thefixer opened this issue on Aug 14, 2007 · 25 posts
keenart posted Tue, 14 August 2007 at 6:08 PM
Typically Vista will use about 490 megs upto 950 at full requirements. I do not want to go into all that will be running in the background, but I have maxed out the system at 1.2 gigs easily.
With all of the Bells and Whistles enabled, and all of the scheduled apps running in the background you can still keep your resources low as long as you are not using SuperFetch and Sared Video Ram. It additionally depends on how you are connected to the internet and also are you using IE 7.
SuperFetch is the new memory manager, and what it does is to load all of the apps that it believes you will use during your work load. If you have few apps then your free resources will be many, but if you have two or three dozen additional progs, then you can easily hit the 1 gig limit of used resources when SuperFetch loads the *.exe’s. You can turn this feature off, but your computer will slow down, and in some cases substantially.
If you really want to add a boost to the system, then use ReadyBoost, a System Cache that can run off of a USB Flash Drive. Many Flash drives will not meet the minimum requirements. My suggestion is that you find a 160x or 200x Fast Flash Drive. Typically you should have a Flash drive that is equal to or twice the size of the Installed RAM. ReadyBoost will acknowledge the drive and then select the necessary space for its cache. Do not change this setting, unless you understand ReadyBoost’s requirements. A little must be left on the drive.
TIP: Before installing the cache, make sure the Flash is NTFS compatible and then reformat the drive to the default, usually 4 k, a size usually used on your hard drives. If you reformat and then the drive does not work, it was not NTFS compatible, as some are only FAT compatible.
Go to MS and find the White Papers that explain all about this stuff if you want more info.
Another factor is the Video Card, which uses a new Shared System Memory. What this does is take a specific amount of onboard system Ram and use it in addition to the available Video Ram. You can not change this feature, but Microsoft uses drivers that do not use this Shared Ram Feature. Yes, I am talking about a Desktop, not a Laptop, a feature few are aware of.
AS you can see 1.2 to 1.4 gigs of Ram may be necessary for some of us Power Users, just to get the system running. So, you better have at least 4 to 6 gigs to run Vue if you are running Vista.