Thread: What should I upgrade on my laptop ?

  1. #31
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    Yeah, and that's why an 8-core bulldozer should be counted as an equivalent to a quad-core i7.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    It's hardly plenty, and I already mentioned how to disable it. Did you miss that?
    Considering that after the frufrow you raised about Windows API you mostly live in my ignore list, yes I missed it...

    As soon as you start open programs, you may find yourself in a pinch.
    Did you read what I said about 32 bit vs 64 bit?

    Considering that 32 bit Windows can only address 3.5gb because of 32bit pointer limitations... 3gb is about as good as it gets.

    I have a home server set up runing 32bit XP, that also doubles as a HTPC for movies and music. It's been running on 2gb of ram without a swap file for the last 3 years and there has never been a problem.

    My smarter half's machine runs Win7 x64 on 4gb of ram, no swap file, no superfetch and no prefetch... she mostly runs Office and a couple of medium weight graphics programs (Gimp, etc.)... no problems.
    Last edited by CommonTater; 10-13-2011 at 01:32 PM.

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by CommonTater View Post
    Did you read what I said about 32 bit vs 64 bit?

    Considering that 32 bit Windows can only address 3.5gb because of 32bit pointer limitations... 3gb is about as good as it gets.
    I don't believe that matters. What matters is the commit size. Although individual applications cannot use more than 2 GB, the total commit size can still exceed 4 GB.
    And then you need the pagefile.
    I have a home server set up runing 32bit XP, that also doubles as a HTPC for movies and music. It's been running on 2gb of ram without a swap file for the last 3 years and there has never been a problem.
    That server isn't doing a lot, though, is it? Its memory allocation should be mostly constant since it only plays movies and such. I wouldn't forsee much problems with such a basic system.

    My smarter half's machine runs Win7 x64 on 4gb of ram, no swap file, no superfetch and no prefetch... she mostly runs Office and a couple of medium weight graphics programs (Gimp, etc.)... no problems.
    4 GB might be okay, but it's on the edge depending on what you do.
    If you start up a game, beware.

    Regardless, I'd recommend you don't disable the pagefile until you're sure it's okay. Use Process Explorer and monitor the peak commit size. If it's less than your installed RAM (with a good marigin), then it might be okay to disable it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  4. #34
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    You can run games on 4 GB of RAM, what games are you talking about? Of course, I wouldn't disable pagefiles because you'd want the crash dumps and stuff but logistically you should be fine and won't need to max out your mobo's memory spaces.

  5. #35
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    What I mean is that if you launch a game, you might push the commit over that 4 GB limit (unless you take care to close as much as possible before launching the game).
    2-3 GB normal desktop stuff + memory demanding game.
    That's why I said to be careful.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  6. #36
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    Or you know, adopt sane habits... seriously, people don't at least close their browsers before playing a game? Come on people. You can't even look at the browser and the game.

  7. #37
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    Takes too long to restart it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    Takes too long to restart it.
    Odd... IE is on my screen in way under a second when I click it's icon... Most times it's showing before I get my finger off the mouse button...

    People opening everything they own is just silly... do you bury your desk in paper just to read a post-it?
    (For that matter, when's the last time you cleared your desk?)

  9. #39
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    People opening everything they own is just silly... do you bury your desk in paper just to read a post-it?
    (For that matter, when's the last time you cleared your desk?)
    I DO open everything I own, and most of the time I can't see my desk's surface because it's covered by everything I own.

    If we ignore the problem of whether disabling pagefile is going to be fine for a second, I think another important question is, WHY would you want to disable the pagefile? Because you need a few more GB space on your harddrive?

  10. #40
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    To force Windows not to put stuff in it, I would assume. It has happened that Windows feels it necessary to put stuff into the pagefile and toss it out of the memory even when memory is available. This is typical with big memory hogs, such as IDEs.
    It also reduces disk activity. Other than that, perhaps CommonTater can expand a little.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    I DO open everything I own, and most of the time I can't see my desk's surface because it's covered by everything I own.

