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Is this really true about win XP? Only 512 RAM!

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PashaM

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After i mentioned to my friend that i havn't noticed a difference by switching from 512Mb ram to a 1024mb, he said that win XP not fully utilizing 1 gig of ram, that i need a 64 bit OS. He said regular XP utilizes only 512 and the rest still swaps from page file. I couldn't belive my ears!!! Is this true? Do i have to switch to 64 bit OS now?
 
i dont believe its happening.
also i dont believe that you didnt see any difference with 1 gb ram..
 
your friend is either a noob or works for bestbuy
 
ok, so Xp is able to use all of 1 gig ram? Good! Is there a way to confirm that, any tests i can run?
 
Here is a good tool to monitor your ram Cacheman XP 1.12
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4102
If you do something that is going to use a lot of ram and chech it you should be able to tell. It says it is shareware but it is free if you don't register it.
 
Batou1986 said:
your friend is either a noob or works for bestbuy
Click to expand...

That about sums It up. :roll:
 
it all comes down to the software run as well as xp.. windows itself will run okay on 256.. lots of folks only use 512.. depending on software used its quite possible to not see a difference between 512 and 1 gig..

my system at the moment while browsing is useing about 270 megs of ram.. which leaves over 1700 megs spare with my current 2 gigs..

if u run out of ram u will soon know.. swopfileing will bring your system to its knees..

trog
 
Yeah, WinXP does recognize 1 gig and does use it (just not all of it, if there is no need) LOL to the best buy crack. I have 1 gig of Infineon pc 3200 that came with my compaq gx5000Z gaming pc. My older system, only had like 512mb and I had XP on it. I can tell a huge difference just in normal mode. I cant wait to see what 2 gb does. But anywho, back to the subject, Windows recognize, I think, at most 2 gb of ram. After that, its pretty much done. The 64bit recognizes 8gb I believe, but I may be wrong :)
 
i use 4 gigs

i use 4 gigs of ram and i can tell a big difference between 512, 1 gig and up i have no problems on my system i wish i can go higher but im afraid to try and push my system with more ram
 
more ram = faster task switching / general overall performance

this is because your system doesn't have to keep switch data between RAM and the Virtual Page. if data is in ram your pc will respond faster, more RAM has always be great for gaming.
 
From own experience i diddent notice that big of a change when jumped from 1024 to 2048MB, untill i started playing games.

More memory = faster load times, less swapping.
 
i cant tell the slightest difference tween 1 gig and 2 gig.. unless i want to play quake4 or fear for example in the super highest resolutions then i might make use of more than 1 gig of ram but otherwise there is not the slightest difference i how windows functions.. ..

having more real ram than windows needs or uses is a waste of ram.. u wont see any performance increase at all..

most of the stuff u read about windows and swopfiling is out of date rubbish based on the days when ram cost real money and folks genuinely didnt have enough of the stuff.. now its cheap and we have oodles of it windows never uses its swopfile at all most of the time.. when it does u will soon know take my word for it..

older users know what swopfiling is all about.. younger users who arrived in the days of cheap ram have never seen it.. he he

trog
 
PashaM said:
After i mentioned to my friend that i havn't noticed a difference by switching from 512Mb ram to a 1024mb, he said that win XP not fully utilizing 1 gig of ram, that i need a 64 bit OS. He said regular XP utilizes only 512 and the rest still swaps from page file. I couldn't belive my ears!!! Is this true? Do i have to switch to 64 bit OS now?
Click to expand...

This is only true for apps such as autoCad and the likes.
 
Press CTRL + ALT + DEL and view Performance, then open a few Applications and programs, & see how much RAM your system uses. ;)

I got 2 Gig of Mushkin RAM and when I am multitasking with heavy Apps like PSP and Fireworks etc along with a web browser and other progs you can see that Windows does indeed use as much as you can let it.

Slap ya mate upside the head and see if that knocks some sense into them. ;)
 
partially right. no matter what windows utilizes the swap file to store 'old' info for ram, there are ways to keep this from happening that make severe improvements to performance... first thing you need to set the page file to manual and set the large and small size to the same number. windows xp limit is 4gig by the way. in 32 bit mode.

heres the performance tweek, use at yur own risk, mucking in yur reg can ruin yur day.
browse with regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\
Memory Management
modify or add the DWORD called DisablePagingExecutive
set its value to 1
(only do this if you have a gig of ram or more, makes a HUGE improvement)
 
Wow, nice guide. Yeah, I wasn't too sure if it was 2 GB or 4 GB. My motherboard says it can support up to 4 GB but something about WinXP or maybe the bios on the board only recognizes 3 gb? (MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum MS 7025). I'll give the tweak a try. I had it like that before, and it did improve system performance.
 
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