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Thanks John and Mac - I was referring to real tracks. Mac, the computer has two memory slots. Are you saying they should both contain the same type and amount of memory, like a 512 MB board in each? I was looking at a maybe adding 1 GB board to bring it to 1.5 GB but I don't want the performance hit you are talking about.



It is very likely that, if you bought the computer with XP installed as the OS, that this computer's motherboard is designed to use "DDR" memory.

DDR memory can read and write twice per single clock cycle, which means that your present 512 is doing its best to act like 1g whenever it can, which is most of the time.

Installing DDR memory without paying attention to the motherboard mfr's directions on how your BIOS and motherboard deal with DDR memory will usually force the BIOS to automatically revert to Single Density Mode - which means that if you install an odd amount of new RAM in there, it may *look* like more but be performing like much less. For example, attempting to add together one 256m in one slot with a 1g in the other will read out as around 1.2g, but since it must revert to Single Density Mode and thus be read or written once per clock cycle, you not only don't gain much in the way of storage capacity, you take a speed hit as well.

If your machine has two slots in it and both are currently full to yield that 512m figure, a not uncommon situation, then you will have to accept it that the two original ram sticks must be removed and placed on the shelf. Buy two matched sticks of a larger value and install them instead. Two 1g sticks would be a good thing here. That would perform like 4g of actual memory. RAM prices are pretty low right now compared to what we've seen in the past, so I wouldn't worry about losing out on those two original sticks and their 512m at all here.


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Or I may bite the bullet and treat myself to a new fast computer.



That's really a much better idea in the long run. The Celery chip is another bottleneck when Realtracks are your goal, plus consider the "future-proof" factor of a new or even newer machine and perhaps the money spent on new RAM sticks would stretch farther when put with some more money to purchase a newer machine in entirety. Prices are looking good these days. Consider at least a dual core machine, which seem to be loading realtracks with better speed than single core.


--Mac

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