Increased performance?

Question

Here are my computer's specs:

Windows XP Media Center Edition
3.0ghz (Running two processors)
160GB HDD
512 MB of RAM
Integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics card
It has an eMachines Intel D102GGC2 Motherboard

Besides my crappy graphics card, I want to know if I add another 512 MB of RAM which of course will give me 1GB of RAM, will my computer load faster and open applications like Firefox faster? Also, I play the Sims 2 and I'm sick and tired of the loading time because it takes more than 20 mins to load or whatever. Adding more RAM, will The Sims 2 load faster?

Answer 1

Increasing your memory basically allows your applications to load faster. Thus it will definitely make firefox load faster. Games like Sims 2 rely a lot on the capabilities of your graphics card. While more memory will help by reducing the time the games takes to load… You will need to get yourself a new graphics card to make a big difference in your gaming performance.

Answer 2

Adding more RAM will help your computer run faster. Initial boot times(when loading all your windows startup apps) will be faster and your computer will be more responsive as it loads the programs. This is because there is less use of the paging file(where Windows puts stuff on the harddrive that it wants to put in RAM but cannot because it is full). However, Sims 2 will forever take a long time to load and especially if you have a lot of custom content.

But yes, RAM, good. You should consider going to 2gb with the low RAM prices right now too..

Answer 3

Jeeze, what a bunch of ram freaks :)

Sure, adding ram will improve overall system performance and 512 is a bit low but this guy is asking about load time. A computer can only load a program as fast as it can be read from the hard drive. Three gigs of ram will not improve his OS load time or game load time by more than just mere seconds. The weakest link is the hard drive. My advice is: get another 512 stick of memory but more importantly, get another 160 GB hard drive identical make and model that you have now and set up a RAID. Load time will be cut in half.

If your 160 GB hard drive is old then buy a couple of new hard drives, make sure they both have 8 megabyte buffers and you will fly.

Answer 4

adding 512 will get you a performance boost, no doubt about that..

but i'd consider going further and upgrading to 2 gigs of ram, especially with memory being about the cheapest i've seen it in quite a while

I would also consider installing and running some adware/spyware programs like ad-aware, spybot search and destory and AVG anti-spyware (you can get all 3 at download.com).. as even with the less than stellar radeon xpresss200 video, sims 2 shouldnt take that long to load.. do a crtl-alt-delete (bringing up the task manager) and look at the number of processes number in the bottom left corner.. if your up over 50, you might need to do some scanning..

another nice program I love to use is startup control panel (linked below), it helps weed out potential adware and other programs you'd rather not have run every time you turn the system on (printer control programs, 5 different IM programs, quicktime and realplayer, etc)

hope that helps

Answer 5

Dude u so so so are in need of faster machine which is possible only when u have a good hardcore processor along with the RAM which will boost ur system up and since ur running 2 processors it's ok but 512 MB RAM lol it's no use and on top of that u got 160 GB of HD now all in all u need a RAM which is hardcore loaded buddy the HD itself will take up time loading all the stuff and starting ur PC will be like a tired tortoise crawling.

I got 1.5 GB RAM and yet i feel my system is slow, even tho i have a 60 GB HD and it's almost full it takes time to scan all the components and scan it and load it everytime it boots....so it's a blessing that i indeed upgraded my RAM to 1.5 GB and in a week or so I'll upgrade it by 1 GB more. Ofcourse i;m planning on upgrading with and 320 GB HD but thats all the more imp. for me to up my RAM.

My processor is P4 2.8 hyperthreading with 1 mb L2 cache with 865 gbf intel motherboard which has a onboard graphics card which is ok types not hadrcore like some cards available in the market these days, but still it's a good PC for me as of now but had i used a graphics card I sure wud have needed more of RAM to boost my PC's performance.

Lol when u play games which r gonna use up most of ur PC's memory dude indeed u need a fast RAM....with a superfast processor, afterall u don't want a dead PC with smoke oozing off it when ur done playing lol....So when u plan to up ur PC with just 512MB of RAM think properly and try investing wisely so that u will always have a sper fast PC, my suggestion will be for u to add on 2 GB of more RAM that way u'll have 2.5 GB in total.

As for firefox lol it's not the memory which makes the loading of firefox slow, it's the pluggins that u've installed in firefox which take up loading time. It starts scanning for all the pluggins that we install and use in the browser.

But if u talk bout the booting process to be fast then u definately need a very fast system which means a high end RAM and processor config. XP uses not much resource if u've installed it properly lol but u say media center edition then ofcourse there wud be extra utilities which will be hogging on ur memory and processor...also it's good u've not installed Vista hahaha else u'd also crawl with ur PC like a tortoise ;-)

Mmmmm wise decision at ur stage wud be to get ur PC a 2GB of extra RAM and ur problems will be solved nicely :D Oh but if ur having a money crunch then I'd say try gradually upgrading ur PC with RAM's maybe u can get 1 GB of ram for starters and then after sometime up it by 1 more GB.

Hmmmm and still if u feel ur pc is slow u can google for a PC booster software which boost up ur RAMs' performance and then download the software and install it. I've heard and read about such PC booster softwares for sometime now but still havn't used it so i truly can't tell u much on it but yeah just incase ur interested u can go to this site www.techtree.com or www.tech2.com and search for PC booster software or something and try looking up some reviews u'll get much more information on these 2 sites definately.

Enjoy ur PC but make it happy first let it get the Speed and then ask it to race for u buddy :D

Answer 6

1Gb RAM and a mainstream graphics card like the Geforce 8600GT or ATI HD2600 XT could do wonders to your PC.

Loading time of Sims2 is more dependent on your hard drive. Check under IDE ATA/ ATAPI Controllers in Device Manager if Primary IDE Channel is running at UDMA5 or 6. If only UDMA 2, try separating CD drive by putting it in secondary IDE. Sims 2 loads quite fast on SATA drives.

Answer 7

If you want speed, go to 2 or more GB ram. If you are running dual channel ram, I suggest you get 1 x 512mb plus 2 x 1 gb. That way you have 3 gb in dual channel.

You can figure out what you can do with ram, how much you can use, and what it would cost online very easily.

Your processor is nice, but the ram is lacking for today's intensive programs.

Answer 8

Definitely add in more RAM. Instead of going for one 512 MB stick though, put two of these in:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2485590&CatId=1651
At $30 each, it's not a major cost, but it'll speed things up considerably when trying to load up the Sims 2.

Edits: @ California Boy: His motherboard only has 2 memory slots.
Also, I overlooked the fact that your motherboard doesn't have 667 MHz RAM listed as supported, so it might be a safer bet to go with this:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1071038&CatId=1647
It costs a bit more, but it should be compatible.

Answer 9

I actual have doubts, because your PSU (skill furnish) could've close off in the journey that your computing gadget changed into stressful too a lot skill. If it did not, you would've seen some fireworks popping out the back of your computing gadget. So, i could ought to say no. What you may do is get a significantly better skill furnish and overclock parts of your computing gadget to lead them to run swifter. Say you've a processor operating at 3GHZ. you are able to overclock it to three.3GHZ. Then, you'll have a swifter computing gadget and a computing gadget that consumes more desirable skill.

Answer 10

you need more ram.
you might try to run msconfig and de-select any programs you don't want to run on startup.
also run anti spyware and virus scanners, delete your cookies and history.