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Have been assuming that Win98 can only handle less than 512 meg of ram without taking a performance hit. What about having exactly 512 in place? Or is that overkill and 256 would do just as well? Someone has asked me this, and not really sure, as I haven't ever tested it myself. This is just for basic gaming computer, btw.

thanks,
sethpa

My kids machine runs Win98SE. It used to have 384 megs but I donated a 128meg stick to my nephew and neither the kids ro I can tell the difference. No real testing to back it up just kind of seat of the pants what it feels like.

You might be able to run a Win9x setup with 512MB+ BUT you will more often run into problems doing so.

Win9x won't start BSOD'ing on you as soon as you plug exactly 512MB into it but it's likely to make trouble when you put in MORE than 512MB. There are some workarounds that kinda limit the available memory for windows to 512MB when you run into problems ... but then again, where's the use to have above 512MB when you have to limit Win9x to use only 512MB ....

What I remember from a couple of VERY small articles in PC Week and InfoWorld three years ago was that W98 really doesn't bennefit from more than 128 Megs, and definately not from more than 256 megs. I never heard mention of this again but always wondered.
That was part of the arguement for moving to W2K when it came out... but as there never was a general public stink about it I never saw another word.. Perhaps somebody else did.

my experience was that 256 was fine but beyond that there were issues. I loaded up a win 98 machine with 1 gig back when memory was dirt cheap and it wasn't happy

As far as the desktop and most apps is concerned, Win98 gets no performance improvement with anything over 128Mb. Some apps (like Photoshop) and some games (like Quake3) are designed to make use of more ram if it's available and do perform better. I'd say 256Mb is the sweet spot for Win98 unless you're a serious Photoshop user.

In my experience up to 512Mb is okay. Win98 seems to take a major performance and stability hit with more than 512Mb by most reports.

I know I'm running Win98SE as an alternate boot in my Win2K system and it runs just fine with 512Mb (and I do run Photoshop so I can make use of it, but Win98 is only a backup on this system in case Win2K gets trashed).

Just to let you know, I am running a 98SE system with 512 MB DDR PC2100 ram, and I run fine. No BSOD's unless my computer is pretty screwed. It isn't totally stable (I wouldn't know why) but I am sure the 512mb of ram don't hurt my performance.

i think win9x locks when there's 768 or more in the system, anything less should be fine

although the win9x core isn't supposed to be able to take advantage of that much ram, and performance actually decreases if you put too much

128 is the sweet spot, and to 256 there's still performance improvement

Well if you have over 512MB of RAM just make a RAMdrive so Windows will work.

I just thought we should see the official p00p from M$ on the topic:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... US;q253912

They also include the workarounds, I like number 3 the best:
* Reduce the amount of memory that is installed in your computer to 512 MB or less.


Yes, I guess you could run a RAMdisk of some sort but that would only be useful for those who use programs that do a lot of disk caching ... and I don't know any FREE RAMdrive software for Win9x.
http://www.cenatek.com/product_ramdisk.cfm offer RAMDisk for Win9x ($25) and for NT/2000 ($35) ... but it's questionable for most if it's really worth it, luckily they have trial versions (100 uses) for those with lotsa RAM to see if they can get some advantages out of it.

You can buy Serious Sam Second Edition for that money and I bet yer get more fun out of it

My opinion is still: 256MB is great for Win9x for gaming, 384MB and up a waste unless you <strike>shop for photos</strike> work with Photoshop a lot.
NT/2000/XP is your choice of OS with everything above 512MB.