Aero and 1 gig

[Pete]

x-no-archive: yes

So what do you Aero users say? Is one gig enough memory to run Aero
smoothly? Some say yes, others say probably not. I'm looking at a new
machine with only one meg.
-Pete

[Pete]

x-no-archive: yes

Post by Pete
x-no-archive: yes
So what do you Aero users say? Is one gig enough memory to run Aero
smoothly? Some say yes, others say probably not. I'm looking at a new
machine with only one meg.
-Pete

I mean gig.

[bvonr]

Hi Pete I am running Vista with 3G 400mhz ram and the sidebarr meter says I
am using about 33% of my ram at idle with everything turned on for maximum
use (like areo) I have an Athlon x64 Dual Core 4400

Post by Pete
x-no-archive: yes

Post by Pete
x-no-archive: yes
So what do you Aero users say? Is one gig enough memory to run Aero
smoothly? Some say yes, others say probably not. I'm looking at a new
machine with only one meg.
-Pete

I mean gig.

[Rud]

im running with 1gb pc6400 ram and vista is chewing on about 800mb of it
most of the time so its not leaving much left for anything else

[Asky]

I am running 1GB DDR2 @ PC6400 and it consumes around 700MB w/basic apps
installed and running.
So Aero should work well with 1GB unless u want to do heavy
gaming(BF2,Stalker etc etc).I have run games like FIFA,HL2,CS Source no
probs at all.
The real question is whether u have a good enuff GFX Card tu run Aero
IMO(Assuming u have1GB of RAM). :)

[f_vo]

Well i use 4 gb of PC6400 and even that seems to be NOT enough, since
Vista 64 Ultimate still uses more than 2 gb in the pagefile. I gave
Vista 200 mb-4000 mb and right now the pagefile is over 2000 mb. So 6-8
gb would be ideal for memory.

What strikes me more is that with PC6400 performance of the memory is
ONLY 5,6 so maybe PC8500 (1066 MHZ) would be better.

François

[Asky]

:eek: 4GB not enuf???
Certainly seems like something is going wrong.
You mite as well start looking for tweaks that disable the pagefile and
make sure vista *actually uses* the 4GB RAM.
I will post here if i find one.

[Sandeep Thoppil]

in my laptop which runs on 32bit Intel duo core and 512mb DDR 667Mhz FSB
memory Aero wasnt working. I later upgraded my memory to 1 gb, this also
doesnt bring the aero, later I reinstalled Vista Home Premium. Which brought
up the Aero and answered lot of issues like USB device problems and such.
--
Sandeep Thoppil

Post by Asky
:eek: 4GB not enuf???
Certainly seems like something is going wrong.
You mite as well start looking for tweaks that disable the pagefile and
make sure vista *actually uses* the 4GB RAM.
I will post here if i find one.
--
Asky
DDR2 667 | Sapphire X1900GT | Samsung 940BW | Mushkin XP-650 PSU |XBOX
360 Controller | Vista Ultimate X64 |

[Crito]

I'm running Aero at this very moment with 512 megs and have 160 meg
free. I'm using an ancient MX440 with 64megs and the setup program eve
turned on all the bells and whistles by default. So I don't think that'
what's hogging memory and making your systems slower.

Turning off restore points, background defrag and indexing on drive C
seemed to make this PC about twice as fast though. :

--
Crito

[mikerrr]

I agree w/crito the restore points kill your storage, ax all the shortcuts
and run disk cleanup. also check firewalls and or security applications.
--
Thanks / Mikerrr

I'm running Aero at this very moment with 512 megs and have 160 megs
free. I'm using an ancient MX440 with 64megs and the setup program even
turned on all the bells and whistles by default. So I don't think that's
what's hogging memory and making your systems slower.
seemed to make this PC about twice as fast though. :|
--
Crito

[Dark_X]

@Sandeep
Do you have an Aero campatible graphics card? If it is maybe you
should update the drivers.

[f_vo]

Well, so far so good. No pagfile, computer is noticable faster, easier
so it seems.

Now instead of using 1,15 gb memory it indicates 1,65 gb. I will leave
it like this for the moment.

François

[the highlander]

You guys must understand that unlike xp and its predecessors, Vista does
use whatever you put into it. The more mem .. the more it will use...
The more cache it will store... And rightfully enough.. Specially if you
are running superfetch and others.

I have 4gb ram at the beginning of the installation it used about 50%
of it.. just to be there... after a while (a few days and i guess this
is superfetch tuning) it dropped to 26% as it is now. Depending on the
frequency of certain programs.

When i tend to start a game frequently like bf2.. Mem usage will drop
significantly.. If i start loading up pretty much Flash, photoshop and
other huge programs.. Mem consumption will go through the roof.

So this is system (ultimate at least) is far better than xp in memory
usage....

If i had the $ i would pour in 8gb on the system as i see it uses it
all... I woudn't however disable pagefile as For some reason it makes
the system slower... Maybe buy a 4gb stick drive to use it solely for
pagefile would be an improvement.

[f_vo]

As said computer works well with 4 gb memory and NO pagefile, howeve
the system still indicates that i should use 6141 mb, strange.

Françoi

--
f_vo

[DC187]

Aero is running no problem on the P3 1GHz with 1GB RDRAM that I have
with a static 1534MB Pagefile on D: and a static 200MB pagefile on C:

GG

[f_vo]

disabled the pagefile, so everything in memory. 2 Gb seems is just not
enough, 3 is ideal believ me.

1 gb is definitly not enough, sure you can manage, but you need more,
certainly is you use Sata drives.

