• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

How much RAM does Windows 7 really need?

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,473 (4.11/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
Well, i thought that heat is the reason. Because once i've disabled Aero Glass and enhanced the CPU cooler (added BGA heatsinks inside Aspire One CPU cooler), it worked much better and connection dropped only once. Not ideal, but still much much better.

If anyone else manages to get any other solid solution for this, i'd be happy to hear it (if it's not heat).

I haven't had any issues with the wireless on my netbook, but I have had problems with the wired connection on my main desktop. Seems to be a common problem with nVidia boards. I had to disable recieving side scaling under the properties for my network adaptor in device manager.

Maybe there is something similar with some wireless connections.

windows 7 uses about the same amount of ram as vista.

for any pc my general rule is 1gb ram per core or hyper threaded virtual core for xp/vista/7. it might sound a lot but when i was running my bionc client with 4 tasks on my atom 330 dual core with hyper threading for 4 virtual core it used up the 2gb ram all the time because of the 4 threads using just over 500mb ram each then ground to a halt.


as for cpu's 7 is a little sluggish on an intel atom 1.6ghz single core and runs fine on any dual core cpu (inc atom) and any athlon 64 up or pentium 4/M up.

It doesn't really seem all that sluggish to me really on my single core atom netbook, but I do have 2GB of RAM. I'm actually quite impressed with Win7 performance on lower end systems.
 

JTS

New Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2009
Messages
144 (0.03/day)
Location
Brisbane
System Name DUST FILTRATION UNIT
Processor i7 920 @ 4.0 ghz+HT
Motherboard Asus P6X58D Premium
Cooling Noctua NH-D14 + plenty of case fans
Memory 6 GB OCZ Gold
Video Card(s) Asus GTX 580 Direct CUII
Storage x2 Samsung F1 640GB, 1TB Seagate 7200.12
Display(s) U2410 : 58" Samsung
Case HAF 932
Audio Device(s) X-FI Forte 7.1 / AD900
Power Supply Corsair HX1000W
Software 7 Ultimate x64 : 7 x64 PRO
This is the lowest CPU/RAM I've seen someone install Seven on:
DINOSOAUR 2.jpg

96MB:laugh:

Why? The simple man answer is - because we can :p
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
4,012 (0.72/day)
Location
Sarasota, Florida, USA
System Name Awesomesauce 4.3 | Laptop (MSI GE72VR 6RF Apache Pro-023)
Processor Intel Core i7-5820K 4.16GHz 1.28v/3GHz 1.05v uncore | Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 3.1GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5 WiFi LGA2011-v3| Stock
Cooling Corsair H100i v2 w/ 2x EK Vardar F4-120ER + various 120/140mm case fans | Stock
Memory G.Skill RJ-4 16GB DDR4-2666 CL15 quad channel | 12GB DDR4-2133
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1080 Ti Hybrid SC2 11GB @ 2012/5151 boost | NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB +200/+500 + Intel 530
Storage Samsung 840 EVO 500GB + Seagate 3TB 7200RPM + others | Kingston 256GB M.2 SATA + 1TB 7200RPM
Display(s) Acer G257HU 1440p 60Hz AH-IPS 4ms | 17.3" 1920*1080 60Hz wide angle TN notebook panel
Case Fractal Design Define XL R2 | MSI
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster Z | Realtek with quad stereo speakers and subwoofer
Power Supply Corsair HX850i Platinum | 19.5v 180w Delta brick
Software Windows 10 Pro x64 | Windows 10 Home x64
i keep hearing a lot about windows 7 dropping wireless connections, but haven't found any solid info on it

I've seemingly had this issue with my modern (Core 2 Duo) laptop's wireless. I don't really use laptops anymore and the laptop has a dual-core Intel and NVIDIA graphics, so I installed it in my bathroom under the sink where it runs 24/7 folding/crunching (and using my wireless to download WUs) and not bothering me. Every few days it seems that I will check on the laptop and my wireless connection will be at "limited or no connectivity" and it only seems to be fixed by rebooting the laptop or (rarely) power cycling the router (as my iPod will still be working fine on WiFi most of the time) Still dunno if it is hardware or software (using Intel 4965AGN in laptop and Netgear WNR3500 N router, which I dropped down to G because my hardware revision sucks and drops all the time on N mode and WPA2).
 
