2gb of RAM?

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p0ser · #1 Post by **p0ser** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:32 pm

Just wondering how many people have maxed out at 2GB of RAM and find it a necessity. I'm currently at 1GB, and I can afford an extra 1GB but wondering if 512 would be just as effective in day to day situations. I am always running ms office apps (including outlook) vmware instances, dreamweaver, ssh client, and more than 10 browser instances. (mainly firefox, which i suspect has some memory leaks).

RCube · #2 Post by **RCube** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:42 pm

All depends what you do.
Open up task manager...see how much ram you are using.

#3 Post by **jdhurst** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:57 pm

I have 768Mb in my T41 and in my IBM Desktop. I always have scads of free memory except for the times when I run Virtual Machines. That is why I have more than 512, and one of these days, I will go to 1 Gb. Unless you are doing something along the lines of virtual machines or something equally heavy duty, I think you will find adding to your existing 1 Gb might not be cost effective. ... JDHurst

dr.b · #4 Post by **dr.b** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:22 pm

I have the 2 GB...and yes 4 would be better ... i love layers....

Kenn · #5 Post by **Kenn** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:15 am

dr.b wrote:I have the 2 GB...and yes 4 would be better ... i love layers....

Here here!

I usually run between 400-500MB of RAM on my 1GB system on everyday tasks (web/word/mp3s/IM,voip), but whenever I load up PS and get a few layers deep on a large image, it starts maxing out pretty quickly, and Windows coopts my 256MB swapfile and grows it to 700+MB.

I can live with it as an uncommon hassle though, I don't do graphics every day, and 1GB is plenty for any other general computing I can throw at the machine.

none · #6 Post by **none** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:05 pm

I think 1024MB is more than plenty... I find 1024MB enough to even disable virtual memory and run Photoshop and the likes off real RAM, very comfortably.

I say if you aren't find your computer slow, there is no reason to upgrade it.. If you ARE finding it slow, and need more RAM than 1024MB, I would recommend getting the full 2GB.

You could get 1.5GB, but 2GB will be better if your memory consumption grows in the future. And if you manage to use up an entire gig of RAM now, chances are it will grow

ZPrime · #7 Post by **ZPrime** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:45 pm

none wrote:I think 1024MB is more than plenty... I find 1024MB enough to even disable virtual memory and run Photoshop and the likes off real RAM, very comfortably.

FYI, no pagefile == bad idea.

some good info

another good thread

none · #8 Post by **none** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:59 pm

ZPrime wrote:FYI, no pagefile == bad idea.

I read those threads, but maybe I missed something.. I don't see anyone there discussing a no pagefile scenario, with the exception of one comment that says it doesn't work for most people.

Why do you say disabling your page file is bad? I find if you got the RAM for it, it makes most things faster.. And your hard drive must love it -- Less load, less work, less noise, less heat, and a bit more space.

AssPenny · #9 Post by **AssPenny** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:42 pm

Yep, i also disable page file on most machines have have 1gb or more ram. I find that it make it a bit faster.

dr.b · #10 Post by **dr.b** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:45 pm

If you work with multiple documents in photoshop or keeping some documents open there (what i think most of us do) paging makes sense.

bevross · #11 Post by **bevross** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:54 pm

none wrote:
ZPrime wrote:FYI, no pagefile == bad idea.
Why do you say disabling your page file is bad? I find if you got the RAM for it, it makes most things faster..

I, perhaps naively, assumed that Windows automatically adjusted, i.e., if you have the memory and don't need it then use of the pagefile would be minimal. In such a scenario, there'd be no need to disable pagefile & perhaps safer for when it occasionally might be needed? Perhaps I give Microsoft too much credit?

dr.b · #12 Post by **dr.b** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:58 pm

bevross wrote:
none wrote: Why do you say disabling your page file is bad? I find if you got the RAM for it, it makes most things faster..
I, perhaps naively, assumed that Windows automatically adjusted, i.e., if you have the memory and don't need it then use of the pagefile would be minimal. In such a scenario, there'd be no need to disable pagefile & perhaps safer for when it occasionally might be needed? Perhaps I give Microsoft too much credit?

i think we are discussing the photoshop swapfile and not the win-crap

none · #13 Post by **none** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:29 pm

bevross wrote:I, perhaps naively, assumed that Windows automatically adjusted, i.e., if you have the memory and don't need it then use of the pagefile would be minimal. In such a scenario, there'd be no need to disable pagefile & perhaps safer for when it occasionally might be needed? Perhaps I give Microsoft too much credit?

Heh, I believe you are giving Microsoft too much credit... Regardless of how much memory you have, Windows will always put information in the swap file if it decides that information is "not needed frequently/fast enough to deserve real RAM".

I found a registry tweak once that was supposed to make it try to use the swap file less if there's free RAM, as you suggested. But this was a long time ago, and I am not even sure it was for Windows XP.

2gb of RAM?

2gb of RAM?

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