Buy Now...

Memory, by its very nature, is transient.  It can come and go without warning and has a habit of disappearing at the most inconvenient moments.  This observation could apply equally to the fallible human variety or the computer RAM equivalent.  However it is the latter memory type that forms the subject of this review. 

While you can boost your computer’s performance by adding extra memory to handle the workload, it is not a task that everybody feels comfortable with as it involves opening up your system box to delve into its innards.  An alternative solution would be to invest in a product that provides some form of memory management.  One title that falls into this category is Turbo Memory.

Popular articles

more

Developed by Manaccom and distributed in the UK by Phoenix Global Software, Turbo Memory claims to have the functionality to increase the speed of computer and Internet performance while recovering any memory leaks and preventing computer crashes.  It almost sounds too good to be true and I must admit that the jury is still out as to any noticeable performance improvement with this product.

Installing the product is straightforward and requires a minimum of user interaction.  Turbo Memory makes use of a tabbed interface that allows quick switching between the program’s different features.  By default you start in the Release RAM section.  As its title implies, this section will attempt to free up RAM that is currently not being used to its maximum efficiency.  You can opt for the amount that is to be freed up by selecting from a list of amounts rising in 2MB increments.  A click on the appropriate button will then instigate the freeing up process.

Proving real time feedback as to the current memory situation are two progress bars.  These represent free memory and page file size.  Just watching these two amounts rise and fall gives you some idea as to the hive of activity that is constantly being undertaken by the computer for its various tasks.

Moving on to the next tab reveals the means to set up a schedule for freeing up memory.  You can put down markers below which you do not want the memory level to fall and which instigate a memory free up.  You can also set the time interval between the automatic checks on memory levels.

Not all programs are created equally.  Some are particularly demanding when it comes to their memory requirements.  Turbo Memory provides a Launcher tab which lets you create a list of any memory-hungry applications you might have.  You can then request Turbo Memory to free up a pre-defined amount of memory before actually loading the specific application.

Other features found in Turbo Memory include the ability to view and manage information about any processes that are currently running plus check out history graphs of physical memory and page file sizes.  You can also set the program to automatically free up RAM whenever Windows starts.

While data supplied by Turbo Memory indicated that more memory was being made available, this increase failed to produce any noticeable improvement in performance.  Any improvement achieved as so slight that it was inconsequential.  As a result I was left with a feeling of disappointment regarding Turbo Memory.

Priced at £9.99, the program will run on any version of Windows.  System requirements are very basic.  All you need is a Pentium 233MHz with 15MB of hard disk space and 32MB of RAM.

http://www.phoenixglobalsoftware.co.uk/soap_box/turbo_memory/index.asp