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Myth busted: Vista a memory hog? Not so much...
34 comments- IT TOPICS:Operating Systems, Software, Windows & Microsoft
Unfortunately, it looks like most of us will have to wait a few months longer before we can dip our toes in the Windows Vista pool. Will be interesting to see why Microsoft had to delay Vista yet again.
Guess it's a good idea that they didn't decide to name it Windows 2006, eh?
Anyhow, on to the real point of this post.
A few weeks ago screenshots, rumors and many a web site were reporting on how Windows Vista is a massive memory hog and would easily absorb all your available system memory.
Well, a week and a half ago, The Lazy Admin did a story where he thoroughly debunks this notion of Vista being an outrageous memory eating beast.
Which isn't to say that you won't need more memory for Vista than for XP, then again, as always the perception of how much RAM XP needed lagged behind the truth a bit for the last few years as well.
Windows XP required at least 128 MB of RAM, but only really ran OK with 256 MB or more. Well, truth be told, even for fairly pedestrian users Windows runs a LOT better with 512MB.
With Vista you will want to double those numbers. In other words, it runs, barely, with 256 MB of memory, runs OK with 512 MB, but will run MUCH better for most people with 1 Gigabyte of memory.
What this means is that a lot of people who skimped on an eMachine and only got 256MB of memory will find their Vista experience to be very sloth-like, indeed. Which is fine as most people will buy into Vista when they get a new machine.
So, for all those looking to buy a PC in the near future, I highly recommend getting it with 1 Gigabyte of memory.
Of course one might think from reading the above that Windows (both XP and Vista) IS a memory hog, but you don't need that much memory for the operating system. If all you needed XP for was the operating system and didn't want to run programs, 128MB would work fine for you, but that's not very useful is it?
No, the real memory hogs are all the application that one tends to run at once.
And these days we tend to run more and more apps in the background, such as firewalls, anti-spyware and virus scanners and our foreground apps such as Word, Firefox, Outlook, etc. tend to want a bigger and bigger slice of the physical memory pie on your system.
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