Ram Hardware Requirements Discuss Ram in the Installing and Upgrading Vista forums; I was wondering what a normal amount of physical memory being used is and what I can do to lower this. Ever since I upgraded to vista, my physical memory ...

[stevennodalo]

I was wondering what a normal amount of physical memory being used is and what I can do to lower this. Ever since I upgraded to vista, my physical memory is usually 60-70%. Is there any way to lower this other than running less programs? Right now it is at 66% and I have only the essential programs + firefox running. My ram is 1 gig.

[Znod]

Hi Steven:

More RAM generally is better, but what you are observing is not necessarily bad. You probably are observing primarily the effects of Superfetch (easy serarch)--a very good thing. You probably will not be able to reduce what you are observing appreciable, and there is no good reason to do so IMO.

[stevennodalo]

alright. Thank you very much! Also... I know that with most laptops, it is not possible to upgrade graphics cards but is it the same with ram?

[Znod]

Almost, certainly not. Check out your manual; it should give you the RAM upgrade path. And, yes, I would move to 2 GB, personally.

[stevennodalo]

thanks. it says that it can be upgraded to 2 gb but everywhere i look there is only 1gb. is it possible to have two? that may or may not be a stupid question but i don't know much.

[Znod]

I presume it would need two 1 GB RAM modules. And, you are very welcome.

[airman]

I do not know wheather other people have notice this but when I first install Vista it used a lot more ram and then as you system is up longer it seams like the ram usage is less like about 38 to 42 % on a daily basic. I only had 1 gig when I first installed myself but I upgraded to 2 gig which helps quite a bit for system speed.