XP v W7: OS RAM-use

[MetalManiac]

OS-wise, does XP 64-bit use less RAM than Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit? W7 does have an awful lot of bells and whistles compared to XP.

I want to do some light gaming (Sims 3, Vice City) in Bootcamp on my Mini. Of course with a 3.75GB ceiling I need the OS to eat up as little RAM as possible.
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MacBook Pro 13" 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 160GB HD
Mac Mini 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 320GB HD
23" Acrylic ACD

[MacDSmith2]

Windows 7 is like Vista; a resource hog. If small is the answer, go with XP. It requires 1/3 the disk space of Windows 7 installations.
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Active: Mac Mini (OCT 09) 4 GB RAM, 2.66 GHz, 500 GB HDD

[devo]

I looked at this before and after installing Windows 7 64-bit. Windows 7 is like double at 930MB after startup, which really isn't that bad when you compare it with Snow Leopard. It's slightly over 1GB with a clean start.

[MetalManiac]

Do they run the same 9400m driver?
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MacBook Pro 13" 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 160GB HD
Mac Mini 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 320GB HD
23" Acrylic ACD

[Aquafire]

[MetalManiac]

[Aquafire]

32bit XP doesn't see all 4GB your physical ram ?

You might like to try this..

Creating a Ramdisk.

Step 1

Download Gavotte's RAMdisk. It's a freeware that can use that unseen RAM.

http://www.easy-share.com/1907118935/Gavot...5_200811130.zip

Step 2

Unzip the folder and double-click "ram4g.reg" file. You need this Registry before doing anything else.

Step 3

Go to C:\ and open your boot.ini with Notepad.

You will see.

CODE[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Add /pae at the end of the line:

like so...

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /pae

If you aren't seeing any file with this name, select the Tools menu and click Folder Options. After the new window appears select the View tab. Here you need to put a checkmark in the checkbox labeled Display the contents of system folders.

Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labeled Show hidden files and folders. Remove the checkmark from the checkboxs labeled Hide file extensions for known file types and Hide protected operating system files.

Now, press the Apply button and then the OK button.

Step 4

Reboot your system.

Now, at your System Properties you can see "Physical Address Extension" under system's specs. You can run now "ramdisk.exe" inside the RAMdisk folder.

Now Install your RAMdisk... Check "Fixed Media" and type your wasted RAM, apply and check ok.

Reboot again. If you enabled your PAE before install RAMdisk and set the right amount of RAM, it will appear as RamDisk-PAE. If not, redo the steps from 2 and try to adress less memory on the RAMdisk's installation.

Step 5

You can ask me "Ok, I've done every thing. Now, what can I do with this thing?!". Simple. You can use it to your browser cache for example, or do what I do... use it for my system's virtual memory.

To do that open My Computer, right click and select System Properties, go to Advanced tab, under Performance click on Settings button. Here click on Advanced again, and go to Virtual Memory. Here select your RAMdisk, write the amount and click in "set".

Just remember.

Any data stored on RAMdisk disappears upon restart. It's not a good idea try to use it like a normal partition...

Cheers

Aqua
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