i had 512mb of ram on my computer and i was trying to do some 3D modelling and i was dragging my arse along the ground for ages before i upgraded to 1gig of ram and it’s the bestest
well i dont think i will need the 1 gig RAM considering right now i am using a 128MB RAM… So it is the RAM that makes the computer go fast?? like opening programes, and turing it on??? right now on my comp it takes like 14 minuits to turn on, and to open adob photoshop it takes like 6 minuits alone. on the new comp i want it to be ALOT faster in this way.
If you have enough RAM the computer will be faster. There is a point where adding more RAM won’t improve the loading speed and running speed of the computer. For Windows XP that point is more than 512 MB.
When the computer runs low on RAM it uses part of the hard drive as virtual memory (swap space). It will page out “stale” memory data from RAM and move it to a swap file. That will free up space in RAM for an active program. However, when that “stale” memory in virtual memory needs to be accessed again it has to be moved from the hard drive back into RAM. That operation is slow. RAM is very fast. Hard drives are very slow.
When the computer is very low on memory it has to rely more on virtual memory (the swap file) to do basic operations and run programs. Virtual memory is very very slow when used heavily as active memory.
With 256 MB of RAM you’re still going to be using virtual memory when running big programs like Photoshop and Photoshop will take a longer time to load. With 512 MB of RAM you’ll be using virtual memory a lot less and big programs like Photoshop will run faster. 128 MB of RAM with Windows XP and Photoshop would be absolutely painful (as you experienced).
The ideal is to have enough RAM so that the computer never has to use the swap file as active memory. I don’t know where that point is for Windows XP under typical use. It’s something more than 512 MB, probably around 700 MB but that’s just a guess. Adding additional memory beyond that won’t speed up memory access unless you run programs that require a lot of memory.
512 MB of RAM would be the minimum that any sane person would recommend for Windows XP doing things like Photoshop and video editing. 256 MB would put you back in the same boat you were with slow load times.
Go Sempron with 512MB+ of RAM. If you can fit 1GB into the budget, it is well worth it. Your computing experience will seem smoother than the combined smoothness of hundreds of babies’ bottoms (compared to using 128MB of RAM).
Thanks a lot for the help… i am typing this on my NEW computer!!! its 512 MB RAM, AMD sempron 3200, and it is a compaq computer… so far is it NICE… i dont have photo shopp or anyhitng installed yet. but this forum helped a lot when gett this computer.
Woot! Now you just need to keep it clean of spyware and crapware so it continues to run nice and fast like it is now.
You might want to look in the BIOS screen and see how much RAM it has reserved for the integrated video. Lower it down to 32 MB or so. That will free some extra memory for use by the OS. Since you only have 512 MB you need to be stingy and keep as much of it available for the OS as possible. You only need extra video memory if you play 3D games that have textures. Otherwise you’re just wasting memory that could be put to better use by the OS.
Have you been able to transfer the data from the old computer to the new one? One route is to plug the old HD in the new computer as a temporary 2nd hard drive. Copy the data you want over and then remove it. Takes a bit of technical knowledge to know where to connect it and such.
Hmm…I disagree. Video editing (and even Photshop!) use video ram, so I think it is important to keep this at about 64 MB. You’re right though, that this will cut into the 512 MB system RAM. Honestly, that’s what I had on my laptop, and it wasn’t enough. When I’m using Photoshop, it just eats up ram like it breakfast cereal…I think the smartest move would be to get another 512 MB stick and then keep the video RAM at about 64. Getting a 512 MB stick (as opposed to a 1 gig or whatever) would allow you to run dual-channel on your ram. Basically, the idea is you want the two sticks to be the same size for optimal performance.
For 2D graphics you really don’t need that much.
At a resolution of 1280x1024 and a color depth of 32 bits/pixel you only need 5MB of video memory to hold what’s on the display. You’ll need a little extra for things like buffering and video overlays. So triple that value just to be nice. So 15MB of video memory will cover you nicely for a 2D 1280x1024 display. Round that up to 16MB and you’re good.
3D is a different matter. Then you need lots of video memory to hold textures, geometry, and other things. Textures are the biggie. 3D games require lots of video memory because they have lots of big textures.
Photoshop manipulates images in system RAM, not video memory.
well the computer that busted was kinda a crap computer use for downloading music and stuff, it had no important stuff on it…i was surprised how easy it was to set up my new one, it took like 1 hour to set everything up and get it online and to set up the home network (well it took another hour to make the back up disks but that dosnt count… it took 15 blank cd to make the back up!!!)
hate to point out the obviose but how are you sending these posts ?
Making those backup disks is a pain. Fortunately I have a DVD writer so it only took two disks for me to backup the recovery partition.
You may be able to read the data off the old hard drive. If the old hard drive didn’t make any strange noises (like clicking noises or scraping noises) then it is probably still all OK. You’d just need to plug it in and copy over the files you want. One way is to put the drive in an external USB enclosure. Plug it in to a USB port and read the drive. You might be able to borrow a USB enclosure for the task. If the drive made strange noises (clicks or scraping) then it probably crashed and is unrecoverable. The noises are the drive head digging chunks out of the platters.
If you did have any personal data on the old computer (like SSN or bank information or a PayPal password) or something that you want kept secret (like a collection of midget porn) you’ll want to wipe the disk if the disk isn’t physically crashed. There are programs that can do that or you can do it the fun way and smash it with a hammer or just disassemble it and have a look at what’s inside a hard drive.