Does XP use 850 Mb of RAM?

[Captain Kirk]

thanks johnb35: 64mb ram.

"Default windows 7 install will use anywhere from 16 to 20gb of hard drive space."
holy cyrp!! that is gondazilla montezuma donkey kong pac man eating big!!!!!!!!

what's up S.T.A.R.S.?

you mean you "overclocked" your computer?

what a minute. just hold on a minute, second. your trying to tell me that your system is running ALLLLLLLLL of those programs in that picture of your computer screen?
your seriously trying to tell me that you are using LESS than 512 Mb of RAM?
okay, then that means something is "fishy" about mine. yesterday i was using 750 Mb of RAM. and today is all the way up to 870 Mb of RAM! and i'm only running 3-4 programs -- not even near as many as yours, and have 2 gigs of total ram (instead of 512 Mb).

on some programs (not os's) you HAVE to upgrade to the newest version or your program wont work and there will be an error.

2024?
you do realize that they are always increasing the sys req's for programs every year that they put them out don't you?
which means you'll be forced to upgrade just to be able to keep up with the times and run any programs at all.
but we don't want to talk about games, because they have ALREADY blown the spec's req out of the water.
even an oc wouldn't do it here. and no 3D card either?

Punk, nice to meet you.

"talking about ways to do this"
its a "secret" -- that's how person 1 is able to be better/smarter than the rest of the people, or person 2.

and as far as a "difference in speed after updates"?
well i'll tell you right now that after updates, your computer will be slowed down.
it used to take nearly 5-10 minutes to boot my previous computer after updates.
took the updates off, and PRESTO, ALA KA ZAM!
MAGIC.
pull a rabbit out of a hat:good:

and as far as w8?
i don't know if you know this, but it takes up more than 2 gigs of RAM!1!

and remember -- if you don't USE "all" of the RAM, it does not matter how much RAM you have.
in fact, you could have 1 trilobyte of RAM and it will run at the same speed as 512 Mb of RAM if your system only "needs" 64 Mb of RAM.

hi spirit,

didn't johnb35 just tell us that we can run xp on 64 Mb RAM?

i don't agree with you about updates.

voyagerfan99 hello there.

you running w7?

Okedokey, good day mate.

someone said that if you have "too much" (as in way too much) RAM that it will actually slow your computer down.

hello there G80FTW,

the least amount of RAM that i ever used on any computer was 256 or 512 Mb of RAM, can't remember which, but 98 and xp also ran just smooth that time as well.

-- James T Kirk
Unknown Mysteries

 

[Punk]

Punk, nice to meet you.

"talking about ways to do this"
its a "secret" -- that's how person 1 is able to be better/smarter than the rest of the people, or person 2.

and as far as a "difference in speed after updates"?
well i'll tell you right now that after updates, your computer will be slowed down.
it used to take nearly 5-10 minutes to boot my previous computer after updates.
took the updates off, and PRESTO, ALA KA ZAM!
MAGIC.
pull a rabbit out of a hat:good:

and as far as w8?
i don't know if you know this, but it takes up more than 2 gigs of RAM!1!

and remember -- if you don't USE "all" of the RAM, it does not matter how much RAM you have.
in fact, you could have 1 trilobyte of RAM and it will run at the same speed as 512 Mb of RAM if your system only "needs" 64 Mb of RAM.

We've met before

Yes I know that WIn8 uses 2GIGs of RAM what's your point? Of course updates made the requirements way higher too, it could run at 128mb but that's not my point at all.

Haha it's a secret, you really made me laugh! Talking about it and saying it's a secret just make you sound like a huge show off who's got nothing but his talk. Anyways I'm waiting for Stars to answer .

 

[spirit]

hi spirit,

didn't johnb35 just tell us that we can run xp on 64 Mb RAM?

i don't agree with you about updates.

If you had read my post properly, you would have seen that I said that you can run it on 128MB, but it will run at a 'snail's pace.' Yes, it will run on 64MB RAM too (but not anything less), but it will be unbelievably slow.

As far as updates for XP go, they really do slow it down and I believe Microsoft should have ended support for 2010 when they dropped support for 2000. The only reason they didn't I think was because even 4 years ago, XP was still quite widely used.

You really do like to turn a relatively simple question into a complicated one, don't you? I actually answered your question on the first page by saying 'yes it's quite normal for XP to use 850MB of RAM.'

 

[TrainTrackHack]

To answer the original question, it depends on the software selection, but it's perfectly normal. My grandad's old laptop with XP (and 1GB RAM) would use around ~800MB when loaded (with Skype, Avira and some HP printing gimmicks starting at boot) and with Firefox running.

