New Question: I'm running XP Pro 32bit OS. I've read that upgrading to 4 Gigs of RAM would be a waste since this system only makes use 2 Gigs. Is this true? Even when I use the mem tool off of crucial.com, it only recommends 2 Gigs. I was gonna get 4.
Most 4GB XP32 rigs will show "3.0-3.25 GB available". XP reserves the balance for its own uses. If you have a lot of peripherals, especially multiple video cards, XP will "reserve" more for itself. I've got 3 video cards + other extra peripherals, and System shows only 2.75 GB available. That's never been a problem because when my trading apps are loaded, they system uses only about 800MB of physical RAM... plenty to spare. If you install 4GB, you can probably disable your "page file". You can try that, but if some important program has difficulty you will need to enable the page file again.
1. Check your task manager and see how much physical RAM you utilize when all of the programs you normally have open during trading. If that's around 800 MB or less, then probably 4G would be a bit of a wast. 2. Try disabling your page file with the RAM you have and see if it creates a problem... and check the task manager again with all trading programs loaded. XP32 is very efficient about how it handles RAM... and for most people the amount over 1G is wasted.
Got it. I couldn't test my trading apps so I opened a crap load of active browser pages, WMP, and some YouTube stuff. I maxed out my CPU and my PF Usage graph never got above 450 MB, and this is just with a stick of 1Gig. So I guess I won't need 4 GB's after all. Thanks Scatmandu.
are you using Firefox? there is an addon called AFOM that is supposed to help with memory leakage....I didn't notice a difference though for some reason
Memory Fox, I'll have to check that out. In order to see if it is working you can open a bunch of tabs and check your RAM usage. Then bookmark the tabs, disable Memory fox and close firefox. Open up firefox and open up all the tabs (with Memory Fox now disabled) and check your RAM to see how it compares. This is just a quick and dirty test to get a general idea.
Maybe not. You'd be looking for very LOW PF usage... 450 MB of PF sounds like a lot... If you really used that much, then you could benefit from more RAM. (The page file is RAM's "overflow buffer".) With all of your stuff open, you want to see how much PHYSICAL RAM is being used.
Clarify... To conclude that you would not befefit from additional RAM, you want to run Task Manager and see BOTH... 1. Physical RAM useage of maybe 7-800MB tops (XP is always going to reserve some RAM for anticipated demands later in the session), AND 2. Low Page File usage... that means the "overflow buffer" is not being used much... XP is always going to show some PF usage, even when PF is disabled... mine shows about 52MB of PF even though I have it disabled.... not sure why that it is, however. Not 100% positive about this explanation, but I believe it's mostly accurate. When XP starts up + all through the session, whatever files are used are kept "at the ready". XP recognizes how frequently files are accessed, and the less frequently used are "paged out" to the page file.. that would include files used only at startup.. they may not be used again before you shut down, but they're still kept "at the ready". High priority and frequently access files are kept in RAM. Vista and W7, I presume, like to have lots of RAM because they take a different approach.. they try to cache everything... all system and program files accessed in the session + web pages... in RAM for faster subsequent access. Makes sense to do it that way for better performance, but requires much more RAM for peak performance. (RAM was expensive in 2001 when XP came out.)