RAM

What is a good amount of RAM to have these days? My computer is a few years old now and has 512MB. I hear that 1GB is pretty much "standard" these days. Is it really worth it to upgrade?

It depends on what you are doing. 512MB is fine. For games today you'll be happy with 1GB. I now have 2GB in my system.

Yeah, he's right. 2gb should be fine for now and for the forseeable future. Unless you want to run vista, then you'll need AT LEAST 4GB.

Said By aphremen

Unless you want to run vista, then you'll need AT LEAST 4GB.

Windows Vista (n):
A very bloated so-called "next generation" operating system (term false). It is built on the inefficient NT kernel, an operating system kernel originally written by former VMS engeneers under the supervision of DOS engeneers. The NT system incorporates VMS design ideas and is made largely DOS compatible by adding a decade worth of highly ineffecient 32-bit, 16-bit and 8-bit code from the DOS platform and Windows UI and many compatibility layers to these old systems. It includes rudimentary support for a multi-user environment and does not attempt to seperate system and application files. Over the years, Microsoft have added many useless applications and user interface changes to the UI, not to mention the countless rudimentary and inefficient fixes of bugs that are made too public. The coming version, supposedly 6.0, codename Longhorn, marketing name Vista will change the user interface slightly to give it a moderately appealing look, remove support for OpenGL, add many new slow wrappers to old libraries in Microsoft's Java rip-off .net and break just about all drivers for the current version of NT, version 5.1 codename whistler marketing name XP.This complexity and mixture of different code eras has the consequence that the system often crashes, a fact often overlooked by server administrators who enjoy calling hotlines, fixing such things and bragging about overpiced certifications that say they know how to move a mouse (MSCE)

It seriously removes support for OpenGL? Wow, already I was not planning on getting it but now, even moreso! Quake 4, Doom 3, etc are all OpenGL based!

It is removing support for OpenGL, but you can just use a driver for it. It is like DirectX.

what I read: no opengl officially any more, but a thin standards-incompatible opengl layer around directx. you can install drivers with full accellerated opengl support, but this will effectively disable some graphical "niceties" and possibly limit directx support (dont know about that last one tho)

Said By aphremen

Yeah, he's right. 2gb should be fine for now and for the forseeable future. Unless you want to run vista, then you'll need AT LEAST 4GB.

Whoa, 4GB just for vista? I wouldn't think it would be THAT high, it is surprising to me. Maybe vista is only for the "hardcore" users?

no. vista is only for the completely dumbed-down no-sence brainlessly-capitalist users who think they need a new version of DOS. and, what a pity, this version of DOS seams to be slow on current computers ? well well, the rust... i'll buy a new one then.

I was kidding, actually. But vista supposedly will require 512 to run well, in the same manner that xp needs 256 to run well. So, logically, it would need 1024mb to run games at all, 2048mb to run games well, and 4096mb to run games and run other apps in order to take advantage of dual-core processing.

It needs more RAM because of Aero Glass. Once you start a game, the explorer shell will not be painting any GUI elements so the current RAM allocation should be the same. There will be internals that have changed and will need more RAM... that I'm sure of.

Plus you won't be able to shut off MS anti-spyware, MS anti-virus, MS anti-rootkit, MS firewall, etc because they'll be integrated into the OS just like a certain web browser I can think of. All of them will have memory leaks up the yin yang.

all this vista hardware requirement talk is very confusing (insightful ?) to the linux user... I can get twice the look on KDE with half the hardware - I am almost sure...