Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (
More info?)
Nicholas Andrade <SDNick484@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote:
> Kmee wrote:
>> Thanks for this information.
>>
>> ~k
>> "Leythos" <void@nowhere.lan> wrote in message
>> news:MPG.1d50a0e4ff3a533a989a63@news-server.columbus.rr.com...
>> In article <hIyFe.31$_d1.397@eagle.america.net>, Kmee@nospammsn.com
>> says...
>>
>>>If I increase my memory from 512 to 1gb, how much of a performance
>>>increase will I see. I mainly surf, word process, digital photos,
>>>excel, and light graphic work such as greeting cards, stationery.
>>
>>
>> Right click on your task bar in a empty section, select TASK MANAGER,
>> select the "Performance" tab, look at the "Physical Memory" section
>> near
>> the bottom - the TOTAL is the amount of real memory you have in your
>> computer, the AVAILABLE is the amount of real free memory you have
>> left.
>> During your normal days work, if the available drops below 64000 then
>> you might benefit from more memory, also, if the PF Usage graph shows
>> MORE in use than your real amount of memory, then you are using
>> swap/page file space and really do need more memory.
>>
> It should be noted that due to the way Windows assigns RAM, it will use
> more RAM for the same processes if you have 1GB versus 512MB (check for
> yourself by removing a stick).
Sure. LRU virtual memory managers will keep anything and everything
until demand exhausts physical memory. Then some crusty old DLL will
get swapped out without much fanfare.
Perfmon would give an accurate answer. Perfmon captures trends better.
Unfortunately a short tutorial is too much to jot down in a usenet post.
Googling "perfmon tuning memory xp" led to this link:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Articles/ArticleID/3615/pg/2/2.html
I didn't read it. I can't vouch for it. But it looks reasonable.
It's also a pretty complicated answer.
So the simple answer is: 512MB is probably okay.