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
Messages
2,964 (0.45/day)
Location
your local vending machine
System Name HTPC||Lenovo IBM ThinkPad
Processor AMD Phenom II x4 965 stock 3.4GHz||Intel C2D T9300 @ 2.5GHz
Motherboard Zotac 890GX-ITX WiFi||Lenovo 8918CTO
Cooling Stock 3x 120's||Stock stuff
Memory 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 6-6-6-15||3GB DDR2
Video Card(s) Asus 3870x2||nVidia Quadro NVS 140M
Storage 1TB Seagate Barracuda, 1x 2TB WD EARX ||Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM
Display(s) Samsung T260HD||
Case SilverStone Grandia GD05||
Audio Device(s) on-board||on-board
Power Supply Cooler Master 450W||6-cell
Software Windows 7 Pro x64||Windows 7 Pro x64/Linux Mint x64
This is the lowest CPU/RAM I've seen someone install Seven on:
View attachment 30799

96MB:laugh:

Why? The simple man answer is - because we can :p

That is badassary! Personally wouldn't waste my time with that, but that is awesome nonetheless
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
4,012 (0.72/day)
Location
Sarasota, Florida, USA
System Name Awesomesauce 4.3 | Laptop (MSI GE72VR 6RF Apache Pro-023)
Processor Intel Core i7-5820K 4.16GHz 1.28v/3GHz 1.05v uncore | Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 3.1GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5 WiFi LGA2011-v3| Stock
Cooling Corsair H100i v2 w/ 2x EK Vardar F4-120ER + various 120/140mm case fans | Stock
Memory G.Skill RJ-4 16GB DDR4-2666 CL15 quad channel | 12GB DDR4-2133
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1080 Ti Hybrid SC2 11GB @ 2012/5151 boost | NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB +200/+500 + Intel 530
Storage Samsung 840 EVO 500GB + Seagate 3TB 7200RPM + others | Kingston 256GB M.2 SATA + 1TB 7200RPM
Display(s) Acer G257HU 1440p 60Hz AH-IPS 4ms | 17.3" 1920*1080 60Hz wide angle TN notebook panel
Case Fractal Design Define XL R2 | MSI
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster Z | Realtek with quad stereo speakers and subwoofer
Power Supply Corsair HX850i Platinum | 19.5v 180w Delta brick
Software Windows 10 Pro x64 | Windows 10 Home x64
This is the lowest CPU/RAM I've seen someone install Seven on:
View attachment 30799

96MB:laugh:

Why? The simple man answer is - because we can :p

Reminds me of when I installed Windows 2000 Pro on a 486DX 66, 48MB FPM RAM, 500MB HDD, 256KB VGA card and 0KB L2 cache ram because my board was retarded and would either run lots of RAM and no cache chips or little amouts of RAM and 64KB cache. Man did that suck.
 

somebody

New Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
127 (0.02/day)
I get the impression that with Vista the people at MS envisaged computers with high amounts of RAM so they were not very conservative of how they used it. Windows Seven seems to have done a better job with memory management.

IIRC Windows 7 checks that 512MB, or somewhere around there, is available before going ahead with installing so some messing around would be required for machines with less than this amount.

With the older HW I would guess less drivers are needed to get it up and running so this would favour the older machines with small memory.

Using a virtual machine and its basic emulated HW, 92MB seems doable for using IE and very basic software. With safe-mode and it's reduced driver list 48MB gets to the desktop, 53MB if networking is required.

IMHO though, I think you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to operate Windows 7 at such low levels.
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (7.97/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
IMHO though, I think you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to operate Windows 7 at such low levels.

true, but its handy to know should you have to RMA your ram and buy something for the interim
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,221 (1.09/day)
System Name ICE-QUAD // ICE-CRUNCH
Processor Q6600 // 2x Xeon 5472
Memory 2GB DDR // 8GB FB-DIMM
Video Card(s) HD3850-AGP // FireGL 3400
Display(s) 2 x Samsung 204Ts = 3200x1200
Audio Device(s) Audigy 2
Software Windows Server 2003 R2 as a Workstation now migrated to W10 with regrets.
Pointless thread. Who runs Windows but NO APPLICATIONS???

