Does adding RAM help increase my laptop speed significantly?

I have a 667MHz Powerbook G4 with 512MB RAM. It's getting really slow lately, especially after installing MacOS 10.4 and Adobe CS2.
I tried not to open too many programs at a time, but it doesn't seem to help much.
Does anybody have the same problem with the newer Powerbook or Macbook Pro? I'm wondering if I need a new laptop, or just an extra RAM.

Hi shintaoetama,
first of all: WELCOME TO THE DISCUSSIONS!
Although adding RAM may increase speed a little running some routine system maintenance will certainly speed up things much more radically: MacOS X 10.3/10.4: System maintenance
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

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Does adding RAM help solve iMovie4 jerky playback

I have been reading threads about jerky playback in iMovie4 in large projects, after adding music from iTunes etc. My wife has a monster project and playback during editing has became very eratic. I have emptied cache, repaired the hard drive, repaired permissions etc. I have not tossed iMovie preferences. I have 23 gigs of space on the HD and a 250gig external FW HD that I bought after she started the project on the internal HD. I would like to know from you experts: 1. Would it help to move the project to the larger external HD? 2. Would adding RAM help (currently iMac G5 1.8mhz with 768 megs RAM)? 3. Is there any way to tell if the project will export to iDVD smoothly if it continues to look terrible in iMovie playback? I hate to go through a few hours of rendering for nothing. Thanks so much for your help. I always find good and useful info in discussions.
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Does adding RAM really help performance?

My iMac 1.8 GHz G5 is about two years old and starting to run slowly. Could it be the 10,000 photos and 6,000 songs? I've started using my MacBook for most work and my iMac for most play (i.e. media).
Does adding RAM really help performance? I've only got one 512 MB chip.
Thanks for any help.

Hello,
Yes, adding more memory can make a huge performance improvement.
I've owned two iMac G5 systems. And, in both cases, I noticed a huge performance improvement jumping to 1 GB of RAM. And, while not huge, I noticed even better performance going from 1 GB to 2 GB of RAM.
512 MB is minimal, and adequate. But, more memory makes OS X run considerably better.
I hope this helps.
Let us know if you have other questions.
P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.

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And I have available a 10/100Mbps Ethernet switch. If I add that to the network do I bring down the speed of the entire thing?
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Does compiling the kernel makes the system run significantly faster?

It used to be when you compiled your kernel (at least ten years ago), you would get a significant speed boost. However, with the speed of machine nowadays, I wonder how much, if any. Does compiling the kernel have a significant increase in daily performance or otherwise? If so, what portion of the system does it makes faster than before? In short, Is it worth it? I appreciate any comments.

lilsirecho wrote:
Broch:
The title of this thread doesn't limit responses to just redoing the kernel since it says "system run significantly faster".
The kernel is not the system...the system runs from HDD and ram.
To speed up that process, run everything possible in ram for system speed up.
I think for 500 packages loading from scratch to desktop in 45 seconds is fast. And running after that in ram is super fast system speed "significantly faster".
The speed I quote is possible now. With UDMA capability in the kernel, at least half of the install time is probable.
And that is for over 500 packages into KDE no less!
Using flash in IDE removes the latent search from the system and therefore must be faster.
Changing the kernel will indeed speed up the system...but only if it includes UDMA for the flash drives already available but not configured with the present kernels.
Using flash drives for ide cache repos will allow faster boot time, and reduce the load on the system. You don't normally run many,many programs at once so put them in cache with a script to permit fast loading .
That is "system running significantly faster" and all in ram, the fastest in the computer.
no
Does compiling the kernel makes the system run significantly faster?
compiling kernel, not whatever
I did not suspect that this requires explanation?
but if you really want the noise, let's leave "faster?"
and answer is: yes/no
whatever that means.
or you are joking
anyway seems that results may vary.
Last edited by broch (2008-02-06 04:32:01)

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Message was edited by: MGW

Speed issue after adding RAM

Hello all,
I recently upgraded RAM on my IMac from 4gb to 16gb. I practically see no difference. My FCPX version is 10.0.9 Rendering takes forever. Am I missing something? Do I need to reconfigure iMac?
Any suggestion is highly appreciated

Am I missing something?
Yes. Adding RAM may not provide any noticeable change.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
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I know: It’s already a flawed test, because I had introduced an additional variable by exporting to two separate drives in the first test. Since the times that I’m most in a hurry are when I’m on location using a laptop, that test wasn’t of much use, as laptops (with few exceptions) have only one internal drive.
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The same 300 files exported in two groups of 150, simultaneous operations: 10 minutes
The same 300 files, this time exported in three groups of 100: 7 minutes
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250 files divided roughly into three groups, processed simultaneously: 4.5 minutes
Same 250 files processed in a single operation: 7 minutes
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Last edited by marceel (2013-07-14 09:16:09)

Does adding RAM help increase my laptop speed significantly?

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