XP and memory

How much memory in terms of RAM does XP actually use? Is the entire operating system in the RAM at all times?

 

An easy way to watch your RAM usage is to open task manager by clicking Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time and click on the Task Manager tab. At the bottom of the screen you will see CPU % listed. This is what your system is currently using. In general, I think it is about 256Mbs of RAM that XP uses consistently (in order to run smoothly). It is not constantly using the RAM, but it should have it set aside. If you download this program: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1670 , you can watch how much of your RAM is used when your computer is "idle". Mine generally uses around 200-300Mbs of RAM while I am doing general stuff like browsing or word processing. When idle I still use nearly 200Mbs because of the stuff I run in the background.

Page File settings are a factor also, but someone more experienced should answer that part for you. Besides, XP does a good job of managing that.

I hope this answered your question.

 

Ding ding. Thats the best tweak right there.

Let XP do it.

Only thing different I did was move it to another drive and partition along with my CD/DVD Burn temp files to control fragmentation a little better. Its helped a lot in that regard, but does not give a performance increase.