Re: RAM requirements

[Sven Thommesen]

Patrick McNeill wrote:
> 
> Hey - This seems sort of irrelevant, but I need to ask anyways.  At the end of
> the summer (late August), I'm planning on buying a new computer.  I've decided
> on a Pentium Pro 200, but I'm not sure about memory requirements.  I'm 
> planning
> on doing a lot of stuff with Swarm on it, so that is the primary factor in
> deciding between 32 Mb and 64 Mb of RAM.  The OS will be a dual boot WinNT4/
> Linux system if it matters...  Thanks!
> 
> -Patrick
>

FWIW, on a 32Mb system I have rarely had the box start swapping.
However, that's running an expanded version of Heatbugs only
(3 "heat"spaces, 4 bug types); with bigger simulations (i.e. 
those that do something useful) this might no longer hold.

I'm in the same fortunate situation as you (the department found
a pot of money that needs to be used up!) and I'm definitely going
for 64Mb, for three reasons: (a) I haven't met a computer yet that
didn't benefit from more memory (and faster CPU, and bigger HD);
(b) it's awfully easy to scale up a Swarm by just adding bugs; 
and (c) you can currently get 16Mb simms for $100 or so(*) -- 
and who knows how long that will last. When you decide to upgrade 
from 32 to 64 later, the price might be back up to $50/Mb ..... 
Carpe Diem! (I don't know how to say "seize the memory" in Latin :-;)

I'd be happy to hear what brand computer you decide on, and why.
(*) One place to look: <http://dakco.lm.com/cspcca.html>

Cheers,
--Sven



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