Vista vs. XP
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
Rob Caldecott wrote:
* Why does Vista need so much bloody memory?
Because memory is cheap (and because 640Kb was never going to be enough :) )
Rob Caldecott wrote:
* Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it?
To lower the cost to the end user - but you get what you pay for...
Rob Caldecott wrote:
* Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000).
Doubtful - it's likely there's some kind of shared memory usage going on here (as in the video card has no onboard memory, and relies on system ram). Plonk another gig of ram in, however, and you'll be laughing.
"On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't. "I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it." -Tina Farrell, a 23 year old thicky from Levenshulme, Manchester.
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
Rob Caldecott wrote:
Why does Vista need so much bloody memory?
WPF. Security. UAC. So it looks purdy.
Rob Caldecott wrote:
Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it?
Because it's what people want. ;P
Rob Caldecott wrote:
Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000).
I don't think so. But consider the lesson learned--never buy a computer that uses a video subsystem with shared memory.
Rob Caldecott wrote:
I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
WPF. Security. UAC. Sidebar gadgets. It looks purdy. Ummmm. Nope! Marc
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
Always buy a computer with a video card. If you don't think you'll actually need one, buy the cheapest one that you can find that has its own memory and supports your display. It beats integrated video anytime, and a decent video card can be had for less than $50.
ROFLOLMFAO
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
I went through the delima of choosing XP or Vista. After my moderate reasearch I found that the 2 main benifits you get from Vista over XP is how pretty it is and security. But if you turn off the pop ups that keep asking "are you sure", the security aspect is greatly reduced. A lot of the memory is used to make Vista look pretty. It takes a lot for the graphics. Mfgs install Vista becasue of the push by Microsoft to be king. They've set a minimum standard of power that is to low to really be effective. One reason is so that people look at their system and decide it's powerful enough to handle Vista and then upgrade. If you think the look of an OS is the most important thing, then that justifies the memory usage. But wait! Apple does it with a lot less memory. Hmmm. Some manufacturers, such as Dell, will still sell computers with XP on them, or Linux. And I've heard of many XP re-installers that will install XP on a system and get rid of Vista.
Joe Q My Blog
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I went through the delima of choosing XP or Vista. After my moderate reasearch I found that the 2 main benifits you get from Vista over XP is how pretty it is and security. But if you turn off the pop ups that keep asking "are you sure", the security aspect is greatly reduced. A lot of the memory is used to make Vista look pretty. It takes a lot for the graphics. Mfgs install Vista becasue of the push by Microsoft to be king. They've set a minimum standard of power that is to low to really be effective. One reason is so that people look at their system and decide it's powerful enough to handle Vista and then upgrade. If you think the look of an OS is the most important thing, then that justifies the memory usage. But wait! Apple does it with a lot less memory. Hmmm. Some manufacturers, such as Dell, will still sell computers with XP on them, or Linux. And I've heard of many XP re-installers that will install XP on a system and get rid of Vista.
Joe Q My Blog
Joe Q wrote:
Some manufacturers, such as Dell, will still sell computers with XP on them,
Heck, Best Buy and Staples and Office Max are still selling XP right beside Vista.
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Joe Q wrote:
Some manufacturers, such as Dell, will still sell computers with XP on them,
Heck, Best Buy and Staples and Office Max are still selling XP right beside Vista.
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I went through the delima of choosing XP or Vista. After my moderate reasearch I found that the 2 main benifits you get from Vista over XP is how pretty it is and security. But if you turn off the pop ups that keep asking "are you sure", the security aspect is greatly reduced. A lot of the memory is used to make Vista look pretty. It takes a lot for the graphics. Mfgs install Vista becasue of the push by Microsoft to be king. They've set a minimum standard of power that is to low to really be effective. One reason is so that people look at their system and decide it's powerful enough to handle Vista and then upgrade. If you think the look of an OS is the most important thing, then that justifies the memory usage. But wait! Apple does it with a lot less memory. Hmmm. Some manufacturers, such as Dell, will still sell computers with XP on them, or Linux. And I've heard of many XP re-installers that will install XP on a system and get rid of Vista.
Joe Q My Blog
Joe Q wrote:
If you think the look of an OS is the most important thing, then that justifies the memory usage. But wait! Apple does it with a lot less memory. Hmmm.
That's a good point. In addition: * Apple had good looks many years ago… * …and the typical Mac back then had 256 to 512 MB RAM only.
ROFLOLMFAO
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
Step 1, even with XP go out to crucial.com or another memory site and get a decent amount of memory for that system, then you won't have to worry about how much is shared by the video card. Even if you have to mess with an "inaccessible" laptop dimm socket, many of them just require you to remove 6-7 screws instead of just one.
This blanket smells like ham
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
I have a core 2 duo with 4GB ram, and had been using Vista for couple months. Couple days ago, I change back to XP, and now I just realize that it is not about my hardwares. The switch from Vista to XP doesn't make you feel like a down grade, but the other way around.
