Amount of Memory

[nigel cross]

After some info re:- Pc memory
My pc has 1 Gig memory, Pentium4 3.4 running 800 bus, windows XP
Using for video editing plus other programmes, seems to be running slow
2 spare memory slots, how much should I increase it by?
Or won't it make any difference?
Thanks

 

[pammy]

You say seems to be running slow. Does this mean it has slowed down from what it used to run at? If so then you might need to do some housekeeping rather than just increase your RAM.

 

[Sp!ke]

How slow is slow... video editing takes time, loads of time unless you have a dedicated video capture card.

 

[nigel cross]

I have tried System Mechanic and McAfee antivirus/ firewall. I cant find any issues but its slower than it used to be.

 

[jwarren]

What is your Mobo as you may not be able to increase the RAM that much, have you done normal housekeeping like defragging, clearing out the temp caches etc. Check your systray and see what programs are running behind the scenes (Some do updates / scans). Another tip, uncheck the programs from the bootup - go to run - type in msconfig - startup and uncheck the programs you DONT want loaded at start.

Video editing is very powerconsuming, especially if converting into digital format from an analogue source. You could try file compression for the video files (MP4 for example) than AVI's

 

[masqueraid]

Does sound like you need to look at defragmentation or even clearing out your system registry to get back near your original speed. (If you are feeling brave I would consider simply wiping your hard drive and reinstalling everything from scratch).

Sp!ke is absolutely right video editing is intensive work for any PC and so it will be slower for that.

As for the two spare slots for memory, check the manual for your PC first, it may be that your board supports two different types of memory but only one pair of memory strips at a time.

If you can use all four you will inevitably see an increase in performance with your video processing but otherwise you will be mainly compensating for a computer that just needs some early spring-cleaning.

 

[BenzComander]

I have tried System Mechanic and McAfee antivirus/ firewall. I cant find any issues but its slower than it used to be.

My PC slowed dramaticaly after McAfee downloaded an update. Removed this and installed AVG Free edition (Kept McAfee firewall, thanks masqueraid ) and all was well again.

HTH!

 

[nigel cross]

I allways do a regular defrag and have checked most of the programes that start up at start up I have about 59.
Whats the average amount?
Also my motherboad supports up to 4 Gig

 

[jwarren]

59 programs on start up - thats huge. Is that in the sense of the boot up sequence or what is actually showing on your program list from the Start Menu (if the later then 59 is neither here or there)?

Increasing RAM always improves performance hugely, I recently stuffed my mobo to the limit and it does very very well now. Antivrus software does notoriously slug things down (Nortons drives me bonkers!) so you may want to test BenzComanders theory.

Have you checked your video editing software for updates / known issues etc?

Does it just run slow in general regardless of program.

Have you checked for spyware (try Spybot search & destroy which is free) as that could be a problem. Not all virus software checks for these!

 

[nigel cross]

I have spybot as well , which I check on a regular basis, the 59 programmes runing are when I check the task manager(ctrl alt del )

 

[jwarren]

Do see if the msconfig comand helps, take a hard look at the software that you have - do you use it all?

Windows add/remove progs gives you an indicator on how often you use a program.

 

[guydewdney]

doing video editing requires a huge vid graphics card capability - what are you running? somthing decent, or a cheap-as-chips vid capture card....?

 

[GazCaff]

CPU power is far more important for video editing work. Intels have traditionally been good for video streaming but more memory could certainly help as it is also fairly memory intensive and if the system is being forced to use the paging file it will slow it down dramatically.

If you are feeling flush a new system based around an Intel Core 2 Duo Cpu and 2GB of ram would work wonders.

 

[Iain]

Check out this link to the crucial memory advisor tool. It will tell you what memory is installed and will advise as to the maximum memory you can add.



http://www.crucial.com/uk/

 

[nigel cross]

Checking out my graphics card its a pci express 6200 but it appears to only have 64m ram so it looks like this could be slowing things down as well.
Better raid the kids piggy banks !!

 

[GregE240]

Checking out my graphics card its a pci express 6200 but it appears to only have 64m ram so it looks like this could be slowing things down as well.
Better raid the kids piggy banks !!

If you are doing video editing then I'd look at least at 256MB, possibly more.

Have a look at an ATI Radeon X1950PRO, assuming your budget can stretch to it? You don't mention how much you have to spend.

For example, I bought my lad the AGP version of this: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=521951

It is an INCREDIBLE card for the money. Seriously - he has a P4 3GHz HT / 1GB 3200 and this has utterly transformed the computer. He had an FX5200 (128MB) which was struggling with the latest games he plays (Battle for Middle Earth 2, Age of Empires 3 etc etc).

The new card has simply transformed game play, simply because you can bang everything up to high and it works like a charm.

HTH
Greg

(just to keep the Nvidia massive quiet, a 7900GT type card is nearly as good!