Memory: how much you have ... and is it enough?

One of the quickest ways to improve the speed of your computer can be to increase the amount of memory it has (Note: this is not the same as increasing the size of the Hard Disk Drive).

How much memory do I need?

There is no definitive answer to this question. However, I can provide guidelines based on my experience.

As a general rule, the more applications you run at the same time the more memory your computer wants in order to perform well. If the applications you are running do a lot of graphic manipulation (for example photo editing software, video editing software, games and design programs), increasing memory can significantly speed up the performance of your computer.

Windows 98/Me

You should find that computers running a Windows 98 or Windows Me operating system will work fine with 128Mb of memory, however if you are running many applications at the same time or the sort of applications mentioned above increasing to 256Mb could make a noticeable difference.

Increasing beyond 256Mb may improve performance but the difference will be much less than increasing from 128Mb to 256Mb.

Windows 2000/XP

Due to the different architecture of Windows 2000 and Windows XP they are able to handle large amounts of memory more effectively than older operating systems. This means that any increase in memory should see an increase in performance.

However, it is worth noting that if you're not running memory hungry programs, adding more memory than is required may make no difference to the speed of the computer.

Again, as a general rule, if you operate with anything less than 256Mb you will probably find the computer to be extremely slow. I would consider 256Mb to be the least you want to be running with.

Increasing to 512Mb should increase the speed of your computer noticeably, and if you're running multiple applications (or resource hungry applications) you could consider increasing to 1Gb, if your computer can take it! (anything above 1Gb is unlikely to make a noticeable difference)

How to find out how much memory you have

To find out how much memory your computer currently has, follow these simple steps (Windows only):

1. Find the My Computer icon, which may be on your desktop:
   
   
   
   
   alternatively, if you click on the start button at the bottom left of your desktop, you will find My Computer on the menu that appears:
   
   
   


2. Move the mouse pointer over the My Computer icon and right-click.



3. In the menu that appears left-click on Properties:
   
   
   
   (the menu you see may have differenct options, but will definately have Properties)



4. A window with tabs will appear, displaying your computer properties. Make sure that the tab labelled General is selected, and on this window you should see a description of your computer, including the amount of memory it has:
   
   
   
   (in this case you can see that my computer has 512Mb)



5. Click on 'Cancel' to close this window.