eTech College of Wisconsin

Succeeding in Internet Courses

   

Used with permission from North Carolina State University

For Windows

Many PC systems display system information upon powering up the computer. In addition to displaying how much system memory (RAM) the machine has installed, some systems will display the processor type and speed of that processor. System RAM is usually expressed in Kilobytes. Processor information is usually listed by speed (MHz) and type of processor. Sometimes this information is abbreviated; P90 is a Intel Pentium processor rated for 90 megahertz, 586-133 is a AMD 586 processor rated at 133 megahertz.

The image above is from a machine that has 64 megabytes of system memory.
In this example, the designation "GXpro" is a manufacturer-specific
designation that this is a Pentium Pro system with a 200 MHz processor.

Most multimedia content now assumes that a PC running Windows is capable of displaying 256 colors simultaneously, at a minimum. It is fairly easy to determine this under Windows 95. Open "My Computer", and then open the "Control Panels" folder. Double click on "Display", and select the "Settings" tab. You should see something similar to the following image:

As seen in the image above selecting the pull down requester inside the
Color Palette windows will allow you to select how many colors your machine
will display simultaneously. While 256 colors is the minimum recommended setting,
you certainly can use a much higher setting, such as True Color (24 bit), which
allows 16.8 million colors to be displayed at once.

For Macintosh

Determining your Macintosh's system configuration is fairly simple. To determine how much system memory is installed, click on the desktop, and then select "About this Computer" from under the Apple menu on the upper left hand side of the screen.

In the above example, this computer has 32 megabytes of system memory (i.e. Built-in Memory). In addition, virtual memory has been enabled, which adds an additional 4 megabytes of system memory, for a total of 37 megabytes of system memory. While using virtual memory is useful, it does impact system performance. For this reason, the "Built-in Memory" number is much more significant.

Most modern color Mackintoshes support a minimum of 256 simultaneous colors. This can be confirmed by selecting either the "Monitor" or "Monitors and Sound" control panel, depending on which Mac model you own.

As seen in the above graphic, in the Color Depth box, the term
"Millions" corresponds to 24-bit graphics support, for a
simultaneous display of 16.8 million colors.

If you have an older, non Power Mac based system, it will be important to confirm that your system has a 68040 processor, with a floating point math co-processor. This can either be done by checking the documentation that came with your system, via Apple's "AppleSpec" web site..

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