These recommendations are based on systems available in 2002 when Release 6 was released.
To use NaturallySpeaking Release 6, 128MB is minimum for Windows95 and Windows98 users. 196MB is minimum for Windows NT, Windows-2000, and Window-XP users. At these memory configurations, one can dictate into the NaturallySpeaking window if other applications are closed but performance may be sluggish. That is, the text will lag your speech quite a bit even presuming that you have a good sound system and microphone and a reasonably fast system. For Release 6, consider 256MB as a practical minimum.
If you are serious about using NaturallySpeaking and time is important to you, or if you wish to dictate into applications other than the NaturallySpeaking window, we recommend more memory. If your primary use of the machine is dictation and you have no other programs besides Microsoft Word97 or WordPerfect 8 and NaturallySpeaking, 384MB is suggested. If you normally use Outlook or other memory-intensive programs and wish better performance, 512MB is suggested.
It is likely that future speech recognition software will require or effectively utilize more memory. If you prefer to anticipate the need for more memory, and are buying a Pentium III or Pentium-4 system, 512MB is reasonable and justifiable, particularly if you dictate 30 minutes per day or more.
Watch out for cheap memory or for overclocking memory modules. Many a NaturallySpeaking problem has been solved by replacing memory. These problems are random and can be difficult to diagnose. But the problems are real, and even many of the conventional memory testing programs don't test memory as much as NaturallySpeaking. Just because “all my other programs work”, do not assume that the memory on your system is in perfect working order.
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