Get your Windows XP PC to respond faster (if you have 1GB or more RAM of course)

If you have 1GB or more RAM installed, you can actually speed up the responsiveness of Windows XP.

Think of a scenario like this. You are listening to some music using Media player, minimized to the taskbar toolbar. After sometime, you want to restore it and do some changes to the playlist. It takes sometime to make it completely responsive right? On some systems, even with huge amounts of RAM, it still needs about 3 seconds. At least, mine does. This is only one example, but if you work on a lot of programs, this could be irritating.

I have a solutions. First, you have to remove the page file (that's why I told you that you need lots of RAM). Don't restart when asked because you need to change another setting. Go to the Advanced tab of System Properties, then select Performance (Settings) and again the Advanced tab and select System Cache under memory usage. Reboot when prompted.

When this setting is applied, i can even restore Photoshop after a while without any delay. The only program that takes a bit long (still faster) is Outlook 2007 Beta because the GUI consists of a lot of stuff and it reduces RAM usage when minimizes (rather than letting Windows cache them).

However, if you play games (at high resolutions), you might not want to remove the pagefile unless you have at least 1.5GB RAM. However, I was able to play FEAR 800x600 (with 4x AA/AF) and almost all the settings set to maximum (except for shadows and lighting) with 1.25GB of RAM. Just wanted to give you a benchmark.

Cheers,
Anusha

Yeah sure mate. I works very well. In fact, it make me ill to work on a PC with less than 1GB of RAM anymore.

I tried it in Vista Beta 2 but its high RAM usage doesn't allow me to run it for long without a pagefile. With 2GB RAM, it sure would let me do that.

@deffa
What's your other specs? I don't suppose you have a 3GHz P4 or so? Because 512MB RAM is so last millenium.

Oh ok. 512MB should be enough if you don't play games or don't mind the small hic-ups.

azaamDAsquad said:

machn u sure . i hv 1.256gb ram

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The I suppose you try it out and share your experiences. However, I'm running with 1.25GB RAM just because I have one (in fact, 2 256MB sticks) lying around. This damn motherboard gets overloaded when I fill three DIMM slots, and I think the power draw would still be insignificant if I remove the 256MB and add a 1GB stick there.

However, I have wait for sometime before I can afford a 1GB stick. I asked memory.lk about a 1GB stick (which I found out over kingston's website) and they had the exact model i requested. It costs Rs.11500 The thing is, it's the exact model of the ones I have right now, but with 1GB capacity (in contrast to 512MB) - this is for higher compatibility, nothing else. At Unity Plaza, I don't think I would be able to find a RAM by its model number, but it would be a lot cheaper there. However, I think I can hold the upgrade off until Vista comes out in its shining armor. Until then, XP can do very well with 1.25GB RAM (but not sure about 1GB) - I even can work on Maya 7 without running into problems. That's hell cool.

Cheers to all.

@azaamDAsquad
The difference might not be big depending on what you do. If you just surf the net, listen to music etc., you might not feel a difference at all. However, the Windows GUI should be a lot responsive to minimizing, maximizing windows etc.

@deffa
I used to play a lot of games, but not any more. It was one hellava good entertainment thingy, but now my tastes have somewhat changed. I'm into movies and TV Episodes. 512MB should be enough for a price/performance compromise. However, with my experience, i would put the amount of RAM in the first place when judging the overall experience attainable from a computer.

crazy life said:

no need to do this,I gt 3GB ne.

But I'll try it on my notebook

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Even if you have 3GB RAM, Windows doesn't utilize the full potential of that RAM. It will still use the dreaded pagefile even if you have 2.5GB of physical RAM left all the time.

If I could play FEAR without a pagefile on 1.25GB, why the hell are you worried about anything with 3GB RAM? You can even run Vista without a pagefile no?

Yeah right. There are still people who run Windows XP on 128MB RAM and unless you try this out, you will never know what you are missing.

Vista isn't out yet. How can you compare Vista beta to one of the most established OSed in the world? I will tell you when they release the final version.

P.S.
DirectX 10 is coming only for Vista. So if you are a gamer, you will inevitably have to move towards Vista.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be needed there. Vista launch will be the biggest thing MS have done in thier entire company history. Almost all the websites will carry that news.

However, it seems we will not get even the OEM version in this year. More like Q1 of next year.

I have heard that the private build MS released just after beta 2 is superb. People are pretty worried that the beta 2 didn't live up to their expectations. (including me)

There will be public Release Candidate version too. Hopefully this will cast a proper shadow of the final Vista edition.