Visual Studio .NET so RAM hungry

[sscheinfe]

Is there any way to run a "stripped down" version of VS.NET? Even with a pentium 4 and plently of RAM, my VS is rediculously RAM hungry (as are most Micro$oft products), and I can barely run anything else while programming, let alone even try to run two VS projects. Is there any RAM-saving way to use VS.NET?

 

[Rick_Fla]

How much RAM do you have installed? I can run 2-3 seperate projects on the same computer without a problem. I am running 512MB of RAM on the laptop I use.

The only stripped down versions I know are the betas that are the express versions.

 

[sscheinfe]

I believe I have about 384 of RAM, which has been more than enough for VB6...perhaps I should replace my 128 with a second 256...

What exactly is an "express version" ?

Thanks...

 

[Rick_Fla]

Take a peek here.

 

[coldfusion244]

hmm, 384 should be enough, depends on your OS and what you have running,etc. But I have 1.5 Gb of memory on my work/leisure pc and I normally have a good bit of stuff running, media player, internet explorer windows, etc, etc.. running an AMD64 3200+, so unless your using 384 with a 1.7 Ghz Celeron (bah) using stock installation of windows xp on a 4200 rpm drive that has 1% disk space left, you really shouldnt have a problem. VS really doesnt use that much memory on my pc...

I would look to other applications running in the backround to be the culprit.

 

[ThePentiumGuy]

<brag> Meh. I have a gig and Im fine . </brag>

 

[Derek Stone]

Turn off the UI animation. Its friggin annoying anyway.

 

[snarfblam]

Granted I have a lot of RAM, but I often find myself with visual studio .net, vb6, photoshop, 10 web browser windows, 3 instances of Paint, Winamp, and four folders open (give or take a few folders and broswers) and my computers performance is still acceptable. I have a gig of RAM now but it doesnt really run much better than it did when I had 512 megs.

My question to you is what do you have running in the background on your computer? My brothers computer has hardware about as fast as mine but big programs (live VS) runs so much slower because it is loaded up with so much junk from the makers of the computer.

 

[coldfusion244]

You have to take into account chipset, disk access, etc. You cant just say I have a motherboard, he has a motherboard, etc etc. While programs in the backround are annoying and most of the time useless (weatherbug, msn messenger, etc) they also take up processor cycles and ram. Not to mention disk access if they are saving or reading anything from the disk. I cant wait to build by rig with the NCQ and see how much disk performance goes up!

 

[ThePentiumGuy]

NCQ is awesome - Are you getting an NF4 chipset? Or Via K8T890? (Im not familiar with the intel chipsets, but I know the AMD chipsets/motherboards fairly well .... hmm what an irony) - Im building a computer for my dad and I might upgrade to NF4 if the budget constraints allow for it.

Another hint: Turn off dynamic help. Its ab itch and it takes up a lot of unnecessary RAM.

-The Pentium Guy

 

[Denaes]

What do you turn off?

Ive never bothered to turn off anything in VS.Net, but while its ram hungry, it plays well with other apps. When youre not using it, it goes down to 10mb if something else needs the memory. But then you have to wait for it to start up again and get everything back into RAM.

So what do people turn off? I see a vote for dynamic help (I dont use it) and some sort of animation.

Anything else youd turn off?

 

[coldfusion244]

I am actually waiting to see if they change the amount of pins... and some other fun stuff.

 

[Jay1b]

I am running it on 384 mb and i dont ever have any problems.

 

[ThePentiumGuy]

I am actually waiting to see if they change the amount of pins... and some other fun stuff.

I think socket 939 is gonna stick around for a while. It came out pretty recently (6 months ago? - which isnt long for a Socket).
Thres a lot of neat features in the 2 aforementioned chipsets. SLi, PCI-e, NCQ/SATA-II, nTune (if youre going nForce4).... too bad they didnt carry over Sandstorm from nForce2 (the greatest audio thingy of its time) - I guess it was too expensive for nVidia, an best of all: better overclocking.


Back on topic:
I dont turn anything off, but when I had .NET on my old computer i basically closed everything... including the toolbox.

Another hint: if you have the form designer open, close it (Once youre done with it I mean). Takes up alot of RAM. Another hint:

More goodies: Control Alt Delete, right click Explorer.Exe and hit End Process Tree. Then Go to File|Run (you can type in explorer.exe again to start it again) - and open .NET...

If youre desperate: Use notepad oO.

-The Pentium Guy

 

[snarfblam]

Im not sure that closing Explorer is the best recommendation. If your pc cant handle Explorer you need to buy or build a new computer. Really. Anyways, if your using regular sdr ram you can usually buy more cheap. DDR is a different story (once I bought a gig off some website for over $100 and it didnt even work). Changing other settings can help too. Like I said, minimize background processes. Go to your task manager, see what is running, and uninstall the programs listed under your username that you dont use. Try to optimize page file usage (if you know what your doing). You might want to try turning off visual effects in windows (I dont think these will really slow your computer down and VS doesnt use them, but you never know). And if you really are desparate... Sure! Use notepad and compile through a command window.

 

[samsmithnz]

Id recommend closing Dynamic Help, that makes a BIG difference.

Its useless anyway.