Hi

I do a load of movie editing on my pc and I was thinking of upgrading my
512mb of RAM to 2GB but I am being told it could destabilise windows (even
though the motherboard can take 2GB). Does anyone have any thoughts about
this? Just wondered ...

I run XP Home and Adobe Premiere
--


Many thanks
JD

Jackie D wrote:
Xp can handle up to 4 gigs of ram.

--
Mike Pawlak

Thanks for that.
--


Many thanks
JD


"MAP" wrote:

Jackie D wrote:


You've been told wrong. It's completely incorrect. In fact I am running 2GB
on this machine right now, with no problems at all.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Thanks Ken. The warning advice didn't make much sense to me. I'll go for 2 gb
then.
--


Many thanks
JD


"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

Today =?Utf-8?B?SmFja2llIEQ=?= commented courteously on the
subject at hand

The max that Windoze can use right now is 4 gig, of which it
steals the top gig for itself. I believe, but am not at all
sure, that newer 64-bit CPUs with newer mobo and 64-bit Windoze
lets you have more than 4 gig, but I don't know the true limit.
But, for an older mobo, you may be limited in installing max mem
depending on how many mem slots you have and hard large each one
can be.

--
ATM, aka Jerry

"Whether You Think You CAN Or CAN'T, You're Right." – Henry Ford

All Things Mopar <nunofyour@beez.wax> wrote:

You're confusing physical RAM with the virtual memory space made
available to processes.

WinXP can handle 4GB of physical RAM.

Each process running in WinXP gets a 4GB virtual memory space. The top
2GB of that space is reserved for the operating system (the OS is
mapped there, and will appropriate working space for itself in that
address range). If you have exceptionally greedy applications, you can
use the /3GB switch in the boot.ini file. That will make the OS use
only the top 1GB.

It's much more than 4GB, but less than the theoretical max for such
things of 2**64.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(DTS)
Slattery_T@bls.gov

Jackie D wrote:


You're welcome. Glad to help.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Today Tim Slattery commented courteously on the subject at
hand

I'm not confusing anything, Tim. A mobo, and Windoze, can
handle 4 gig of memory. It is phyiscal as it is installed, it
only becomes one of many forms of virtual memory as Windoze
bastardizes it's inefficient memory handling. My point was and
is that of the 4, Windoze hijacks/steals/"reserves" the top
gig for purpose or purposes unknow. I really don't want to
debate these nuances as they're irrelevant to most people, who
only want to know how many memory sticks their mobo can hold
and Windoze can address.

If you want to believe that each process, or each account, can
have a full 4 gig, then please be my guest. In reality, you
can overload Windoze pitiful memory management with just 2 or
3 user accounts simultaneously running, particularly if they
are doing memory intensive tasks in the background, and the
user(s) are switching between one and another. One scenario is
2 or 3 physical users in the same room who want to launch off
a bunch of background tasks then yield keyboard/mouse time to
the next user and so one. Even with 4 gig, Windoze fairly
quickly gets tangled in its underwear and starts throwing
those neat little yellow upside down triangles with an
explamantion point in them yelling "system memory running
low".

But, to keep this out of some elitist theoretical discussion
and keep it real world, ordinary people only want to know how
much they can load down their system before it simultaneously
becomes CPU bound, HD bound, and memory constrainted (e.g. for
swap files or graphics app undo files). Once "real" memory
runs out, the HD will start thrashing.

Right now on my AMD 3700 4 gig Win XP Pro SP2 system, the only
thing going on is a background task copying 20-30 gig from my
D to an external HD. Of 3 gig available (Taskmanager doesn't
easily show where the stolen gig went), only a bit more than 2
gig is "available". Again, I'm not personally interested in
theoretical discussion, as I'm a strict pragmatist.

So, if there are memory management settings other than the
defaults of XP Pro SP2 I should alter to improve my overall
performance, please let me know where the controls are.
Thanks.

--
ATM, aka Jerry

"Whether You Think You CAN Or CAN'T, You're Right." – Henry
Ford

All Things Mopar <nunofyour@beez.wax> wrote:

That isn't true. And Window's memory handling is not inefficient.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(DTS)
Slattery_T@bls.gov

Today Tim Slattery commented courteously on the subject at
hand

I don't know what you see and you don't know what I see, so why
are you disputing something you know nothing about? Come on over
and take a look at my PC, you will quickly see that an entire
gig is MIA. Where'd it go, Tim?

The "doze" in Windoze is /not/ because it is an efficient user
of CPU, memory, and HD resources. It is a hog, plain and simple.
And, Bill the Gates really lame "military intelligence" effort,
otherwise known as "M$ security" just made bloated inefficient
software that much worse.

As has been said, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so
if you want to believe that Windoze is efficient, be my guest.
Before I out you away for the night, did you forget to put
"MVP" in your sig? You sure sound like an M$ apologist to me.

--
ATM, aka Jerry

"Whether You Think You CAN Or CAN'T, You're Right." – Henry Ford

Ken

Just bought the extra RAM (1.5 gig in total now). Was I naive to think
programmes would open more quickly with the extra RAM? If anything, they are
opening more sluggishly.
--



JD


"Jackie D" wrote:

Jackie D wrote:

Yes, I'm afraid so.



That's highly uinlikely, The extra RAM should never hurt you. Its benefit,
if there is one, should appear when you're running memory-intensive
programs. You mentioned movie editing, and that's a good example of an
application where it should be benficial. With regard to speed of opening
programs, I wouldn't expect any difference at all.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

I see. Is there any way to speed up the opening of programmes?
--


Many thanks
JD


"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

Jackie D wrote:



Nothing in particular that I know of, other than doing the things that speed
up everything--faster CPU, faster hard drive, etc.

How slow is the opening of programs? Which programs--all or just some? Is
the speed of the computer otherwise satisfactory?

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

=?Utf-8?B?SmFja2llIEQ=?= wrote:
In theory, one would think that adding more ram would make programs load
quicker if in the past, before you added the ram, windows would have to
place files in swap instead of in ram.