Windows may not need much but your programmes need some. Bet you couldn't even load Firefox :laugh:

Not pointless, just maybe missing some important aspects: like running a basic set of applications.

I also wonder if the VIRTUALIZED test might be missing something. I'm not sure that a virtualized OS has exactly the same footprint as an on-the-metal installation. Could be wrong... I've only VMwared Windows onto OSX. But in that instance, the Windows footprint was a lot smaller than on a bare install.

I agree with vaiopup... the analysis would be better if newteckie had established what the "working criteria" are, e.g. Office XP, ethernet connection, IE, and printer. Perhaps someone here has Win7 installed on a machine populated with 256MB sticks... and can do a chip pull and see what happens.

At a single stick of 256MB, loss of dual channel, on an older machine, I'm sure Win7 is a no-go in any practical sense.

W2K3 works quite happily in 256MB on a P3 laptop incl. MS office. But it is at the tipping point... If W2K3 can do it, I'm sure W7 can nearly do it, so I'm sure you would be good to go with 512MB.
 
Joined
May 20, 2004
Messages
10,487 (1.40/day)
From what I understand a lot of legacy support was dropped in 7 > smaller core, so if you take out all useless features with vlite/manually it probably boots on less.
 

wolf

Better Than Native
Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
8,147 (1.27/day)
System Name MightyX
Processor Ryzen 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
Cooling Scythe Fuma 2
Memory 32GB DDR4 3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Asus TUF RTX3080 Deshrouded
Storage WD Black SN850X 2TB
Display(s) LG 42C2 4K OLED
Case Coolermaster NR200P
Audio Device(s) LG SN5Y / Focal Clear
Power Supply Corsair SF750 Platinum
Mouse Corsair Dark Core RBG Pro SE
Keyboard Glorious GMMK Compact w/pudding
VR HMD Meta Quest 3
Software case populated with Artic P12's
Benchmark Scores 4k120 OLED Gsync bliss
Good writeup newtekie, and I think I know why they still say 1gb is minimum, aside from the obvious lack of ram to store application data blah blah blah in.

Ive tried to install 64 bit on a machine with 1 gb, BABOW no dice, it literlaly stops and saus NO, YOU NEED 2 GB, which is min for 64 bit, I imagine with 32 bit, if you have less than 1024mb total, it will stop you at the install screen and say a big NO.

other than that, good testing man, and funny thread, informative, and I got a laugh from the BSOD pic, it was going so well!

hey with you netbook, hows it run? I've installed 7 32 bit on a eee 1000H with 2gb ram and it runs friggen sweetly, much better than I expected, aero and all, I was even playing an episode (0ver wireless), and windows+tab'ing (with many screens open including net) and the video was still playing flawlessly in win+tab.

hats off to M$ on this one rly.
 

somebody

New Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
127 (0.02/day)
I also wonder if the VIRTUALIZED test might be missing something.
It's missing a lot ;), that's what makes it a good candidate for low memory. I believe my laptop being just over a year old has too much hardware to be able to run natively at such low memory but then recent gear tends to have a fair bit more RAM to start with. The virtual machine was set up for just very basic stuff including audio and internet. It's probably a bit too simple but I wanted something closer to an older system.


Notice how it's using 300MB+ of swap space or pagefile to get it all working. I can't help thinking the virtual machine was caching some of the virtual drive as it seemed to run a lot quicker than I would have expected or maybe I just underestimated it.

Perhaps someone here has Win7 installed on a machine populated with 256MB sticks... and can do a chip pull and see what happens.
No real need to do it that way. You can copy the configuration using BCDEdit and call it something like "Testing low RAM" then use the 'truncatememory' option to limit the memory. Same effect.

From what I understand a lot of legacy support was dropped in 7 > smaller core, so if you take out all useless features with vlite/manually it probably boots on less.
I think you might be right. I did download vlite but sorta lost interest when it asked to download and install a 1.3GB file :laugh: Still, I'm running Vista to, so it might be a good idea for me to take a look sometime. TBH though Vista hasn't given me any problems but then I've never tried it with less than 2-4GB of RAM.
 

