vista: using MicroSD and USB to "boost" performance?

i've just realized that my laptop's vista can use a microSD flash card or a USB drive to "boost" the performance. i'm assuming it uses it as additional RAM or to cache resources.

how much of a "boost" are we looking at here? is there a noticeable "boost" at all?

system specs:
intel core 2 duo T5450 (1.67ghz, 2mb L2 cache)
2gb ram (DDR2)
160gb harddrive (5400rpm)
128mb nvidia geforce 8400M GS

I think it adds it as RAM. And at those system specs, I don't think you'd notice it that much.

I think I read somewhere that it actually downgrades performance sometimes.

The stats I've seen show it as useful if you have only 512MB of ram, but irrelevant otherwise. And it is generally cheaper to upgrade to 1GB of ram for a significantly greater performance boost.

2GB of RAM is plenty. That turbo boost crap is a load of BS.

Its basically just extra disk cache from what I understand. If that's the case, then there's only really two cases extra RAM (or in this case, virtual RAM) would help real-game performance: if you have less than 512MB of real RAM or if you have less than 64MB of video RAM. With that laptop, there's no reason Guild Wars would ever even notice you had disk cache, as far as I'm concerned.

yeah, it's basically what i thought. microSD and USB can never come close to the speed of DDR2 ram.

anyways, thanks everyone.

If I understand right, it's like a pagefile. A pagefile on flash has a much quicker access time than on the free space on your hard drive, so there's a chance you'll benefit from it.

I had 4gb in my PC before I switched to a Mac, and even though I read that people with over 2gb memory should not use a flash drive for ReadyBoost, I tried it anyway. I saw no difference, and yet I halved storage space on my USB drive which I used for transporting design files. You're probably better off using the space for files as well.

Say if you had 1gb, then maybe you'd really benefit from it.

Yeah its to do with page filing as its quicker. experts reckon that you will only see a performance boost if the usb flash drive is twice the size of your ram eg you have 2gb of ram, so you will need a usb stick og 4gb to see any difference

I wouldn't use my FLASH memories as RAM, they usually have a maximum number of writes. Yes It could be millions of writes, but it is there and if you use it as RAM or whatever Vista does, you will reach this number more quickly.