Amiga os3.9 vs Windows XP (ram usage)

[Glaucus]

Waccoon wrote:
Windows is no dream, but keep in mind that it IS very cache heavy.  Windows uses up as much RAM as it can for cache, and frees a lot of it when you run lots of apps.  200MB typical operation is nothing unusual for a modern OS.  200MB *required* is a different story, but even XP doesn't need that much.  

Agreed. This explains why I actually managed to get XP to run on a system with less then 100megs of ram. It's possible, but not an enjoyable experience to say the least. And btw, just for the record, my current XP system with Eudora Running and two browsers is taking up only 170MB (Total commit charge) out of the possible 512MB I have installed. If XP takes up 200MB just after a reboot, then I suspect you're running way more services then you need.

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Dammy, why does my favorite game run slower on XP then ME...

There could be many reasons. For starters, XP will be a tad slower on most things, as it uses extra clock cycles to provide for greater integrity. For example, NTFS is far superior to FAT32 in terms of reliability and integrity, however, FAT32 is a bit faster. Also, XP has real mem protection, while ME doesn't.

Aside from that, older games may run better on older OSes simply because they aren't optimized for the newer OS. Also, drivers for XP might not be as optimized as they are for ME. This is mostly true for older hardware where developers/manufacturers don't feel like re-investing in their older, obsolete products (quite often, the "XP" driver for older hardware is just a NT/Win2000 driver clone).

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

I did the same test on xp as os3.9 now, running IE6, outlook express, winamp, divx movie, loaded the same 1600x1200 picture, and a folder full of thumbnails.

Strange. I currently have loaded:  Eudora, IE6 (8 instances), ZoneAlarm Pro, Trend's OfficeScan, Yahoo Messenger, Free Surfer mkII, Windows Explorer, Adobe Premiere 6.5 and WinWord XP, with a total memory footprint of 445MB (65MB kernel). Oh, I just launched 3ds max 5 and my memory footprint went up to 535MB. Launching Roxio's DVD builder shot it up to 559MB. I seem to be able to fit a lot more in my memory then you can fit in yours. Strange indeed!

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

@restore2003,

Well, perhaps that's what you need, or perhaps you just need to clean up some of your services. Here's a good start: Windows XP Home and Professional Service Configurations. And be sure to setup a second Hardware Profile to preserve the original services configuration: Windows XP Services Profile Guide. It's not that hard, and once you learn how to use services.msc you'll be able to tweak your system a lot better.

Other tools worth getting is SysInternal's AutoRuns and even HijackThis (the latter is great for tracking down spyware as well). Just be careful how you use these tools, otherwise you may be forced to do a complete re-install!  :-)

  - Mike