    If we ignore the problem of whether disabling pagefile is going to be fine for a second, I think another important question is, WHY would you want to disable the pagefile? Because you need a few more GB space on your harddrive?
    Well, then... either ...

    a) learn how to operate your system properly
    or
    b) don't disable your page file.

    It's just plain silly to open a bunch of stuff you're not using. In fact, you should be able to run a windows system by clicking on files, not opening programs then opening files inside programs. Then close the program when you're done with it. So what if the next file opens the same program again... Having everything open all the time is going to slow your system to a crawl.

    And no, disabling the pagefile is not about saving disk space... it's about shutting down the *very slow* swap-out-swap-in mechanism and all the maintenance crap that goes with it. i.e. it's about speed not space.

  12. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by CommonTater View Post
    It's just plain silly to open a bunch of stuff you're not using. In fact, you should be able to run a windows system by clicking on files, not opening programs then opening files inside programs. Then close the program when you're done with it. So what if the next file opens the same program again... Having everything open all the time is going to slow your system to a crawl.
    It's not silly and it doesn't slow your system to a crawl if you have the memory to back it up.
    I always leave windows open. It so happens I usually leave multiple media player windows open and always hibernate my PC.

    It's a matter of opinion. Some people want everything open to be able to quickly switch between them.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    It's not silly and it doesn't slow your system to a crawl if you have the memory to back it up.
    I always leave windows open. It so happens I usually leave multiple media player windows open and always hibernate my PC.

    It's a matter of opinion. Some people want everything open to be able to quickly switch between them.
    Yet the very act of opening everything is what is slowing you down...

    Consider what has to happen when you're running near full memory load... you open a new program... that program has to have at least it's main executable in memory to turn... so now Windows has to swap out all the crap you've just put into the background... eating up time as the system figures out what can and can't be swapped out to keep everything alive, eating up even more time writing stuff to disk, expanding and housecleaning the swap file itself, reading stuff back in, etc. and THEN it has to load your program... All of this takes time... and with multiple swap file and file load operations going on at once the drive is seeking like mad ... slowing your system right down.

    The far more sensible approach is to open only what you need... Typically I will have my IDE open when programming, a couple of help files for function syntax, and maybe a web page with additional information... Occasionally I open a media player for some tunes... but there's no way I would do this on top of a dozen other programs that just sit there and do nothing... If I ain't usin' 'em I close 'em.

    Seriously I've been working this way for YEARS with no swap file... and I've never yet run into a low resources warning... not once.

  14. #44
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    Like I said, the system does not crawl if you have the memory to back it up.
    Also, Windows is clever in that it typically pages out processes to the page file in the background so that when it needs memory, it can just throw out old pages without having to write them to the page file first.
    And when memory is plenty again, the superfetch service will start reading back pages into memory.
    This makes the system pretty responsive, but you do need at least some memory to back it up.

    And btw, I've been running my system for years without a lot of slowdowns on just 3-4 GB of memory! With the pagefile!
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  15. #45
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    Yet the very act of opening everything is what is slowing you down...

    Consider what has to happen when you're running near full memory load... you open a new program... that program has to have at least it's main executable in memory to turn... so now Windows has to swap out all the crap you've just put into the background... eating up time as the system figures out what can and can't be swapped out to keep everything alive, eating up even more time writing stuff to disk, expanding and housecleaning the swap file itself, reading stuff back in, etc. and THEN it has to load your program... All of this takes time... and with multiple swap file and file load operations going on at once the drive is seeking like mad ... slowing your system right down.

    The far more sensible approach is to open only what you need... Typically I will have my IDE open when programming, a couple of help files for function syntax, and maybe a web page with additional information... Occasionally I open a media player for some tunes... but there's no way I would do this on top of a dozen other programs that just sit there and do nothing... If I ain't usin' 'em I close 'em.

    Seriously I've been working this way for YEARS with no swap file... and I've never yet run into a low resources warning... not once.
    I have 4GB of memory. Never runs out.

    Even if it does, keeping things open and swapping is still faster than opening and closing things all the time. Human is by far the biggest bottleneck. It takes a second or 2 to swap an application back into memory, but it will take you way more time to open up the application, and navigate to the correct page, etc.

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