How much ram needed for XP 32 Bit?

[tekgek]

Hey, all,
I am back, and with a question: What is the practical amount of ram in a 32 windows xp system? I just bought photoshop, and I only have two GB of ram, and am considering buying 2 more at a minimum. Possibly 4 to 6 more GB. Will XP take this much, or am I just wasting my money?

Thanks,
Tekgek

[vbironchef]

2 gb ram, your good to go. I am pretty sure xp 32 bit the max is 4gb. I believe that only 3 gb will show though.

[tekgek]

All right, thanks. I was considering a ram upgrade because Photoshop will slow to a crawl when I try to create high res pictures, and most of my ram was being sucked up by Photoshop. Is there another part of my pc that could be in need of being replaced? My rig specs are below:

core 2 duo e6750
2 gb ddr2 800 ram (corsair xms 2)
geforce 9600 gso
2 500 gb 7200 rpm seagate barracudas
soundblaster x-fi xtreme gamer

Thanks,
Tekgek

[hercules71185]

download or attain a 64bit disk for xp and use your key. Then you can use as much ram as you want. For hi-res photoshop and multiple pics and layers I'd get at least 3gb.

[Alathald]

I don't believe that works with XP, only with Vista...I'd say move to a 64bit os (vista home premium is my suggestion) and buying some additional RAM. Also, I believe Ps now takes advantage of nVidia GPU acceleration so be sure you've got it set up properly (I don't know anything about it just remember reading it somewhere).

[Sovereign]

If you're running into problems with RAM, you really should jump to x64... Vista is the way to go in that department. Get 4GB or more of RAM and your problems should go away, or at least get smaller.

[tekgek]

so xp 64 bit is not that great? I would really like to stay with xp if at all possible

Thanks,
Tekgek

[FZ1]

Xp 32 bit can only handle RAM up to 4GB. But, due to memory allocations to hardware etc, 4GB will show as 3GB. Anything over 2 is pretty much wasted. Running 3 sticks is not a good idea in general.

[tekgek]

so what if I got 64 bit vista? Then more than 4 gb is worth it, right? I have a vista license that I can transfer over from my laptop to a 64 bit install.

[hercules71185]

If you can yes, then you can use much more ram. I believe it's something like 128GB of ram. If you need that much for photoshop I really need to see your work lol.

[tekgek]

If you can yes, then you can use much more ram. I believe it's something like 128GB of ram. If you need that much for photoshop I really need to see your work lol.

Erm... 128 Gigs? That should keep people happy on ram capacity for an OS for the next ten to fifteen years. Anyway, yeah, I am thinking about eight gigabyte of ram should do the trick for me. I am also trying to learn After effects and Premiere, so I think that it would be good to have a lot of ram. Is this much RAM overkill?

Thanks,
Tekgek

[martini161]

yes

[tekgek]

Okay, then maybe 6 or 4? Just trying to be prepared for the future

[ibleet]

I'm running 32bit windows XP in all my rigs and I have 4G Ram in each. A 2Gb stick in bank0 and a 2Gb stick in bank2. I have never felt a need to have more than this amount, and if and when I do, I still have 2 banks available. BTW, system properties shows 3.5Gb ram.

So...considering the way the price has plummeted on ram, specifically DDR2-800 ram, the practical amount in a Windows XP 32 bit system in my opinion is 4Gb.

If you need more than 4Gb Ram, which most people do not, I would recommend 64bit Vista over 64bit XP any day. Not because I think Vista is great, because I don't, but because XP was NOT very well supported by MS. I hear MS is putting much more emphasis on support with Vista 64 bit, and they should.

Is it Vista, or should we call it Mojave?

[tekgek]

Is it Vista, or should we call it Mojave?

Maybe it should be called Mojave, what with that ad campagn. If they ever asked me to take part in the experiment, I would make sure I pointed out all the flaws, just for the heck of it. I do not like Microsoft, and try to avoid using their producs whenever I can (not very often, because we are all standardized on their products ). Anything to discourage them would be fun!!
And yes, I think that 4 GB should be more than enough. I am running 64 bit vista as of now, and it seems pretty responsive, surprisingly. Photoshop seems to run well, even with only 2 GB of ram and GPU acceleration. I think that another 2 GB should cover all of my RAM needs for a while.

Thanks,
Tekgek