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,473 (4.11/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
Not pointless, just maybe missing some important aspects: like running a basic set of applications.

I also wonder if the VIRTUALIZED test might be missing something. I'm not sure that a virtualized OS has exactly the same footprint as an on-the-metal installation. Could be wrong... I've only VMwared Windows onto OSX. But in that instance, the Windows footprint was a lot smaller than on a bare install.

I agree with vaiopup... the analysis would be better if newteckie had established what the "working criteria" are, e.g. Office XP, ethernet connection, IE, and printer. Perhaps someone here has Win7 installed on a machine populated with 256MB sticks... and can do a chip pull and see what happens.

At a single stick of 256MB, loss of dual channel, on an older machine, I'm sure Win7 is a no-go in any practical sense.

W2K3 works quite happily in 256MB on a P3 laptop incl. MS office. But it is at the tipping point... If W2K3 can do it, I'm sure W7 can nearly do it, so I'm sure you would be good to go with 512MB.

This wasn't a usability test, simpley a test to see what the minimum required to boot with was.

In terms of usability, I've already gone over that. Though I personally wouldn't want to use it with any less than 1GB, 2GB preferred. At 256MB, it was extremely sluggish with openning programs, though I wonder if this is one of those instances where readyboost would actually show a drastic improvement...

A virtualized machine has the same footprint as Win7 installed on a real machine, as far as Win7 knows, it is installed on a real machine, so there would be no reason for it to have a smaller footprint.

Good writeup newtekie, and I think I know why they still say 1gb is minimum, aside from the obvious lack of ram to store application data blah blah blah in.

Ive tried to install 64 bit on a machine with 1 gb, BABOW no dice, it literlaly stops and saus NO, YOU NEED 2 GB, which is min for 64 bit, I imagine with 32 bit, if you have less than 1024mb total, it will stop you at the install screen and say a big NO.

other than that, good testing man, and funny thread, informative, and I got a laugh from the BSOD pic, it was going so well!

hey with you netbook, hows it run? I've installed 7 32 bit on a eee 1000H with 2gb ram and it runs friggen sweetly, much better than I expected, aero and all, I was even playing an episode (0ver wireless), and windows+tab'ing (with many screens open including net) and the video was still playing flawlessly in win+tab.

hats off to M$ on this one rly.

My netbook runs great, I was very surprised at how it ran. The best thing was that it found almost all the drivers, and the special ASUS utilities actually worked(Super Hybrid Engine and hot keys), unlike in Vista.
 

wolf

Better Than Native
Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
8,147 (1.27/day)
System Name MightyX
Processor Ryzen 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
Cooling Scythe Fuma 2
Memory 32GB DDR4 3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Asus TUF RTX3080 Deshrouded
Storage WD Black SN850X 2TB
Display(s) LG 42C2 4K OLED
Case Coolermaster NR200P
Audio Device(s) LG SN5Y / Focal Clear
Power Supply Corsair SF750 Platinum
Mouse Corsair Dark Core RBG Pro SE
Keyboard Glorious GMMK Compact w/pudding
VR HMD Meta Quest 3
Software case populated with Artic P12's
Benchmark Scores 4k120 OLED Gsync bliss
My netbook runs great, I was very surprised at how it ran. The best thing was that it found almost all the drivers, and the special ASUS utilities actually worked(Super Hybrid Engine and hot keys), unlike in Vista.

the lack of need for driver install is yet another thing that blew me away, they really have a gem on their hands this time.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,221 (1.09/day)
System Name ICE-QUAD // ICE-CRUNCH
Processor Q6600 // 2x Xeon 5472
Memory 2GB DDR // 8GB FB-DIMM
Video Card(s) HD3850-AGP // FireGL 3400
Display(s) 2 x Samsung 204Ts = 3200x1200
Audio Device(s) Audigy 2
Software Windows Server 2003 R2 as a Workstation now migrated to W10 with regrets.
A virtualized machine has the same footprint as Win7 installed on a real machine, as far as Win7 knows, it is installed on a real machine, so there would be no reason for it to have a smaller footprint.

