What is Connectix RAM Doubler 8?

Time was when Connectix’s RAM Doubler seemed like an ingenious piece of software engineering that magically doubled, and later tripled, your Mac’s available memory. However, as the virtual memory built into the Mac OS gets better, and real RAM upgrades grow cheaper, is RAM Doubler still a cost-effective way to boost your Mac’s memory allotment? On balance, probably not.

RAM Doubler 8 remains a stable and performance-neutral memory extender. In testing RAM Doubler 8 on a couple of aging Macs, we found that the machines started up, launched apphcations, and ran scripts about as fast as they did using Mac OS 8.1’s virtual memory, and only slightly slower than they did with no virtual memory at all. Though Connectix’s memory-shuffling and compressing techniques don’t give RAM Doubler an edge over Apple’s disk access-intensive virtual memory, at least RAM Doubler doesn’t hog tens of megabytes of disk space.

Even at its current sub-$50 price, RAM Doubler is hard-pressed to compete with a genuine RAM upgrade. We tested it on a desktop Mac and a PowerBook with 16MB of RAM apiece, and at current prices we would be able to double these machines’ physical RAM for $30 and $60 respectively, or triple it for $50 and $100 respectively. While Connectix’s offering is still competitive for PowerBooks or for desktops with significantly more RAM, many prospective buyers would be better advised to spring for a real RAM upgrade. Others may opt for the disk space-intensive, but otherwise performance-equivalent, virtual memory built into the current Mac OS.

You may wonder what new features Connectix has added to justify RAM Doubler’s massive version-number increase — from 2 to 8. The company says the new version is better optimized for Mac OS 8 and Office 98, but the only change immediately apparent is a spruced-up control panel with some new performance statistics.

Simmons, Mark. (November 1998). RAM Doubler 8. MacAddict. (pg. 80).

Download Connectix RAM Doubler 8 for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.1

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver