which standard do i need to follow?

If I use vs2005 would I need to follow开发者_Python百科 an old cpp standard edition?

can I possibly run vs2010 with 512 RAM or would it be a very slower?

512 MB of RAM should run any of the Microsoft compilers just fine except on the largest projects. The integrated development environment (the editor which runs when you launch "Visual Studio") is another matter entirely, 512 MB of RAM will only be enough for the most trivial projects.

Any system with the CPU power appropriate for running C++ compilers should be capable of at least 2 GB of RAM, and it will quickly pay for itself in time saved. Or find a nice lightweight text editor that allows you to set a function key to run cl.exe passing the files from the current project.

VS2005 will not allow you to use the latest C++0x extensions. This is probably not a big deal unless you have specific things you want to use.

Regarding the question of how fast the VS IDE will be, I'm not sure there will be much difference between VS2005 and VS2010 in that respect. You can always download the trial or express (free) edition and try it out. You can have both VS2005 and VS2010 installed on the same machine.

C++ 2003, VS2010 is really what you want for starting C++0x support