Ready Boost does not provide extra Ram, It creates a high speed cache memory
between your MOBO memory and your paging file so that when your system does
need more main memory it can can page out currently not in use memory pages
faster so that the main memory can be used for another file or app and it
also causes memory pages to be retrieved faster when they have been paged
out.
Just the fact the Ready Boost helps your system indicates that you need more
main memory in order to reduce the requirement for paging.
Of course even if paging is not required extra memory acts as a disk cache
reducing the amount of time to retrieve currently inactive apps or files
that have recently been used such as edited files that need to be reused.

"Diamontina Cocktail" wrote in message
...
Where does it improve things, then?

I have an instance here that it did.

1gig ram on a P4 3Ghz here upgraded from XP to Vista Business. Machine was
running not so good but then I expected I would need another gig of ram
and hadn't gotten it yet. What I did find, by accident, was a 4 gig flash
drive that is readyboost OK. I put it in and used it as "extra ram" as the
motherboard will be replaced later this year and has only DDR on it. I
will need DDR2 for the next one.

When I put that 4gig flash drive in and configured it for readyboost, it
made a noticeable difference though it wasn't a FABULOUS difference.

I would appreciate knowing in which cases you think extra ram WOULD make a
difference. Eg, video editing, sound editing?

"Richard Urban" wrote in message
...
Little to no improvement if you run "normal" applications.

You will still need the pagefile.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)


"Alfred Kaufmann" wrote in message
...
I am thinking of going to 4GB ram and I wonder if it is worth it? The
only reason I am thinking of doing it is to turn off virtual memory
and eliminate swapping on the hard drive.

Please let me know your experience if you have done this upgrade.

Al