Memory Requirements of Vista/XP

Olibubble

Olibubble

Olibubble

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I feel history is repeating itself.

Recall when XP came out. Remember the memory you may have used. Not a lot really compared to what was available when SP2 came out.

128Mb recommended.
64Mb minimum.

If a friend were planning to build an XP system today. How much memory would you recommend? 512Mb? I wouldn't. I would say at least 1Gb, maybe even 2Gb, but at least 1Gb.

Even 512Mb is 4 times the recommended and 8 times the minimum. 1Gb is 8 times the recommended and 16 times the minimum.

Now look at Vista

512Mb minimum
1Gb Recommended

So, like for like;

512Mb XP = 2Gb Vista
1Gb XP = 4Gb Vista
2Gb XP = 8GB Vista

Vista does run far more smoothley on 4Gb. I would recommend around 6Gb if truth be told.
 
xp, basic web browsing & media - 512mb minimum, 2gb recommended
vista, basic web browsing & media - 2gb minimum, 4gb+ recommended
 
So your comparing one OS to another :rolleyes:, it doesn't work like that. 2gb is enough to even play games. 4gb is better, more than 4gb in vista is pretty pointless, unless your using cad/photoshop or other software.
 
i think what the OP was getting at is microsoft's silly min requirements

ie, 'windows will just about install ok on this'


Ulfhedjinn, i guess you're not as fussy as me :)

what's with that username btw? (not meant in a bad way)
 
bledd. said:
i think what the OP was getting at is microsoft's silly min requirements

ie, 'windows will just about install ok on this'
Click to expand...

Vista does work fine on 1GB, I think they learnt a fair amount from xp. 1GB is enough to run vista as a webrowser/word processing computer.
 
bledd. said:
Ulfhedjinn, i guess you're not as fussy as me :)

what's with that username btw? (not meant in a bad way)
Click to expand...

Nah I am pretty fussy indeed, and I wasn't really a fan of Vista prior to SP2 so if I had problems with task switching I would've been very vocal about it. I just can't say I noticed.

As for my username it's a neologism resulting from the words Úlfhéðinn (the singular form of Úlfhéðnar), a type of berserker warrior from Norse literature, and Djinn which is an evil genie in Islamic folklore. :)
 
bledd. said:
task switching speed blows in xp & vista with 1gb and 2gb
Click to expand...

Is there anyway you can demonstrate this to me? I'm currently on an XP machine with 512MB RAM and I have no idea what you are on about, same with Vista on 1GB. You swear down that it's not worth running Vista on less then 2GB, but I've run it with 1GB and it's been fine.

Please, please, please record this sluggishness using camstudio or something.

Burnsy
 
no problem

it's more when alt-tabbing from a game (like cs) or memory intensive app, i will get round to doing this, but can't this week, i'll film the screen instead of using camstudio, to keep it 'fairer'

if someone gave you a pc with 1gb ram and no os on it, would you install xp or vista?

i'm not trying to be awkward or annoy anyone btw :)
 
Vista on 2GB is perfectly smooth. I went from 2GB to 4GB (3.2GB usable) and if I hadn't installed the RAM myself, I'd have never noticed any difference. 1GB or less isn't very nice though.
 
bledd. said:
no problem

it's more when alt-tabbing from a game (like cs) or memory intensive app, i will get round to doing this, but can't this week, i'll film the screen instead of using camstudio, to keep it 'fairer'

if someone gave you a pc with 1gb ram and no os on it, would you install xp or vista?

i'm not trying to be awkward or annoy anyone btw :)
Click to expand...

Bare in mind that you said it was sluggish for basic stuff, so no examples of it being sluggish when playing CS:S ;)

The OS that I would install for your example depends on a lot of factors, i.e. what they were going to use it for and who they were. I have installed Vista on a friends old machine who only really uses office apps and web stuff, although he did use CuBase SX2 on there. He had a Socket A athlon 2000+ and 1GB RAM. It was fine for him.

Burnsy
 
Vista can just about cope with 512meg of ram (it goes into basic mode without the side bar though and isnt too pretty). On the same note Xp is pretty similar when your trying to do more than 2 things down at 512meg.

I found the real minimums for both is about a gig (2 is prefferable). For your working with a ddr2 system 4gig is so cheap theres no point is having less :) (i mean £50 for 2x2gig sticks!!! its criminal not to buy at that price)
 
it's very hard to provide reccomendations for any hardware since users requirements, and that of the relevant tools they need is changing.

I've seen a few XP Machines with 256MB run fine for basic tasks (in this i include web browsing, email, open office). But then for my 3D CAD system (Solidworks) it requires a lot more, how are MS to tell what i require?. I could argue that you should adhere to the software requirements, but then i could be opening a very small model, or a massive one.

Takes a bit of thought from the user as to their requirements, which is probably why some get it so wrong.
 
I say if u goin on line with xp more than 512 will be good .with vista use 1 gig for a little while than put in another gig and you will see the differance.:cool:
 
Here is a screenshot of my system with only Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3 open, Opera and Media player on Vista 64 with 6Gb of ram. Other than Opera no application has any working content.

Currently using 1.8Gb of RAM

276770.jpg


I then open Adobe Lightroom 2 (64 Bit)

Now we jump to 2.2Gb of RAM

276774.jpg


Maybe I decide to check my emails so I open up Outlook

276776.jpg


And suddenly I am using 2.4Gb of RAM.

So;

6 Applications (with no content) and two tabs on my browser, Avast AV software running, Windows Explorer and Process Explorer and I am using 40% of 6Gb.

The more you multitask, the more RAM you need. And I don't think what I have shown you is overkill in anyway. And look how much RAM was being used before I loaded any content into those applications.
 
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