Going from 2GB RAM to 4GB RAM in Windows Vista Business 64-bit

Will I notice much of a difference by going from 2GB RAM to 4GB RAM in Windows Vista Business 64-bit?

 

Depends what you do with your computer.

Check how much ram you are currently using. Just use resource monitor for this. The blue shows available memory. If you always have a lot of free memory the effect of an upgrade will be almost zero.

Some games will benefit and applications like video/image editing. Generally anything that loads large files. Also multitasking, but not if you are just switching between word, excel and firefox.... you really need a lot of open applications to fill the 2gb.

 

I do play games on my laptop so I guess that is something to consider. Will games load/exit faster with 4GB RAM and have less HDD trashing (mainly on the exits)?

 

Possibly not - I suspect the games that write to your HDD are trying to save date.

More RAM will only help in games if you get HDD access during the game.

As the above poster said, check your RAM usage.

However, as a 64Bit OS consumes more RAM than a 32Bit OS, any upgrade may be worthwhile - you could also go from 2GB to 3GB - which would be cheaper at the moment as you'd need to replace only one "stick".

 

Without anything open, I am using 35% of the physical memory. Secondly, my laptop came with one stick of 2GB rather than two sticks of 1GB so upgrading to 4GB I'll just have to buy that extra stick of 2GB.

 

So?
Without anything open I'm using over 40% of my 3GB of RAM (4GB physical, RAM, 32Bit OS) on Vista Business.

That doesn't matter - the question is how much RAM do you applications use if they are running.

If you only use 1,5GB or RAM maximum then (making this absurd on purpose) 20GB of RAM won't give you an advantage.

 

On a 32 bit 3GB Veesta system I'm using 67% of my memory. Excel, and 2 IE windows along with a proprietary real data time program open. Could I benefit from upping to 4GB in W7 64?

 

What on earth is Veesta??
Its called Vista - maybe you need a new keyboard?

And if you actually read what has been posted before?
If you don't max out your RAM then no you WON'T BENEFIT from it.

Another aspect of 64Bit vs. 32Bit is that 64Bit can handle more data - but that's another matter altogether - and not entirely relevant here I think.

 

You will have no benefits. My system has 3GB on Vista 64-bit and I have a ton more crap open than you currently and still haven't run out of memory.

 

I was playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 today and during the big open level with Burger Town I experienced a lot of freeze-ups that were accompanied with a lot of HDD activity (the HDD light basically stayed continuously lit during the freeze-ups). Is this a sign of running out of RAM?

 

If this was while playing then potentially.

Best way of testing, run task manager while you play the game - then minize and check the RAM usage

 

Yes, it is. Were there any missing textures?

The constant HDD activity suggests that your computer is using the pagefile like crazy, I think.

If that's when your computer freezes up, then wait until you get to the very last level. Mine with 3GB locks up completely, and there's missing textures, and the framerate drops like the GPU is throttling itself.