Question about how much RAM to have to WinXP

[realbinky]

Well, DDR is better than RD, and is the way of the future, even if Intel owns Rambus (used to be independant makers of RD). Via et al are making P4 boards using DDR, and AMD always had DDR as an option on the Athlon XP line. That being said, RD is a close second, and 512 is fine. Don't even waste the money, save it for the NWN expansion or something. 256 in 98 is about the limit of showing performance increase, after that it is a waste. If you aren't using XP as a server, 512 is plenty. I recommend dual booting. Just install XP on your 98 box, and LEAVE the 98 alone. You can boot into either, for that 1% of software that won't work - I have one non-game program that I need 98 for, but I'd keep it around "just in case" anyway.

[Blade]

well believe it or not windows actually put the right specks on the box. What is says on there is actually what you need to run the OS smoothly, but rember the OS is allways running so your games need more ram on top of what the OS needs, so just add the suggested ram ammount of your most ram intensive game on top of windows xp's requirements. If its equal ammounts you are probably good to go, assuming at least you aren't running more than one or two programs at the same time at least. Well thats my opinion at least but more ram never hurts but it doesn't allways help either making it wasted money.

[Elif Godson]

Yea I just bought a stick of 512 DDR for my comp to go with the stick of 256 I have, both from Crucial. This for my swap over to XP in the next week or so. Should be a lot of fun wipeing the ole hard drive, maybe I should get a new one that is more up to date ? something say 7200 rpm 8 mb cache 60 gig ? any recommendations ?

[Sir Goulum]

My windows XP runs just fine on 128 MB of RAM [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Animal]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: After taking into consideration the pros and cons of the XP operating system, I have decided to get it this weekend. However, I also have the money to get more RDRAM. I currently have two sticks of 256 each...to make 512MB. But I have four slots on my card to be able to fill, and I hear that XP usues it's resources better than other OS's...so...Do you think it good to buy another two sticks of 256MB each, to have a total of 1024MB? Is it worth it?

If you do a lot of digital editing, then more RAM will speed things up, although you'll hit a point of diminishing returns at about 1GB. If you've already got 512MB, you're pretty much set to go.

[Animal]

Originally posted by Bungleau: I have 512 MB on my Win98 PC... there is never any such thing as too much memory on a windows box. I'd plan to add more in -- not necessarily immediately, but keep an eye out for falling memory prices. I'm seeing memory priced at US$10 for 128MB, and around US$40 or so for 256MB. That's really insignificant, price-wise.

Since 9x based kernels can only address 256MB, you're pretty much wasting your money. You'll find that 98 will never use anything over 256MB, and probably won't even use that.

[Bungleau]

I did not know that about 9x kernels... Too bad I don't have another machine I can put it in. The others are much older and can't handle newer memory.

Ah, well. Guess that means it's time to build a new machine!

[Animal]

Originally posted by realbinky: Well, DDR is better than RD, and is the way of the future, even if Intel owns Rambus (used to be independant makers of RD). Via et al are making P4 boards using DDR, and AMD always had DDR as an option on the Athlon XP line. That being said, RD is a close second, and 512 is fine. Don't even waste the money, save it for the NWN expansion or something. 256 in 98 is about the limit of showing performance increase, after that it is a waste. If you aren't using XP as a server, 512 is plenty. I recommend dual booting. Just install XP on your 98 box, and LEAVE the 98 alone. You can boot into either, for that 1% of software that won't work - I have one non-game program that I need 98 for, but I'd keep it around "just in case" anyway.

If you're running a newer P4, you'll find that RDRAM is much more efficient than DDR, since DDR can't effectively use the bandwidth offered by a 533MHZ FSB. True, VIA is developing P4 boards based on DDR, but they are not licsensed by Intel. I do however agree that DDR is the future, take a look at the new nForce 2 boards using dual channel DDR.

[Sir Krustin]

Originally posted by Animal: If you're running a newer P4, you'll find that RDRAM is much more efficient than DDR, since DDR can't effectively use the bandwidth offered by a 533MHZ FSB.

DualDDR changes all that - twice the bandwidth and half the latency of PC800 RDRAM.(6.4 gb/sec vs. 3.2 gb/sec)

Look for it in the nForce2 chipset mobos.

[DraconisRex]

512 will work. I have an old DOS trick, one I don't use anymore. You can get more memory and set up a virtual disk in your memory that gets initialized during boot. You use that as your swap-file disk. So while others are accessing their swap file at hardware speed, you're going at memory speed.

The performance increase is incredible. But it may not be worth it.