WINDOWS XP--MEMORY QUESTIONS!!

[Phat3800]

Hi guys--I recently upgraded to XP Pro from Windows ME and got everything functioning pretty well, but my hard disk(s) are thrashing around quite a bit, probably b/c I've only got 128 meg of memory. I've got a 1.3 ghz p4 w/ GeForce 2 Ultra w/64 meg of video ram and 2 hard drives. Is 256 meg ok or should I bite the bullet and go for 512?? I've got the 800mhz Rambus--the good stuff, but my games run like crap now compared to how they ran on ME--especially Max Payne and Sacrifice. Any suggestions? Also, should I consider a RAID setup in the future to improve performance? Perhaps a GeForce 3 as well?? Thanks in advance...

 

[MulLa]

It's probably system restore taking a snapshot of you HDD. Have you got system restore turned on in Me? It's on by default under XP.

When does your HDD experience heavy activity? When you try to load many programs at the same time? Or when you are not doing much?

 

[Dogma]

I'd highly recommend having at least 512mb in your system....what I would do, since that is probably prohibitive with Rambus, is get a 256mb rimm now, and add that to the 128 you have...that will be enough right now.

Now matter, everything you do, including games, are going to run 10-20% slower in frame rates, even with your kick ass card. That is probably XPs biggest problem.

One good tip is that you know how to get better frame rates in games is to turn off features? Well, do the same thing with the windows GUI before you go into games....turn off all the fancy stuff, go to windows classic...because, remember, the GUI is still working in the background, and it takes up a considerable amount of RAM all by itself for all the bloatedness that defines WinXP...

....just play a lot more bullet time in Max, and you won't see the difference