Also, sometimes PERSON2 does know a lot more than PERSON1, but buys expensive hardware anyway because he just wants to get stuff done and can't be bothered tweaking around to get every drop of performance out of a crummy shoebox (hardware is cheap compared to time.) And tweaking is not magic, you can only get so much out of slow hardware, there are things that one simply can't do without upgrading or getting STRONG HARDWARE.

But I digress. Just out of curiosity, how come you don't use Linux STARS? Slap a minimalist DE/WM on something like Arch or minimalist Debian install, and you'll have a fully functioning system that is more than happy with ~120MB RAM - with a modern kernel and up-to-date software to boot. Linux is almost endlessly configurable and tweakable, especially when you want low resource usage and hideous, outdated appearance - in these two areas a properly set up Linux system will easily beat your XP installation, or indeed any Windows system with the possible exception of 3.x series and older. Sounds like a perfect match for you.

EDIT: Another question, why aren't you using "UAC data device data backup" software now? Surely, if all you're doing right now is optimisations, it will still work, just slower, which shouldn't be a problem because even slow has got to be better than a batch file plus you have optimised and tweaked your rig so it should run just fine?

 

[G80FTW]

someone said that if you have "too much" (as in way too much) RAM that it will actually slow your computer down.

Completely untrue. There is no such thing as "too much ram". I heard this rumor back in the XP days as well, never found it to be true.

And just to put this out there, I generally use 6-8GB of my 12GB installed and that is because I use editing programs and games that require that amount. If I ever tried designing something in photoshop like I do now with 128MB of RAM, I would have time to make dinner and eat it and then be able to watch a movie before my computer ever finished rendering anything.

There really should be no complaints about how Windows 7 manages its memory. It might use 2GB or whatever at idle, however its designed that if other programs need that memory it will re-allocate it to that said program. So its not like you are constantly going to be down 2GB just because of the operating system. Windows 7 has the best resource management over ANY of the previous windows versions. Windows XP was bloated, Windows 2000 used less resources. Windows XP was the fat overweight american version of Windows 2000.

And when you can pick up a 1TB hdd for $60 these days, 20GB is nothing for disc space. You 2 need to either find a forum for dinosaurs or move on with technology. Technology is CONSTANTLY advancing.

]
and remember -- if you don't USE "all" of the RAM, it does not matter how much RAM you have.
in fact, you could have 1 trilobyte of RAM and it will run at the same speed as 512 Mb of RAM if your system only "needs" 64 Mb of RAM.

Try opening up a 64MB document and see how that works out for you with 64MB of RAM. Because your operating system will reserve a portion of that bringing it down to probably less than 60MB.

I am going to be frank and say that you and STARS have to be trolling here and I would almost vote for a ban for uttering all this complete garbage.

 

[Punk]

I am going to be frank and say that you and STARS have to be trolling here and I would almost vote for a ban for uttering all this complete garbage.

It's not so much that I don't believe it's possible, it's that these guys are arguing something and don't want to back it up (although I'm still waiting for STARS to answer...). The fact that he said that he doesn't want to share his knowledge goes against the purpose of this forum. Basically this guy comes for help but keep his knowledge, it's a two way street here.

 

[spirit]

There really should be no complaints about how Windows 7 manages its memory. It might use 2GB or whatever at idle, however its designed that if other programs need that memory it will re-allocate it to that said program. So its not like you are constantly going to be down 2GB just because of the operating system. Windows 7 has the best resource management over ANY of the previous windows versions. Windows XP was bloated, Windows 2000 used less resources. Windows XP was the fat overweight american version of Windows 2000.

And when you can pick up a 1TB hdd for $60 these days, 20GB is nothing for disc space. You 2 need to either find a forum for dinosaurs or move on with technology. Technology is CONSTANTLY advancing.

This is exactly what I said - he didn't seem to take any notice though. When computers have at least 4GB of RAM pre-installed these days and large hard drives, what Windows 7 (and 8) use is really - completely insignificant.

Of course, you'll always get the 'whiners' who are like 'oh my god Windows 7 uses 2GB of RAM at idle and uses 20GB of disk space what are we all going to do?' They usually then say 'well Windows XP only uses 512MB at idle and uses 1GB of disk space.' OK, well XP was released, most computers had less than 512MB of RAM and 10GB or 20GB hard drives. Granted, XP with no updates would have used less RAM at idle, but even so - most computers only had 128MB or maybe 256MB tops RAM.

So I completely agree with you, G80.

My point made?

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

WHOA!

I just wrote my short usage history of my old computer,went away from this forum for 3 days,came back and all of a sudden I see 100 posts arguing about what I said...

So to make everyone else life easier,I am just going to say:

Captain Kirk - No 850 MB of RAM is not enough for anything!So go ahead,do what everyone says and spend your money and update your RAM to at least 4 GB and hopefuly it will be enough!If not then upgrade to at least 6!



If you expect me to quote each one of you and give you an answer,you can forget about it right now...I don't have whole day trying to prove something to any of you.Because as always...what ever I say...it is usually supressed and ignored...and the perpetual discussion of how I am full of crap...continues...

Jesus...you people are nuts...not all of you...,but some...

And one last thing...I AM following and using the new technology every day too just like all of you...I just never talk about it...
You people have no idea what I have and use...

 

[Okedokey]

They usually then say 'well Windows XP only uses 512MB at idle and uses 1GB of disk space.' OK, well XP was released, most computers had less than 512MB of RAM and 10GB or 20GB hard drives. Granted, XP with no updates would have used less RAM at idle, but even so - most computers only had 128MB or maybe 256MB tops RAM.

As I said, you cannot compare ram usage between xp and windows 7, they have very different memory management.

 

[spirit]

As I said, you cannot compare ram usage between xp and windows 7, they have very different memory management.

I know you can't. What I was saying that the people who whine about how 7 and 8 manage memory and so on often then go and compare it to XP.

 

[TrainTrackHack]

You people have no idea what I have and use...

Do you use a 15 years old computer with XP and 512MB RAM? I just got a weird feeling that you might be using a 15yo computer with XP and 512MB RAM.

Oh, and trilobyte is now my new favourite word lol.

 

[Punk]

WHOA!

I just wrote my short usage history of my old computer,went away from this forum for 3 days,came back and all of a sudden I see 100 posts arguing about what I said...

So to make everyone else life easier,I am just going to say:

Captain Kirk - No 850 MB of RAM is not enough for anything!So go ahead,do what everyone says and spend your money and update your RAM to at least 4 GB and hopefuly it will be enough!If not then upgrade to at least 6!



If you expect me to quote each one of you and give you an answer,you can forget about it right now...I don't have whole day trying to prove something to any of you.Because as always...what ever I say...it is usually supressed and ignored...and the perpetual discussion of how I am full of crap...continues...

Jesus...you people are nuts...not all of you...,but some...

And one last thing...I AM following and using the new technology every day too just like all of you...I just never talk about it...
You people have no idea what I have and use...

I don't think you're getting the point. You keep saying you found ways to do this and that but you don't explain what they are. By the way, the screenshot you showed us proved nothing, you just had XP and a bunch of programs, nothing about your build...
It's not that we always doubt what you say, it's that you're saying something that most of us have a hard time believing and you're not backing it up, hence the doubt.

PS: Trilobyte is either this or this

Oh and by the way, 512MB of RAM is recommended requirements (minimum is 256MB) for Doom3, it's normal that you can play it with 512MB of RAM
http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=1349&game=Doom 3

EDIT: This is my last post on this, let's get back on topic

 

[Okedokey]

maybe someone can help?

if i am running xp my drivers and OS
shouldn't take up 850 Mb of RAM should it?

To the OP, back on topic. Yes. The answer is Yes.

 

[spirit]

To the OP, back on topic. Yes. The answer is Yes.

Yup. Several people, including myself, have already confirmed this.

So there we go Kirk. Your question has been answered multiple times.

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

I will never understand what you people do with your computers if you need so much memory just to run an OS and few simple programs...

 

[larsch]

I will never understand what you people do with your computers if you need so much memory just to run an OS and few simple programs...

With larger quantities of ram you can do greater things.

 

[spirit]

I will never understand what you people do with your computers if you need so much memory just to run an OS and few simple programs...

Yup. In the same way that we'll never understand what you do with your PC running outdated software on old hardware, but hey, we're all different.

 

[claptonman]

Last I heard official support for XP was to end in 2011, then I heard they extended it until 2013. I had not heard they extended support again. There really is absolutely no point in Microsoft wasting money and resources on a product that is 12 years old with a customer base of probably less than 10% of the market.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help

April 8th.

And the vast majority of businesses still use XP. It has a much larger share than 10%.

I will never understand what you people do with your computers if you need so much memory just to run an OS and few simple programs...

If you can code a modern game or a photo/video rendering program to run smoothly on 512mb of RAM and a dual-core, please let me in on it, because you will be a millionaire overnight.

To say your older computers can do everything newer computers can do is just ignorant on so many levels.

And for your screenshot you took, there's no way you have all those programs running in the taskbar and it isn't eating up all your RAM/pagefile.

 

[johnb35]

OP's question has been answered and its gone way off topic. Time for closing.