I'm considering upgrading a family member's eMac 800 from 128mb of ram with Jaguar to 256 mb of ram with Tiger.
Would she feel a speed increase, or a slow-down?
Would she feel a speed increase, or a slow-down?
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Tiger with 256?
- Thread starter screensaver400
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It will be better, and if that is the maximum you want to do it will work fine. But you will find it to work MUCH better with at least 512 total.
I know it's not enough. I tried to sell her on a 512 stick, but even the $80 OWC charges is too much. She was receptive about the benefits, but as soon as I mentioned the price she cut me off before I could say another syllable.
I might be able to sell her on a 256 stick, though (total of 384).
What I'm trying to figure out is, would Tiger eat up the ram more quickly, thanks to Spotlight and Dashboard? Or would there still be a speed increase?
I might be able to sell her on a 256 stick, though (total of 384).
What I'm trying to figure out is, would Tiger eat up the ram more quickly, thanks to Spotlight and Dashboard? Or would there still be a speed increase?
Spotlight and Dashboard can both be turned off. Do a google search or search the forums here, or ask in the forums to find out how - it's pretty easy. 256 will definitely be an improvement over 128, with or without Spotlight & Dashboard, even though Tiger is more bloated.screensaver400 said:
Dashboard only loads when you first launch it yourself after boot. So, eliminate the Dock icon and keyboard references and it will never load, even if you hit F12. Spotlight doesn't seem to do much after initial indexing unless you use it. I'm not sure if there is a way to disable Spotlight altogether, but you could just put "Macintosh HD" in the Privacy section of the Spotlight preference pane. Then there would be nothing allowed to index.
I'm impressed Jaguar'll even run on 128, but I can pretty much guarantee it's running dog-slow no matter what she's doing. 256 will be an improvement no matter what, even with the more RAM-hungry Tiger on it (and actually, Tiger has enough speed benefits over Jaguar that it you'd probably come out ahead even if it was equally RAM starved at 256, which it won't be).
That said, do anything you possibly can to talk her into at least another 256MB--384MB will make a HUGE difference over 256, and Tiger might actually run somewhere close to how it should if she doesn't push it (I've run Panther comfortably at that level on a number of machines at work). Compared to 128, it'll be like a new computer.
Considering that DMS charges $20 for 128 and $33 for 256, not spending the extra $13 borders on stupid. I can see, though, how $80 could feel a bit steep even if it would make a difference (which wouldn't be as much as from 256 to 384).
That said, do anything you possibly can to talk her into at least another 256MB--384MB will make a HUGE difference over 256, and Tiger might actually run somewhere close to how it should if she doesn't push it (I've run Panther comfortably at that level on a number of machines at work). Compared to 128, it'll be like a new computer.
Considering that DMS charges $20 for 128 and $33 for 256, not spending the extra $13 borders on stupid. I can see, though, how $80 could feel a bit steep even if it would make a difference (which wouldn't be as much as from 256 to 384).
I've got 256MB on my 800MHz iBook, it runs tirger damn fine, granted the processor is a bit faster, and i never use dashboard or spotlight (I really dont have enough files, its just my laptop)