Will adding more Memory to WinXP help performance?

Will adding 2GB more of Dual Channel (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) RAM to a WinXP machine that already has 2GB make any difference in performance? I read that XP allocates 1/2 to 1 GB leaving me with 3 or 3-1/2GB (not shure which is the case) but I also read that it's better to populate all four slots so I thought I would just get another set of what I already have in the same brand if it will help.

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Mark Smith

My experience is with Windows 7. I notice when I watch the resource monitor in Windows 7 that I am almost always using more than 2 GB of memory when Logos 4 is open. I'll bet you will see some improvement from adding 2 more GB (remembering that a 32-bit operating system will only use as I recall about 3.4 GB of the total).

Ron

No, 2GB is generally the sweet spot for XP unless you are doing a ton of multi-tasking or high memory use programs (Photoshop, etc). Open your typical workload and then pull up task manager to check your memory usage. I'm on a heavily used XP machine right now...I have 5 Firefox windows open with a total of 50 tabs, 1 Internet Explorer Window, Microsoft Outlook, a custom database app for work, a remote terminal to a Windows server, a WSUS snap-in session, Microsoft Word, and Adobe Acrobat reader all open. Total memory commitments (including system services, etc) is 1.5GB.

Also, more often than not, you get better performance with only 2 of your 4 slots populated. On many XP era PCs, memory speed was throttled (say from DDR400 to DDR333) if you populated all 4 slots.

Dave Hooton

Hi John,

When XP came out we didn't know much about GB, we still talked MB for memory. It's last effective performance gain is 512MB to 1 GB. I added an extra GB to the Laptop for running more applications simultaneously at a time when L3 was the hog! My 2 GB is sufficient to run L4, L3, mail, browser and a couple other programs without bogging down in virtual memory (hard drive).

Only if you have programs that need lots of memory would it be worthwhile adding more memory. If you go for a total of 4 GB then you lose 1/2 to 1 GB max. for legacy reasons associated with memory over 2 GB, so you might as well purchase 2 x 0.5 GB for 3 GB total (which is what a lot of manufacturers do). Populating 4 slots usually increases memory latency by a small amount so you won't get better performance.

John Hapgood

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/99513#Comment_99513

Open your typical workload and then pull up task manager to check your memory usage

What are you looking at? Commit Charge (K)? Mine says . . .

Total 904,392 (but moves around a little)

Limit 4029772

Peak 1862196 (Is that since I booted XP?)

Page file never went over 970 MB running L3 and L4 passage guide at the same time but my CP Usage hit 99% once.

Richard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/99533#Comment_99533

I have a dual core 2.0 GHz CPU, 3GB memory, Win 7, and a 5400RPM hard drive. Everything pegs out at some point with Logos, but the hard drive redlines the fastest. If I were to upgrade anything, it would be to a 7200RPM hard drive.

Pastor Michael Huffman

You are probably not going to see a big difference if you have just a single core CPU. Logos recommends (heavily, by the way) a dual core processor. I have a Core 2 Duo with 4GB of ram and it seems to run logos 4 just fine. Logos has always been (since Series X first emerged) a memory hog. Which is something that Bibleworks has over it. Yet the power of Logos far supasses Bibleworks, so I will take the memory hog. Honestly, more memory in a 32 bit processor is really going to bottle neck in your speed, as will a 7200 rpm hard drive versus a 5200 rpm. It will be like putting a Ferrari engine in VW bug, its not going to go but so fast.

Ron

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/99518#Comment_99518

It's last effective performance gain is 512MB to 1 GB.

Generally speaking, that's very true. In my case (posted above) I've only got 1GB in that machine and I would love to have 2GB...but I'm doing some heavy multitasking there. 512MB to 1GB is a huge performance boost in XP. 1GB to 2GB is still a performance boost (even for casual users), but not nearly as significant. I've upgraded a few people from 256MB to 1GB recently and they are blown away by the performance difference.

Ron

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/99533#Comment_99533

Open your typical workload and then pull up task manager to check your memory usage

What are you looking at? Commit Charge (K)? Mine says . . .

Total 904,392 (but moves around a little)

Limit 4029772

Peak 1862196 (Is that since I booted XP?)

Page file never went over 970 MB running L3 and L4 passage guide at the same time but my CP Usage hit 99% once.

Yes, commit charge. So you are essentially using 904MB. Size of the pagefile doesn't tell you much. Windows will still page to disk (intelligently) even if you have 4GB and are only using 1GB. You might keep task manager open over the next couple days and keep an eye on your commit charge while doing various tasks. If you're never going above 1GB though, then you will effectively see zero performance benefit from upgrading from 2GB to 4GB of RAM. XP doesn't utilize extra unused RAM nearly as efficiently as Vista and Win7.