That's not my experience. A VM application on the host provides passthrough drivers for the guest install. That also makes the guest virtual machine portable. You dont install raw OEM graphics, audio, network, usb drivers "into" the guest. The guest is therefore smaller than a bare metal.
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (7.97/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
I think you might be right. I did download vlite but sorta lost interest when it asked to download and install a 1.3GB file :laugh:

yeah, MS wont let them use the .dll anymore, so they link you to a 1.3GB MS redist to get it.

you can just google for the missing .dll, download it and stick it in the folder and it works just fine :)
 

i789

New Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2009
Messages
145 (0.03/day)
Location
point roberts, wa
win7 cant run on 128mb ram, definitely not as good as win98 ;)
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (7.97/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
win7 cant run on 128mb ram, definitely not as good as win98 ;)

i always liked windows 2000 on low ram systems :)

 
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
3,516 (0.61/day)
System Name Money Hole
Processor Core i7 970
Motherboard Asus P6T6 WS Revolution
Cooling Noctua UH-D14
Memory 2133Mhz 12GB (3x4GB) Mushkin 998991
Video Card(s) Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X
Storage Samsung 1TB 850 Evo
Display(s) 3x Acer KG240A 144hz
Case CM HAF 932
Audio Device(s) ADI (onboard)
Power Supply Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050w
Mouse Logitech G602
Keyboard Logitech G710+
Software Windows 10 Professional x64
I've got my sisters old laptop she got new in like '07. Turion 1.6ghz, 6150 geforce, 1gb memory, and 80gb hard drive.

Installed 7 RC x64 and has been running without problems for about a month now. I just use it to cruise the internet. It's kind of clunky from what I'm use to from my i7 system. Trying to find a 2x2gb memory setup so help but I can't believe its so hard to find any deals on 2x2gb ddr2 sodimms. I usually run in the 80%+ memory usage and have aero on. I have 1 sidebar app running to show my battery life and norton security and xfire that load at startup. Very minimal things running to help internet cruising smooth out. For now, I'm living with throwing in my flash drive and use it as ready boost as it does help out quite a lot.

What's really nice is if I have the laptop on for a while, my sidebar app will slowly show more and more system memory available. I've had 7 running on as little as ~500mb of memory when just sitting idle on the desktop with all aforementioned apps running in the background.

I tried to run Vista on 1gb on my old Q9400 desktop and it just choked making it past start up telling me it could load this program because it had run out of memory space. 7 is just a massive improvement in memory management compared to Vista.
 

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,473 (4.11/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
That's not my experience. A VM application on the host provides passthrough drivers for the guest install. That also makes the guest virtual machine portable. You dont install raw OEM graphics, audio, network, usb drivers "into" the guest. The guest is therefore smaller than a bare metal.

That isn't the case, the OS still has the drivers installed, drivers are not "pass through". The virtual machine has virtual hardware that the Guest OS installs driver for.

It is portable because the hardware is the same on every VMWare virtual machine.
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (7.97/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
That isn't the case, the OS still has the drivers installed, drivers are not "pass through". The virtual machine has virtual hardware that the Guest OS installs driver for.

It is portable because the hardware is the same on every VMWare virtual machine.

the virtual drivers would still be 'lighter' ram wise (no tray applets, very minimal by design) so his point has some merit - just not as much as he made out.
 

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,473 (4.11/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
the virtual drivers would still be 'lighter' ram wise (no tray applets, very minimal by design) so his point has some merit - just not as much as he made out.

Not really, the same would apply to something like my netbook, where all the drivers were installed by Win7 by default. There are no tray apps accociated with those either. So the footprint on machines such as my netbook should be extremely close to those of a virtual machine.

And if you install the device drivers manually through device manager you avoid all the extra bloat, which is usually what I do in low RAM machines, even if I'm installing XP.
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (7.97/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
Not really, the same would apply to something like my netbook, where all the drivers were installed by Win7 by default. There are no tray apps accociated with those either. So the footprint on machines such as my netbook should be extremely close to those of a virtual machine.

And if you install the device drivers manually through device manager you avoid all the extra bloat, which is usually what I do in low RAM machines, even if I'm installing XP.

thats a fair point. they're about the same as drivers that come with the OS, bloat wise.
 
Top