My system is windows xp home, the computer has 80gb HDD and 256 ram, I would like to know how much HDD space I should use to make the computer faster when playing online. I do know that default setting is 1.5 times the ram in the pc - but this is not enough.
2006-09-24 00:36:16 · 13 answers · asked by CrazedPscyhoticKillerBunny 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
start- control panel-performance and maintainance-system- click on "advanced"- under "performance", click "settings." and then click on "advanced". This will tell you how much memory windows recommends, and will give you a chance to increase or decrease the memory. P.S. You need more than 256 ram for gaming. Buy more memory. It isn't cheap.
2006-09-24 00:40:32 · answer #1 · answered by St♥rmy Skye 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Here's a few things to try.
A major cause of slow PC's is fragmentation of the hard drive.
You need to defragment the HD at least once a week if not more depending on how much you use your computer, and what you do with it.
A great program for defragging automatically is Diskeeper 10. It costs $30 but is well worth it. Go to www.download.com and search for Diskeeper. Read the Publishers Description and the tech and user reviews. It can be scheduled to run automatically as the program deems necessary, and if you are using your PC and the program launches itself, it will take a backseat to whatever you are doing and give you the priority for CPU usage. I think you'll agree it's a good program to have. It precludes your needing to remember to defrag at regular intervals.
Also, another major cause of a slow PC is programs that are running in the background. Here's another great program, and it's free. Go to www.sysinternals.com and download the program named "autoruns". This utility will tell you exactly what is running on your PC and provides a nice and easy way to shut down the ones you don't want to boot at start up. Once you have it installed use the tabs at the top of the window to access the various categories. If you use the "everything" tab it will overwhelm you because the list is massive. All you have to do is uncheck the box next to the program name and the program will not start at your next boot up. Hurry as this site has been bought up by Microsoft and these free programs may not be around much longer.
Another good thing to have is a little program called FreeRAM Pro. It is free and is available from www.download.com This program puts a little RAM meter on the System Tray and shows how much RAM you have remaining that you are not using at any given time. With only 256M of RAM I think you are going to be surprised at how little RAM you have to run other programs. Also, once it is installed you can right click on the little meter, then click on RESTORE and it will open the RAM display window. You can tweak the settings so it will display your CPU usage also.
I do agree with the others regarding your RAM. 256 is just not enough. I set up an old pc with only Windows XP and the FreeRAM meter installed. The meter uses 5K and Windows XP was using 165K. Based upon that (170K) it only leaves you 86K to run anything and everything else. What happens when you run out of RAM is that the OS recognizes the low or no RAM situation and starts using a section of your hard drive as memory. This is called virtual memory, or a swap file. The PC is constantly writing and reading from your HD. Comparitively, it is a very slow process. Check your motherboard manual and determine how much RAM each slot can hold. It will also tell you what type of RAM you need. You can also go to www.crucial.com and run their analysis utility to determine what kind and how much RAM is installed in your PC. Depend on your MoBo manual to determine the RAM limits of each slot though. If you are going to keep your PC for a substantial amount of time I recommend you see if you can easily go to 768M. This will give you plenty of RAM for anything you are running and you will usually see (on the RAM meter) that you have between 300 to 400M of RAM not being used.
Hope this helps
2006-09-24 01:09:26 · answer #2 · answered by Dick 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yeah get some more ram. If you are not sure what one to get go to http://www.crucial.com/uk/ and download the system scanner. They recommend ram that will work with your pc and they always send it first class. Fitting ram is a very easy upgrade all you need to do is turn your pc off, take off the side pannel, find the ram slots, open the clips and push the ram in untill the clips close and then it is done. it will take 10 min at the most if you have a small case and lots of wires in the way.
2006-09-24 00:46:07 · answer #3 · answered by J man 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Virtual memory will never help speed up an on line game. You need more ram. 256mb is barely keeping the system running. Go to a gig.
2006-09-24 00:38:03 · answer #4 · answered by m-t-nest 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Usually the max is up to 3 times your RAM.
2006-09-24 06:34:19 · answer #5 · answered by Pingi 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You need RAM. Real physical RAM. About a Gig will do nicely. 256 and pagefile is crap.
2006-09-24 02:10:13 · answer #6 · answered by Phish 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
first of all 256MB are little tight...
You can light up Windows by stopping services that are not necessary.
Anyway, the speedis mostly affected by the speed of the CPU/BUS/RAM clock, if your computer has a slow motherboard, nothing you can do!
2006-09-24 00:45:56 · answer #7 · answered by fbianchi70 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can increase and decrease Virtual Memory, But after increase and decrease it is not useful for increasing speed of system.
2006-09-24 00:49:53 · answer #8 · answered by guidemeanyone 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Make it 1 GB minimum then. Bigger performance increase would come from more RAM.
2006-09-24 00:38:23 · answer #9 · answered by teef_au 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
upgrade to 512 ram
2006-09-24 00:38:38 · answer #10 · answered by QM 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