The effects of memory

For example i have 1 pc with 512mb ram an another with 1024mb ram. How is the memory helps the system in performance both of this pc requires to perform a task to encode files.. to burn to vcd using nero.

The speed of the memory might help, but the quanity will probably not. I have 512MB in my system at home and it burns just about the same as another system I have that only has 256MB of ram. (With Nero and same cd burner)

Quality, speed and quantity all help!

the more memory you have, the more programs you can have running and the more tasks you can have running.

It is possible to have too much memory though, I wouldnt put more than 1024MB in a NT/XP system.

Windows 98 tends to go a bit gaa gaa with more than 512MB.

Im not sure about *nix systems!

if you have too much, the O/S doesnt know what to do with it and takes that little bit longer to find the the stuff it needs from it!

Been there with win98 going belly up because of too much memory. And I reduced it down to 1024 and it somewhat stablized, but at 512 like was mentioned, I feel that's about the best for ole98.

I haven't used Linux for anything memory demanding, so for the applications I use, the boxes scream with 512 as well. Obviously boost your swap to match or exceed your memory!

:cool:

Can i say to speed up any application process like burning CDs etc a faster CPU would help, for memory intensive applications like video encoding or multi-tasking more memory would help?

For example a application took about 100mb of memory from the system to perform a task on both system assuming same specification same clockspeed. Only difference in memory 1 with 512MB another with 1024MB which one would complete the task first?

It wouldnt matter, as long as there is a 100MB free for the application anything left over wouldnt need to be used.

If you had more memory though you could open more app's whilst the program is running!

D. K.

There's actually a lot involved in how "quick" a computer may be or how quick you may be able to make it. Just some of them are:

CPU Capabilities
Bus Speed
L1 & L2 Cache
Quantity and Type of Memory
Hard Disk Speed
How many applications you are using.
Are those applications memory hogs?
What's running in the background.
etc., etc., etc.

:cool:

However upgrading memory is usually the first, easiest, cheapest and quickest way to spped your system up!

Nokia,

Thanks for bringing that up, I should have mentioned that it was usually the first thing to do, the cheapest and easiest to accomplish!

:)

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Can i say to speed up any application process like burning CDs etc a faster CPU would help, for memory intensive applications like video encoding or multi-tasking more memory would help?

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Generally, burning CDs will depend on the capabilities of the CD drive and media that you are using.

Multitasking uses more memory, so you can go to the maximum that the OS will support/use, in theory.

As a rough "rule of thumb", this is what you should be looking for:

Win 98 - 256Mb
Win98SE -384Mb
Win Me - 512Mb

The Windows 9x/Me operating systems are not stable above 512Mb

Windows XP and 2K are quite happy with 1Gb or more.

Processor and motherboard speed are also influential, as is the speed of the RAM (as opposed to quantity) For example, games tend to work much better with faster memory.

You need to be careful when selecting a motherboard, particularly some of the cheaper ones, as you will probably find that although they will support PC3200 RAM, they probably only handle 512Mb of it, whereas the same board will probably take 2Gb of PC2100.

For all practical purposes, once you have a processor running at 2GHz with 512Mb of PC2700, you don't really notice the difference ;)

Cheers

thanks nihil for a moment I thought people were saying my XP system would be sluggish due to the 2GB of ram I have in there. lol

What types of applications do you run? if you run mainly Video games, internet apps etc then 512 should be good for you. If you run intense apps, such as photoshop, bryce, SQL databases etc then the more memory the better.

Many people in hopes of making their system super fast order a computer with tons of ram, but because they spent so much on ram, go cheaper on the rest of the computer i.e. 5400 RPM HD, 233mhz XP processory, etc. Even though they may have fast ram the rest of the computer slows down the ram thus cancelling out the fast ram .lol

In order to have a all arround decent system its best to try to even everything up. Usually the biggest bottleneck in systems is the hard drives. if you can get a 7200RMP/ SATA/ SCSI / Raptor drive plus some fast ram then you woud see a bigger preformace increase.

Basically what RAM does, is its a place for the computer to store applications currently being used. The less ram, the less space for for current apps to be stored which then forces windows to use swap space (virtual Ram on your HD).

In order for your ram to have the programs put into memory, your Hard Drive must put them there hence why I said the HD is usually the biggest bottleneck. The faster the HD the faster the apps get into memory.

So the moral of this reply is more ram is nice, but if you want true preformacne, about 512MB of DDR ram, and a 7200RPM HD or greater would work out nicely. Preferrabbly if you can afford it, get one of those Western Digital Raptor drivers @ 10,000 RPM's :D lol