Thread: Do I need more RAM ?

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wraithan View Post
    ...if you have DDR1, go for another 256, since that is getting faded out as we speak. Check on newegg for the highest reviews for parts, typically they have the best customer feed back.
    I disagree. If you want to continue using the computer without upgrading, get more memory. That means a total of 1 GB or 2.
    Otherwise just do a full upgrade and get DDR2.
    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.

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  2. #17
    Dr Dipshi++ mike_g's Avatar
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    256mb is plenty for XP. Just maybe not for the programs that you want to run in it. If you havent done one recently, then I'd first do a defrag and clean out the registry. If your computers still running slow, and using the page file all the time then get some more RAM. 512mb should be plenty as long as you dont play new games or use demanding graphics software.

  3. #18
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    I assume it reports free physical memory? That's not a good way to measure, as you know.
    If the virtual memory use is 1 GB of a 512 mb system, then you're going to get swapping a lot.
    Are you saying that Windows will start swapping while there's still 128 MB of physical memory free? What kind of stupid memory management is that?
    All the buzzt!
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  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by mike_g View Post
    256mb is plenty for XP. Just maybe not for the programs that you want to run in it. If you havent done one recently, then I'd first do a defrag and clean out the registry. If your computers still running slow, and using the page file all the time then get some more RAM. 512mb should be plenty as long as you dont play new games or use demanding graphics software.
    I agree. XP itself could probably be run with just 64mb of RAM if you wanted to, but just sitting here @ cboard, firefox uses 95mb memory, and Open Office uses 58mb, that's quite alot if you only have 256mb total. Either get more memory or do a complete system upgrade imo..
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  5. #20
    Hurry Slowly vart's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CornedBee View Post
    Are you saying that Windows will start swapping while there's still 128 MB of physical memory free? What kind of stupid memory management is that?
    I do not know the right answer - but it is what we have.

    On my notebook right now the used memory size is 249M, total Physical memory - 256M and free physical memory 90M - so it means that about 83M are in swap...

    (and due to the physical memory size I prefer to run on this comp only Remote Desktop - so all programs I need are running on the main comp. The result is better than I try to start the simple IceBookReader directly on my comp for example (And I do not talk about some VC++ application or Photoshop)
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    except for the problem of too many layers of indirection.
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  6. #21
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CornedBee View Post
    Are you saying that Windows will start swapping while there's still 128 MB of physical memory free? What kind of stupid memory management is that?
    If you start swapping out when you hit a soft ceiling, then you can still maintain performance as the old pages get dropped from RAM. If you wait until you're against the wall, everything takes a hit as stuff swaps out.

  7. #22
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    Elysia: a total of 512 (if 256 has been enough so far) will be plenty until the OP is ready to move up to a new system. It would be wasteful to buy more than that especially since the cost of DDR1 is still high.

  8. #23
    Chinese pâté foxman's Avatar
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    Here's what task manager says for my system. I currently have 392 MB of RAM (3x128 MB of PC-133), which is less than i would like to. I though about replacing one of those memory module for a 512 MB one but hey, i'm cheap, and can't find one for less than 10$. Note that my computer is 8 years old .

    Anyway. Here's the number. It says "122 MB of available memory, 178 MB swapped on the HD" (if i understand well), and there's really nothing much running on background. So i would say, 512 MB would be great, but 768 MB would be greater, etc.

  9. #24
    Kernel hacker
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    No, the pagefile in task manager isn't what's in the pagefile on your disk, but how much memory is used in the entire system, RAM and on disk.

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  10. #25
    Chinese pâté foxman's Avatar
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    Really ? That's interesting.

  11. #26
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck View Post
    If you start swapping out when you hit a soft ceiling, then you can still maintain performance as the old pages get dropped from RAM. If you wait until you're against the wall, everything takes a hit as stuff swaps out.
    You mean, by swapping out long-unused stuff, you can avoid a delay when swapping is finally necessary?
    All the buzzt!
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  12. #27
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    Pretty much, stuff that is the oldest and most unused in memory gets swapped out, allowing you to keep launching more and more applications, but you take a huge hit on load time when you click on a completely paged program that takes up more than the memory left. Since it has to page something then unpage as much of the once completely paged program.

  13. #28
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wraithan View Post
    Pretty much, stuff that is the oldest and most unused in memory gets swapped out, allowing you to keep launching more and more applications, but you take a huge hit on load time when you click on a completely paged program that takes up more than the memory left. Since it has to page something then unpage as much of the once completely paged program.
    Get a Solid State Drive.

    Me want one of those Memorights.
    Last edited by SlyMaelstrom; 02-05-2008 at 12:29 PM.
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  14. #29
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    I want one of those so bad, but the price keeps me out of that market =(

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by CornedBee View Post
    Are you saying that Windows will start swapping while there's still 128 MB of physical memory free? What kind of stupid memory management is that?
    Yeah, unfortunately, Windows is a complex beast and I certainly don't understand fully how it works.
    However, I'm assuming that with such little memory footprint, Windows actually wants to keep some RAM free so applications that demands more memory can actually receive it directly instead of having to page out something to make room before granting the request.
    Instead Windows might page out most unused pages to disk so as to keep some free. Makes sense, since it optimizes the speed of active applications.
    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.

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