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
I have a dual core AMD Turion 1.6 GHz with 2 GB RAM and Vista is still slow as molasses. That's *after* disabling unwanted services, uninstalling Dell's crapplets, etc. I'm starting to wish I'd gone for XP. :sigh:
Cheers, विक्रम
And sleep will come, it comes to us all And some will fade and some will fall
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Always buy a computer with a video card. If you don't think you'll actually need one, buy the cheapest one that you can find that has its own memory and supports your display. It beats integrated video anytime, and a decent video card can be had for less than $50.
ROFLOLMFAO
It's a laptop - they all use shared memory, and you can't add a video card.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I have a dual core AMD Turion 1.6 GHz with 2 GB RAM and Vista is still slow as molasses. That's *after* disabling unwanted services, uninstalling Dell's crapplets, etc. I'm starting to wish I'd gone for XP. :sigh:
Cheers, विक्रम
And sleep will come, it comes to us all And some will fade and some will fall
I have a Dell with the same configuration, but I bought the N series model (with no pre-installed OS) and XP just flies on it. 2 GB, however should be enough for Vista to run decently ...
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2.8 GHz desktop with 1Gb RAM and 256 MB video card. performance index: 3.0 running smoothly on my machine...
V. I found a living worth working for, but haven't found work worth living for.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what is this performance index and where do you get it from? 3dmark or something? Thanks.
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So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
You should upgrade the memory to 2gb if it can take that much. See if the bios allows you to allocate less system memory to be shared. I think my 3 year-old Compaq Presario does...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
You should upgrade the memory to 2gb if it can take that much. See if the bios allows you to allocate less system memory to be shared. I think my 3 year-old Compaq Presario does...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001The problem is that usually with laptops, 1GB of memory means 2 modules of 512 MB and there are only 2 slots on the mainboard. So you have to get rid of them before installing the new one, and selling 512 MB laptop memory modules may not be very easy.
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It's a laptop - they all use shared memory, and you can't add a video card.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Mine has: geforce 7600 go, not super expensive either.
Wout
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Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what is this performance index and where do you get it from? 3dmark or something? Thanks.
it's a built in feature of Vista that does a sort of Benchmarking. I think it's somewhere under "my computer" or something. (should check, I'm not at home right now)
V.
Stop smoking so you can: Enjoy longer the money you save. Moviereview Archive -
So here's the story. Got a great deal on a decent spec Acer laptop for the wife to replace her aging desktop. The machine has dual core AMD processors, 120GB disk, comes with Vista Home Premium installed and is advertised as having 1GB of RAM. Machine arrives and I offer to configure it, copy her documents across, etc. - really as an excuse to have a play with Microsoft's new O/S. Well, it sure is purdy, but the performance of this shiny new machine was woeful - hardly surprising seeing as, once booted, it is using a whopping 650GB of RAM! WTF? Coupled with the fact that the machine has 256MB of it's 1GB RAM allocated to the video driver (which the advert failed to mention and, by the looks of things, this cannot be disabled), which leaves 768MB RAM for Vista to run it, which given that it is using 85% of it just to get going, is clearly nowhere near enough. So I dig around and squeeze a performance index out of the thing - just 2.8. Oh dear! So, I tinker about, shutting down non-essential services, etc. etc. and I manage to get the memory usage down to around 550MB. Still feels very sluggish though. So, as we don't want to spend another penny on extra hardware just to run Vista I have spent the last few hours installing XP SP2. Well, that was fun, especially as all the drivers for this machine on the Acer site are Vista only! Luckily other people have had the same idea regarding this machine and I found all the drivers I needed eventually. The machine now has XP installed, and some goodies like Google Desktop, etc. and on booting up is using just 200MB of RAM. It feels like a different machine - seriously, the difference is blinding. So, * Why does Vista need so much bloody memory? * Why would a manufacturer insist on installing an O/S on a machine that clearly isn't powerful enough to run it? * Can I get the 256MB of RAM out of the video cards clutches? (it's an nVidia GeForce 7000). I'm sure Vista is packed full of good stuff that justifies such high memory usage ... right?
Vista consumes RAM. 1 GB is minimum for any decent performance, it will run on 512MB as my wife's system used, but for some reason it seems swap files are really slow in Vista and if it is swapping stuff out due to low memory, the system can even seemed locked up at times. If a person is using Vista and has no method to increase their RAM, they can ease the woes of virtual RAM but using a ReadyBoost compatible USB thumb drive. They can make the virtual RAM swapping more survivable, but there is no answer as good as adding more RAM. Another aspect is to kill off things such as the search indexing, windows defender (if you like risking it, just run it every now and then), automatic backup and other services. Next step is to kill off the sidebar. If a system has little RAM, the sidebar can kill your system performance. I played with the sidebar for an evening and then shut it off and it has not been back since :) If you by a system preconfigured with Vista, it may have a lot of junk added by the manufacture. Sometimes a fresh install helps. Built in video is another issue. I know on laptops it is often nothing you can do anything about. On my desktop system, I used the built in NVidia graphics which used system RAM. Performance with Glass enabled was a bit clunky and sluggish. After installing my 6800GT card, it flew along without any problems. I guess in another year or two when everyone is running Vista or above, it probably will not matter anymore as all the hardware will be pumped up.
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