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General discussion

file endings/power

by ruther_ford Aug 23, 2007 11:51AM PDT

Hey guys, I've been doing alot of stuff to optimize my windows and looking through all the options everywhere, and I was just wondering. . . windows usually hides file endings, but you can enable it so you can see them again. I was just wondering, it must take more bits or bytes of memory one way or the other to either be hiding or displaying the file endings, and I was wondering which way it uses more memory?

And yes I know the change would be negligible, but I was still pondering it because I can see it both ways: either taking more power to 'hide' the endings, or taking more power to display the extra characters

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2 Posts

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hidden folders and files/power

by ruther_ford Aug 23, 2007 11:58AM PDT

oh also I was wondering another thing, does it take more processing power to hide or show folders and files if they're orignally set on windows as hidden and you go into the folder options and can hide and un-hide them

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About the same

by Jackson Douglas Aug 23, 2007 12:28PM PDT

The file extensions are always there, it's just a matter of if they're being displayed or not. And if there were a difference in the amount of memory used, it would be so small as to be non-existent.

Like with the processing power, my guess would be that the two balance each other out more or less. Filtering out extensions may save a few bytes of memory, but it also requires running some kind of pattern matching system, which will need more RAM and processing power.

Ultimately, on both the amount of RAM and the processing power fronts, the figures would be so small as to be effectively no change. We'd be talking about a few bytes of RAM, and maybe a dozen or so CPU cycles. There is effectively no difference.

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