Translations:AY Honors/Computers/Answer Key/55/en

Increasing the processor speed of a computer will allow it to make more computations per second, thus improving its performance. Increasing the amount of RAM in a computer will also increase its performance, but for a different reason. When a computer program needs RAM, it requests it from the operating system (OS). If free memory is available, the OS assigns it to the program and all is well. If there is not enough memory to satisfy the request, the OS will copy the contents of some other program's RAM to the hard drive, and then give that to the requesting program. When the other program needs that memory again, the OS restores it from the hard drive (after writing the other program's version of the memory to the hard drive). This process is called "swapping," and it can really slow down a computer. However, all the programs continue to work as designed, and the computer makes maximum use of the resources available to it. Increasing RAM capacity will eliminate or reduce the amount of swapping that goes on.