Question about megabytes of rams

[Northern Yankee]

I have 512 with my Dell computer. According to the readout from Belarc Advisor, "Slot DIMM_2 is Empty". Is 512 good enough? I know with my old IBM, 98SE didn't know how to use the extra memory that I put in it. Does XP need more than 512, and what should be the limit?

 

[setishock]

Um...

512 is plenty.

 

[Techy Geek]

512 is good, if you use big programs eg Maya etc. or just want the power and speed (or just have some money and wanna improve your computer) go for it. Upgrading the RAM is the easiest, most effective and cheapest upgrade you can do, 512 is a respectable figure, fast becoming the norm, give a few years (5 or so) and 1024 will be the norm, but (my motto) if in doubt, leave it out, works for everything, seriously, think of a situation where it wouldnt work, PM me if you can

 

[ExGamer]

Hmm Jw... what dell do ya got.... just hope u dont have integrated graphics.....its funny how they call it extreame, you can realy play some hardcore games with that( rolls eyes ) Intel extreame 1 it better than extreame 2... well i think...

 

[smurkey]

it's all relative really and depends on entirely what you want to get out of your system. For instance, if you want to play Far Cry at maximum settings or Doom 3 for that matter there's no way on God's green Earth you'll get away with 512, and 1024 is needed, at least.

Having said that, if you're not planning on running the aforementioned games at those settings then yes, 512 is fine, particularly if you're not really playing games at all

 

[mayorredbeard]

it's all relative really and depends on entirely what you want to get out of your system. For instance, if you want to play Far Cry at maximum settings or Doom 3 for that matter there's no way on God's green Earth you'll get away with 512, and 1024 is needed, at least.

Having said that, if you're not planning on running the aforementioned games at those settings then yes, 512 is fine, particularly if you're not really playing games at all

I have played half life 2 maxed out, and doom 3 maxed out with 512 mb. More ram is always better though. It's not needed, but It is better. The games play much better with 1024 mb of ram which I have now, but you can still play those games with 512.

 

[smurkey]

by maxed out do you mean AA set to full samples? 1280x1024 res (which is the only decent looking res on a 19inch Viewsonic TFT) and all graphics settings set to ultra high?

Under such settings Doom 3 cannot run.

 

[lurkswithin]

A lot of misconception about ram. In reallity there is not very many people that can really tell any difference in performance between 512 mbs of ram and 1024mbs of ram on any software application.
The misconception here is not amount of ram that you have installed but the amount of "Available Ram" that your computer can use at any given time.
And that is what one must use to determine the need for more ram.
Every program, desktop icon, link, and shortcut uses and retains a certain amount of ram. It doesnot release this ram unless told to do so and even then may not release it as it is needed for the application to run. All most all software applications have a minimum and a maximum amount of ram that it will utillize. This is set by the programmers and cannot be changed. This is what it would take to run that program...with anything less than minimum causeing lagging and lock-ups and anything more than the maximum being released by design.
There are third party ram monitoring programs that a person could use to tell how much availlable ram they have, but most users use a "seat of the pants approach". If it lags a little or seems longer to open, then it needs more ram. which may or maynot be the case.
The point being that in most systems and taken all in to concideration, 512 mbs of ram is more than adequate to have your programs perform as designed to perform. Any more than that is used for so called high end gaming and to the users mind set.
you may check your available ram in windows if the program has not been turned off by a tweak program....
start>allprograms>accessaries>system tools>system information and scroll down to "available ram" and anything less than 150mbs should be increased with more ram as that is where it starts to cause lagging and slow openings of programs.