Best version for old computer
Moderator: trava90
Forum rules
This board is for technical/general usage questions and troubleshooting for the Pale Moon browser only. The main focus here is on Pale Moon on Windows. Please direct your questions that are specific for Linux and Mac to the dedicated boards for those operating systems.
Technical issues and questions not related to the Pale Moon browser should be posted in other boards!
Please keep off-topic and general discussion out of this board, thank you!
This board is for technical/general usage questions and troubleshooting for the Pale Moon browser only. The main focus here is on Pale Moon on Windows. Please direct your questions that are specific for Linux and Mac to the dedicated boards for those operating systems.
Technical issues and questions not related to the Pale Moon browser should be posted in other boards!
Please keep off-topic and general discussion out of this board, thank you!
-
nevadacrab
- Moon lover
- Posts: 77
- Joined: 2012-05-26, 11:49
- Location: Henderson, Nevada, USA
Best version for old computer
Since I am seemingly unable to afford a new computer, I have to rely on my old, gasoline-powered laptops. While my Compaq (2 gigs of RAM, Sempron processor) still runs PM without a hitch, my '03 Dell (i gig RAM - maxed out) slows down significantly when I have multiple tabs open. Only in the last couple of versions have I had any problems. I know PM is optimized for newer hardware, but the Dell has a Pentium 4 and I'm riding Windows XP until it drops. Any suggestions?
Re: Best version for old computer
You may want to sit this one out for a little and try version 24.0 when it is published. It has a large number of performance improvements and may run better on your old Dell. If that still doesn't work satisfactory, then you may simply need to look into a different browser than Pale Moon for that machine, one that focuses solely on being lightweight.
"Son, in life you do not fight battles because you expect to win, you fight them merely because they need to be fought." -- Snagglepuss
Re: Best version for old computer
'03 Inspiron 4150 as one of my backup machines here, I fear Flash may be the final nail in the coffin for 'normal' browsing with notebooks of that (P4 1.5-2GHZ) era; current Flash system requirements:
Requirements for the current Flash Beta (11.8) includes "512MB of graphics memory".System requirements
Windows
2.33GHz or faster x86-compatible processor, or Intel® Atom™ 1.6GHz or faster processor for netbooks
Microsoft® Windows® XP (32 bit), Windows Server 2008 (32 bit), Windows Vista® (32 bit), Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit), Windows 8 (32 bit and 64 bit), or Windows Server 2012 (64 bit)
Internet Explorer 7.0 or later, Mozilla Firefox 17 or later, Google Chrome, Safari 5.0 or later, or Opera 11
512MB of RAM (1GB of RAM recommended for netbooks); 128MB of graphics memory
Re: Best version for old computer
Sounds like Flash is digging its own grave then. Time to move to HTML5? 
EDIT: thinking about this some more, it will cause problems. Pale Moon (or any other browser with hardware acceleration) will use video memory for its drawing surfaces and composing websites on the screen. If you need 512 MB for Flash alone (and a lot of lower end, even desktop graphics, video cards have that amount, period) and more for hardware accelerated browsing, then you may run out of video memory and things will start failing (or grind to a halt as data has to be pushed over the bus constantly). So, basically, only if you have 1GB or more dedicated video ram, it will work smoothly... Ouch.
EDIT: thinking about this some more, it will cause problems. Pale Moon (or any other browser with hardware acceleration) will use video memory for its drawing surfaces and composing websites on the screen. If you need 512 MB for Flash alone (and a lot of lower end, even desktop graphics, video cards have that amount, period) and more for hardware accelerated browsing, then you may run out of video memory and things will start failing (or grind to a halt as data has to be pushed over the bus constantly). So, basically, only if you have 1GB or more dedicated video ram, it will work smoothly... Ouch.
"Son, in life you do not fight battles because you expect to win, you fight them merely because they need to be fought." -- Snagglepuss
-
Pnume
Re: Best version for old computer
*** Moderator note: OFF-TOPIC for this thread. if you want to discuss this, make a new topic in the appropriate board, please ***
If Pale Moon and Firefox would stop being developed, I've no clue what I'd start using. Whenever I've used Chrome its extensions would make it crash lots and its ram-usage was way higher than I'd like. As for Opera, its lack of add-on support made the browser feel lacking. Opera, however, seems stable--much more stable than Chrome.
I'm curious: If you were him and couldn't use Pale Moon or Firefox, what browser would you use? Opera? Chrome? Or, perhaps, something else?. . . then you may simply need to look into a different browser than Pale Moon . . .
If Pale Moon and Firefox would stop being developed, I've no clue what I'd start using. Whenever I've used Chrome its extensions would make it crash lots and its ram-usage was way higher than I'd like. As for Opera, its lack of add-on support made the browser feel lacking. Opera, however, seems stable--much more stable than Chrome.