

thats true video card most likely it since that judges the refresh rate things show up on screen.

so 1gig ram, set the max to 3000mb? and min. 1500? ya since i have a slow h.d i definitely want to use the ram whenever possible as opposed to storing stuff in the hd memory.

[CodecX81]

As for choppiness......

hard to tell without knowing the system specs.
I've seen chopping happen with a low-end video card trying to run at 1280x1024, it lags on the screen re-draw.

I've seen it as well in low-memory systems, for sure.

I've even seen it if the CPU is not fast enough,

Or theres too much info on a harddrive.

(for future reference, keeping 15% of the drive free of data is a good practice to keep seek times down, if you are the type to keep large amounts of data.)

With my system, i set the PF to 2048 to 4096. If you really want to, you can boost it to 4096-4096 and never have to deal with it ever again. Or get 2gigs of ram and let window manage the page file itself.

[here4yagurlz]

too bad my laptop wasnt able to play doom 3, way too choppy. the 1gig ram might help. I know friends who have simliar setup (64mb dedicated video) and doom 3 runs smooth on theres no lag. hmmmm must be the 2gigs ram they have.

[here4yagurlz]

If you really want to, you can boost it to 4096-4096 and never have to deal with it ever again. Or get 2gigs of ram and let window manage the page file itself.


really? how will 4096-4096 differenciant from 1500-3000?

[CodecX81]

too bad my laptop wasnt able to play doom 3, way too choppy. the 1gig ram might help. I know friends who have simliar setup (64mb dedicated video) and doom 3 runs smooth on theres no lag. hmmmm must be the 2gigs ram they have.

How will 4096-4096 differenciant from 1500-3000?

Since laptops have integrated video, it heavily relies on the memory in the system as well as a powerful CPU. Integrated video is just a chip giving instructions, instead of having a separate video card with its own gpu and memory, it uses the laptops resources. So you could be right.

how will 4096-4096 differenciate?

Your system will pre-allocate a chunk of data on the harddrive that won't ever move, grow or shrink in size..from its place on the hardrive.

It will be a big place for ur ram to cycle information into. It might help with seektimes, but I could be wrong. We had a big debate on this a few months ago.. lemme look for that thread.

[here4yagurlz]

Since laptops have integrated video, it heavily relies on the memory in the system as well as a powerful CPU. Integrated video is just a chip giving instructions, instead of having a separate video card with its own gpu and memory, it uses the laptops resources. So you could be right.


yip, must be the ram. faster h.d. will only help with loading the app faster. but im tempted on the h.d too.

[CodecX81]

Careful, a faster 5400 rpm harddrive for laptops, run hotter as well.

Here: this is a good resource for your questions.

started by yours truly. :)

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99844&highlight=page+file

[here4yagurlz]

Careful, a faster 5400 rpm harddrive for laptops, run hotter as well.

Here: this is a good resource for your questions.

started by yours truly. :)

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99844&highlight=page+file


thx:)

so let me get this right. 0 or low page file means, all your data will be stored in RAM - no disk swapping, your hd should be silient as can be. Larger to large swap file, is a space on the hd that is dedicated for the ram, so the ram can store data there and swap stuff back and fourth as needed.

Am I right? I learn something new everyday. If this is the case, wouldnt the first option be the best? since everything will automatically always be stored in the ram? only thing i could think of, is more reboots since your ram will fill up quicker.

[ShadowVlican]

thx:)

so let me get this right. 0 or low page file means, all your data will be stored in RAM - no disk swapping, your hd should be silient as can be. Larger to large swap file, is a space on the hd that is dedicated for the ram, so the ram can store data there and swap stuff back and fourth as needed.
yeap...

as for your question... of course the first one is best, but do you have enough ram to do that? no.

the reason why your alt-tab takes so long is because you don't have enough ram... i can just hear your hdd chugging away when you're switching between programs... 512MB is nothing

[soymilk]

My laptop with 512 MB RAM and 16 MB vedio RAM can do AUTOCAD normally without any trouble, and I should go to do other things else for at least half hour after click render~~~~

[x86asm]

Windows uses what is known as "paging" if a program doesnt access a region of memory (for 32-bit Windows, windows divides your memory into 4KB chunks called "pages") for some time, it will swap the page out to memory and mark it as free space. On a typical PC windows does this thousands of times a second (but you usually dont notice it till apps start requesting large amounts of memory).

If the program subsequently accesses that block of memory, it will cause an error condition (called a "page fault" if you wanna look it up) and will swap the data back into memory.

Having more RAM will give Windows more flexibility to retain data in memory as opposed to going to the HDD. The HDD is definitely nowhere near as fast as memory is today so it is in your best interest to have a much RAM as you can possibly afford.

[MrWizard]

Making your computer fast is more than just individually good parts. You need parts that work well as a whole, otherwise you will end up with bottlenecks. Seeing as you have a laptop, you can't exactly upgrade your processor, not easily anyways, so I will skip that.

RAM: If you can, go with 1gig then do it, because it will improve your performance, and if you decide to upgrade, you will probably be able to take the RAM with you.

Hard drive: Once again, if you can, upgrade your hard drive to a 5400RPM with an 8mb cache (this is key). This will make loading programs, and other things from the hard drive a lot faster.

Paging File: Bigger isn't always better. Your paging file is basically hard drive space, so I doubt you want to devote 10,000MB of your hard drive space, it doesn't exactly work like RAM. Stick with the default that windows gives you. With a slower hard drive, a large paging file isn't always that useful.

[here4yagurlz]

yeap...

as for your question... of course the first one is best, but do you have enough ram to do that? no.

the reason why your alt-tab takes so long is because you don't have enough ram... i can just hear your hdd chugging away when you're switching between programs... 512MB is nothing


ahh ok i see, so thats whats 2gigs ram is good for - no swap file. so what would be the best v.ram settings for 1gig ram? 1.5-3000 or 4096-4096

[here4yagurlz]

thanks for the great tips all. So Mr. Wizard if your page file is too small and windows needs more, will it cause the system to lag since its taking time to expand the page file? will do the 5400rpm hd as well. are they easy to install? What about th eheat issue? i hope it wont make my laptop overheat.

Figured id go with 1gig, would love 2gigs but too pricey for laptops.

[here4yagurlz]

ok just added another 512. can definitely tell a difference when stuff sits in idle, then going back to it. with 1gig, it refreshes instantly, even if its just a browser.

But geez for $85 yikes :|