Minimum specs page need updating?

My main PC finally died a death over xmas, and has been replaced with a newer PC.

It came without OS so I decided to put Linux on as It is 1)free 2)something I've wanted to try out for ages.

Now here's the weird thing. The RAM is exactly the same RAM as was in the old machine, and BIOS reports it is all there, 512MB which is the minimum to run SL, but, when I go to play the Linux client tells me I do not have enough RAM.

I ignored it and tried to play anyway, knowing I did have the 512MB required, and everything else was better then the old machine, but it just thrashes and leaves me needing to hit the reset switch

Have you guys changed the minimum specs and not updated the website to reflect this? Why was my old, lower spec Windows PC able to run SL, when this one cannot?

Specs:
Linux Mint 5 (based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron)
Ram: 512 400MHZ
Processor 2.2GHZ Intel Celeron D
GPU:Nvdia Geforce FX 5200 with 128MB GRAM and the Official drivers installed via EnvyNG.

Were you using Linux before?

No, which is why I asked why a lower spec windows PC was able to run it when this one cannot.

Everyone says Windows is a resource hog etc... from this side of the OS wars im not seeing it

Windows may be a resource hog, but it does graphics in the kernel, and it runs graphic drivers natively... so there's areas in which it can be more efficient than Linux. In a way it's the hoggishness of Windows (you can't run Windows without all those graphics engines and drivers loaded, for example, the way you can Linux) was working in your favor.

And, well, I would be Leary of running SL on a gf5200 with only 512MB of system RAM anyway.

The old machine had a geforce 4 mx with 64MB graphics RAM and the 512MB system RAM. I wasnt expecting miracles, but I was expecting it to work!

I see at http://www.linuxmint.com/faq.php the Linux Mint FAQ says "If your computer is a PC and you have more than 512MB RAM you should try Linux Mint ".

Maybe that means you should have more than 512 megs to get the best use from Linux Mint.

You could try setting the video ram in SL to 64 megs.

That's rediculously underpowered for SL.

I'd still expect it to run, but not in anything resembling a useful manner.

What window manager and desktop are you running? Try running it with a simple window manager like FVWM or Windowmaker instead of a full blown KDE or Gnome environment. If you're running file sharing services like Samba or a personal web server like Apache, turn those off as well. Also, if you have Compiz or some other compositing window manager running that's like trying to run Full Aero under Vista.

Also, try lying to SL about the amount of video RAM it's using. It uses the VRAM settings to decide how much to cache in memory as well, so turning that down will save main memory as well.

The operating system's overhead won't change the minimum requirements of your software. Linux will give you slightly better performance by virtue of not dragging Windows along for the ride and having to deal with Windows' deliberately crippled GL implementation.

If you want to give Linux a fair chance, make it your primary OS on your usual machine. Relegate Windows to the craptastic box while you put Linux through it's paces.

You make it sound like there's no native drivers for hardware outside Windows. This isn't the case, in fact the nVidia and ATI drivers have seen more frequent releases and fewer bugs in their Linux versions than the Windows ones lately. And you're simply never going to get the framerate out of Windows that you will out of MacOS or Linux on the same hardware thanks to Windows rather crippled GL implementation (they had to make DX look better somehow...).



From personal experience, you can run with a GeForce 5200, but with the 7200 AGP being fairly cheap, I'd upgrade to that and add another gig or two of RAM. If nothing else, get the RAM and deal with the 5-10 FPS framerate it delivers.

That's not what Mac users who've tried Boot Camp say.