Recommendations for Improving Startup Times
Based on the preceding test results, Sage offers the following recommendations to improve
individual performance

Individual users can maximize ACT! startup performance by leveraging the appropriate hardware. Users currently using lower-performing hardware can experience the most dramatic increases in individual performance by ensuring that their PCs are equipped with the fastest hard drives available.
To achieve optimum ACT! start up performance, select a PC equipped with at least 1 GB RAM, a 2 GHz or better CPU, and hard drive speed of 7200 RPM or better.

Operational Performance
“Operational performance” refers to the speed at which a user can switch from one open application to another open application and have the application react to user commands. For example, a user might work in Microsoft® Word and then switch to ACT! to enter a contact. The speed at which ACT! responds to the user’s commands, after making it active, is operational performance.
Factors Affecting Individual Operational Performance
Multiple factors affect operational performance. The main factors are:

   Number of open applications or application instances•
   Physical and Virtual Memory (disk) swapping •
   Processor speed, physical memory, and drive speed

How do these factors affect performance?

Number of open applications/instances – The number of applications open at any given time will • affect system responsiveness overall, since each open application or instance consumes system resources in order to operate. The more open applications, the more system resources are consumed. It’s important to note that the amount of resources that an application will use varies from application to application.

Physical and Virtual Memory (disk) swapping – As users open and activate an application, • Microsoft Windows® will swap out fast RAM memory used by other applications and free it up for the now-active application. Windows will swap out the now-inactive application memory needed for hard drive-based Virtual Memory, which is slower, freeing up the RAM for the active application. Although Virtual Memory disk-swapping makes the newly active application run faster, users can experience a performance problem when switching back to the inactive application, if the PC does not have enough available RAM for both open applications.

Processor speed, physical memory and hard drive speed – CPU (processor) speed, physical • memory, and hard drive speed can all impact operational performance, but at different levels. Faster CPUs and hard drives (RPM), combined with faster and larger physical RAM, enable
a user to move between applications more quickly and allow the application to react faster to
a user’s commands.

How do the above factors fit together? When active, ACT! consumes 130–150 MB of physical memory (RAM). If a user switches to another application, such as Microsoft Outlook®, Windows will free enough physical memory to accommodate the newly active application. If there is not enough RAM for Outlook to run, Windows will swap out the RAM being used by ACT!, exchanging it for virtual memory space on the hard drive, and free up the RAM for Outlook to run. This swapping can cause a delay in the time it takes for Windows to “paint” or render the application for use.

Through operational performance testing, Sage recommends the following configurations (Figure 9), taking into account the number of applications an individual user will have open.

As seen in Figure 9, 1 GB of RAM is recommended for speedy operational performance as users move from one open application to another if throughout their workday they use ACT!, plus keep three to four additional applications open

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