PC running slow? DVDs playing choppy? What if I told you that there was a way to increase your computer’s RAM efficiency by 30% without having to even glance under the “hood” of your computer? Wipe that long face off because Vista has come to the rescue!
If needed, take a moment to scream “Hallelujah!” Go ahead; if you have Windows Vista, you have reason to be happy. Those days of waiting for Photoshop to un-freeze are over!
Here’s one feature of Vista that your local tech geek doesn’t want you to know…
It’s called Readyboost and it’s available on all computers running Windows Vista. Technically it doesn’t replace a ram upgrade, however, it does allow you to expand your virtual memory so that heavily-taxing applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver run more smoothly. According to Microsoft’s website:
“The recommended amount of memory to use for Windows ReadyBoost acceleration is one to three times the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed in your computer. For instance, if your computer has 512 megabytes (MB) of RAM and you plug in a 4 gigabyte (GB) USB flash drive, setting aside from 512 MB to 1.5 GB of that drive will offer the best performance boost. The minimum size for any USB flash drive to work with Windows ReadyBoost is 256 MB.”
Not that you’d want to play Unreal Tournament and watch a DVD at the same time, but Readyboost makes it possible. Just make sure your removable memory device (flash drive, SD card, etc) is fast enough so that you can enable Readyboost. The video shown above will show you how to test your device’s compatibility.
I personally used my 2GB Kingston DataTraveler and it worked like a charm.
