More like 128MB.

512MB in 2000 was like HEDT level (though I'm not sure that acronym existed back then)

512MB weren't that odd for multimedia from 2002, barely a few years later. By 2002 256MB of RAM were the standard, almost a new low-end PC.

64MB = w98se OK, XP will swap a lot on high load, nixlikes really fast with fvwm/wmaker and the like. KDE3 needs 128MB to run well, so get a bit down. No issues with old XFCE releases. Mozilla will crawl, other browsers will run fine.

128MB = w98se really well, XP willl run fine, SP2-3 will lag. Nixlikes will fly with wmaker/icewm/fvwm/blackbox and the like. Good enough for mozilla.

192MB = Really decent for a full KDE3 desktop or for Windows XP with real life speeds.

256MB = Like having 8GB today for Windows 10, Gnome 3 or Plasma 6. Yes, you can run then with 2GB and ZRAM, but, realistically, and for the modern bloated tools, 8GB for a 1080p desktop it's mandatory. Even with UBlock Origin for the browser. Ditto back in the day. With 256MB XP and KDE3 flied and they ran much faster than even Win98 with 192MB of RAM.

	▲	vee-kay 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Win10 can work with 8GB DDR4 RAM. Win11, on the other hand, meh.. Though Win10 will stop getting updates, but M$ is mistaken if it thinks it can force customers to switch to more expensive, buggy, bad performance Win11. That's why I switched to Linux for my old PC (a cute little Sony Viao), though it worked well with Win10. Especially after I upgraded it to an 1TB SATA SSD (since even old SATA1.0 socket works with newer SATA SSDs, as SATA interface is backward compatible; it felt awesome to see a new SSD work perfectly in a 15years old laptop), some additional RAM (24GB (8+16) - 16GB repurposed from another PC), and a new battery (from Amazon - it was simply plug and play - simply eject the old battery from its slot and plug in the new battery). I find it refreshing to see how easy it was to upgrade old PCs, I think manufacturers are deliberately making it harder to repair devices, especially mobile phones. That's why EU and India were forced to mandate the Right to Repair.

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MangoToupe 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You're right. I thought I was misremembering....