Win2k pro + 128ram....upgrading to 384...whats the benefit?

[shurato]

After being a long time windows 98 user i recently upgraded to win2k professional by dual booting it with 98..(actually this morning )
After seeing the deal of the day of 256megs of ram on buy.com today i jumped on the deal. Now the question is... i know 256 more in windows98 will do nothing for me...but how about win2k? Whats the benefit of going from 128 to 384? How about just 256? I might just get rid of my current 128 and leave the new 256 in if 384 is not that much beneficial compared to 256. I have multiple windows/apps open at once usually. Nothing too intensive...photoshop 6 is probably the most intensive application i'd have open.

 

[TMTCC]

This discussion has been beaten to death before, but I'll take a crack at it.

The sweetspot amount of ram for most win2k users seems to be at around 256 megs. After that, the law of diminishing marginal returns applies itself. But hey, at least you can go brag about haveing 384 megs of ram, and having some extra headroom for ram never hurts.

 

[Doggiedog]

If you are playing games with Win2k like I do, there is an extremely noticeable difference in speed. With 128MB, I was getting something around 15-20FPS in UT. With 256MB, I was getting around 150. Likewise, you will notice a lot of HD swapping when you have lots of programs open. I tend to grab a lot of MP3s off of newsgroups and when I save them with 256MB the little progress bar usually moves pretty quickly. With 128MB, I get a countdown 30secs..25secs..etc.

Don't know about the benefit of more than 256MB though but it couldn't hurt.

 

[shurato]

thanks for the helpful responses...i'm thinking 384 is overkill.. anyone else think so? 256 seems to sound like it will fit me right. Guess ill be selling my crucial memory on e.bay.

 

[FOBSIDE]

i have 320 in my win2k box right now. is it overkill? i wouldnt say that. it all depends on what youre running. it usually does leave me some "breathing room" but i wouldnt say its overkill.

 

[setaanbomb]

Win2k loves more RAM. Get up to around 512 and really see it fly. Albeit, 512 is well beyond most users, with RAM prices where they are, why not shoot for 512.

The more RAM you add, the more RAM the OS will use. This is good because it enables win2k to function better via multitasking and relieves stress from your Pagefile, lessening stress on your hard drive.

More RAM = more power.

 

[Rick25]

I just upgraded to 256. There is a noticeable difference in speed. Also much less HD thrashing cause it doesn't have to use the pagefile as much. Win2k still pages out about 30mb of Kernel info, I read once that there was a way to prevent this and I'm trying to track it down.

 

[Doggiedog]

Rick25, when you find it please post it!

 

[Alfred]

add ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in the system.ini

 

[Magic30]

My Win2k is runnig with 256 MB RAM. Before that I had 128 Mb and it really was a boost to add 128 Mb. If you are not going to run 10 applications parallel I think 256 Mb should do it.