Win XP and RAM

[roguetrader]

Hi I have been planning to upgrade my PC which is long overdue, whilst discussing the pro's and con's of various setups a number of people have passed the comment that there is little point in installing more than 512MB of RAM as XP does not utilize any more than this and will simply use virtual memory above this level. Does anyone know if this is true.
Thanx

 

[Nodsu]

The 512 MB RAM "limit" was in Windows 9x.

Windows XP by itself will not make any good use of RAM over 512MB either. You will get benefit from >512 megs of RAM only if you use memory hungry applications or play the latest and greatest games.

 

[roguetrader]

The 512 MB RAM "limit" was in Windows 9x.

Windows XP by itself will not make any good use of RAM over 512MB either. You will get benefit from >512 megs of RAM only if you use memory hungry applications or play the latest and greatest games.

Nodsu thanks for your reply. As a computer illiterate, this seems a little contradictory, unless taking a windows 9x pc over 512 would have had no benefit to anything you ran on it. If that is the case then I understand that part. With XP however probably due to my lack of real understanding of how applications work on a pc, I don't then see the benefit of more than 512MB. My concept is that as XP is the oerating system it is in charge of the application to the point that it runs the application and since it makes little use of more than 512 then niehter can the application, but I suspect my understanding is at fault here.