Windows Vista offers a ReadyBoost memory expansion feature for those of us who either don't know how to upgrade memory, or simply don't have the money or system capacity for extra memory. ReadyBoost allows users to plug in a spare USB flash drive in lieu of cracking open the computer case and slapping more RAM onto the motherboard.
A 2GB flash drive won't set you back more than $20, but an extra gigabyte of RAM can easily cost $70 or more.
Installing a ReadyBoost drive is literally as easy as plugging it in. Once you've inserted the flash drive, Vista will test to see if it can use your flash drive for ReadyBoost purposes. If the drive passes the internal tests, Vista will bring up a prompt that asks if you want to use the drive for ReadyBoost. At that time, you can also set how much of the drive you want to dedicate to ReadyBoost.
Here is the test report of ReadyBoost partition sizes of 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 4GB on 4GB Super Talent flash drive, which effectively simulated different sized flash drives in the tests. We also checked to see how ReadyBoost affects performance with different quantities of RAM.
Conclusion:
ReadyBoost has a tremendous effect on computers with 512MB of memory. (Of course, using Vista with a paltry 512MB is a fool's errand to begin with.) Moving up to 1GB of memory, the frame rates on some games crept up and the system itself felt much more responsive. When we outfitted our computer with 2GB and even 4GB of memory, ReadyBoost ceased to have a noticeable effect on gaming applications. In some instances, the performance actually decreased, however that only occurred when we had 4GB ReadyBoost drives. Even though the results show that ReadyBoost doesn't affect frame rates for machines with large amounts of RAM.
Source: Gamespot
A 2GB flash drive won't set you back more than $20, but an extra gigabyte of RAM can easily cost $70 or more.
Installing a ReadyBoost drive is literally as easy as plugging it in. Once you've inserted the flash drive, Vista will test to see if it can use your flash drive for ReadyBoost purposes. If the drive passes the internal tests, Vista will bring up a prompt that asks if you want to use the drive for ReadyBoost. At that time, you can also set how much of the drive you want to dedicate to ReadyBoost.
Here is the test report of ReadyBoost partition sizes of 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 4GB on 4GB Super Talent flash drive, which effectively simulated different sized flash drives in the tests. We also checked to see how ReadyBoost affects performance with different quantities of RAM.
Conclusion:
ReadyBoost has a tremendous effect on computers with 512MB of memory. (Of course, using Vista with a paltry 512MB is a fool's errand to begin with.) Moving up to 1GB of memory, the frame rates on some games crept up and the system itself felt much more responsive. When we outfitted our computer with 2GB and even 4GB of memory, ReadyBoost ceased to have a noticeable effect on gaming applications. In some instances, the performance actually decreased, however that only occurred when we had 4GB ReadyBoost drives. Even though the results show that ReadyBoost doesn't affect frame rates for machines with large amounts of RAM.
Source: Gamespot