François

[chiefbrody]

hello all

i bought my notebook first with 1GB RAM. Because of the fact, that
want to play games on my laptop i bought additional 1 GB for it. I
windows i noticed no diffrenece of performance. In the games an
programs (for example, Visual Studio, SQL Server) i was happy to hav
the additional 1 GB. (Dell M1710, Core 2 Duo T7400 with 2,16 GHz
GeForce 7900 GTX with 512 MB, former 1GB RAM now 2 GB RAM

On my old notebook i installed Windows Vista x32. In normal offic
using (surfing in the internet, writing text with office, usin
messenger, hearing music) it was definitly ok and not slow! (Asu
M6800M, Intel Pentium M with 1,5 GHz, Ati Raedon 9600 with 64 MB, 512!
MB RAM

In both configuration i cant notice problems with Aero

with best regards from germany
Nic

--
chiefbrody

[comphulk]

On my laptop, I have 1 gig of Ram installed, and it works quite wel
for me, even with Aero on. I do some gaming, and quite often browse th
internet, but my computer is still running good.

However, if you can get 2 gigs, I recommend it. I am thinking o
getting 2 gigs of Ram myself

--
comphulk

[ltwally]

On my workstation, with 8gigs of memory Vista still keeps 1-1.5gigs o
the swapfile in use.

Swapfile allocation, by itself, is not an indication of how much RAM i
enough. I have no idea what exactly Vista is putting in the pagin
file... but everyone needs to remember that Vista has a radicall
different approach to resource consumption that previous versions o
Windows.

As to the parent's question: I honestly don't feel that 1gig of RAM i
enough for any real use of Vista. With that little memory, you're goin
to be actively using your swapfile. Even if the system is only used fo
little-old-lady web surfing and emailing her grandkids, I recommend
bare-minimum of 1.5gig. 2gigs seems to be the sweet-spot fo
multitasking and the like

--
ltwally

[comphulk]

It depends on what you want to do on your computer. If you're just the
average home user, than it should work out fine.
Anything beyond that, like photo management, extreme gaming or
animation should run at least on 2 gigs, 4 is better and 8 is the best.

[Night]

Basically the way windows vista allocates memory is by sharing a decen
sum of your physical ram w/ your video card... i have a GeForce 8600 G
256mb ddr3, it shows in properties as 1gb, 256vram / 768 shared..
Basically, it learns to use what you give it... you might be susceptibl
to occasional slow downs where it might take a milisecond for the windo
to drag or something like that...but it should work. However, don'
bother using Dreamscene until you can get more memory, it'll eat up you
ram like you won't believe...

i currently have 2gb pc2-5300, typically i have about 40%-50% physica
memory in use by windows and misc. background apps... i've only seen i
go as high as maybe 70%... get another gig and you should be pleasentl
surprised... it's all about finding the bottleneck, and w/ vista, yo
want to eliminate them for the best experience possible

--
Night

[f_vo]

nice to see some guys can actually USE "dreamscene". I installed i
succesfully some 5 times and that is it. It does not show in th
installed programs. Furthermore Vista keeps telling me there is on
upgrade available. I gave up on dreamscene

Françoi

--
f_vo

[bistro]

Post by f_vo
nice to see some guys can actually USE "dreamscene". I installed i
succesfully some 5 times and that is it. It does not show in th
installed programs. Furthermore Vista keeps telling me there is on
upgrade available. I gave up on dreamscene
Françoi

I assume you using Ultimate if you installed it "successfuly"? That'
the only version that Dreamscene will work in. Also, Dreamscene does NO
show up in the Programs menu. It shows up under Display Propertie
(right-click on the Desktop) where you choose what Dreamscene to show
much like wallpaper
Almost all Dreamscenes that are available from Stardock (you have t
install Dreamscapes first for them to work) are user made and therefor
vary as far as resource usage. I've noticed some are quite conservative
while others hog both the RAM and CPU. Even with 4GB of RAM, I've ha
some crash on me. Don't look to Microsoft for much support wit
Dreamscenes...they've pretty much left all that to Stardock

--
bistr

intel q6600 cpu @ 3.2ghz - evga nforce 680i sli mobo - 4gb ocz reape
pc2-8500 - vista ultimate 64-bi
two evga 8800 gts 320mb in sli - x-fi fatal1ty platinum champio
soundcard
harddrives: 150gb wd raptor and two 74gb wd raptors, 500gb wd sat
pioneer 2810 dual layer sata dvd/cd writer - sony dual layer ide dvd/c
write
antec truepower quattro 850w psu - antec p160 pc case - viewsonic 19\
va912b lcd monitor

[ltwally]

Post by Night
Basically the way windows vista allocates memory is by sharing a decen
sum of your physical ram w/ your video card... i have a GeForce 8600 G
256mb ddr3, it shows in properties as 1gb, 256vram / 768 shared...

Huh? No. No. This has nothing to do with Vista, and everything to d
with both your BIOS allocation for shared memory and your vide
drivers.

This is not, I repeat NOT, something that the Vista operating system i
doing.

The reason that Vista performs better with more physical memory is
combination of lots of bloat and a VM that is geared towards more RAM.
This has been the trend of every operating system since the dawn o
operating systems - though Microsoft is well known for bein
particularly guilty of this. Let's not forget OSX, in all fairness
too

--
ltwally

[comphulk]

What is 'DreamScene"

--
comphulk

[ltwally]

I've got 4gig too and my little eye tells me Vista is using just under
half of that and apart from writing this my machine is doing Jack

I currently have 8gig, and there is little point to going over 4gigs
unless you do lots of video editing or similar.

When I first installed Vista, I had 4gig, and the ReadyCache was
constantly running it down to 0megs free. And that was fine - but I
figured, hey, if ReadyCache will use that much RAM, it should be able to
cache even more if I add more RAM. Not really so. ReadyCache typically
hovers at around 4gigs, leaving a lot of RAM free.