Hardware advice please -

Will incresing my memory from 412 to 1024 have any significant effect on
perceived speed ? I rarely have more than one window open and maybe 2
programs running resident. I also dont ever see more than 300k of my 767
swap file used. Machine is an AMD XP 2400 with 512k and running a SATA HDD.
Uses are SW for simple solids and almost no assemblies and general office
applications. Reason I am asking is I can add another 512k for about $55
today. I was also concerned that adding the memory might actually slow
things down. TIA.

 

This would be a very good idea. Memory doesn't in general slow things down.
Make sure the memory is compatible with what is in there.

 

Do you mean that you are using all 512K of real RAM plus 300K of virtual RAM
from the disk? If so, then adding another 512K will give you a real boost in
performance, as any time you start using swap space your performance goes
all to Hell.

If you mean that you only use 300K of your 512K of real RAM (which I doubt,
since SW is such a memory hog) and that you never get into the 255K of
virtual RAM that you have allocated, then adding more RAM won't help. Until
SW starts using even more RAM and disk space, which is likely to happen with
each release.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

During rendering of the solid ( frequent use ) i have a low of 34K of
physical left and about 300K of swap file left. This is for a simple solid.

 

solid.


Interpreting that to mean that you use about 467K of your 767K of virtual
memory, then 512K more of RAM will help, but you will still be bumping up
against the limits of your RAM. You might want to get two new sticks of 512K
to have some buffer.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"