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new ram dosnt seem to do anything
- Thread starter encrypt3d
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encrypt3d said:
Actually... take the RAM out and then open your Activities Monitor... open up a few applications and do some work. Watch your hard drive activity when there is only 256MB of RAM. Re-introduce the additional 256MB into your machine and then do the same test... VOILA! Your hard drive is doing an eighth of the work it was doing before. Why?... because your system runs low on memory much less thus allowing your machine to use your RAM... which is MUCH faster than hard drive swap space.
Also, if you are running Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, you will see a dramatic improvement. Games will also be much happier.
encrypt3d said:
REALLY on 256? Must be working with tiny files? We work here with PS, on average with 60-200MB files... After a couple of layers and mask a standard machine that we get from Apple are so slow cause the files are bigger than memory and the amount of disk swapping is painful. All our machines have at least 1.2GB of RAM...
Alte22a said:
256MB will improve their performance in Photoshop.
I also use Photoshop, Shake, After Effects, Combustion, Lightwave 3D, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Cleaner, Illustrator, Freehand and tons of other programs as well (my dock currently has 92 applications in it) as I do film and visual effects primarily for my living. Depending on the resolution and project the person is working on will depend on the amount of RAM and the impact that RAM will make. When I'm working on a print, HD video or 2k/4k film project it obviously takes up significantly more RAM than working on a SD video project in Photoshop ( you know... prepping imagery and building mattes and the like). Because we do so much film and animation work our systems are all built out to the hilt. I'm currently writing this on my main workstation that is a dual 2Ghz G5 with 4GB RAM, 500GB internal SATA HD and with fibre channel connect to an XRAID with 2.5TB real-time storage. Unfortunately there aren't any applications (besides Shake 3.5) that will utilize the full RAM of this machine. Currently applications have only been written to address a maximum of 2GB of RAM. So the extra @GB RAM really only benefits when having multiple applications open... which happens practically all the time. In a typical day I'll generate anywhere from 2GB to 100GB of footage on my drives... so I certainly understand all the intricacies of RAM, storage and swap-space.
So... I was answering THEIR question... NOT the question of RAM in general. If you would like a diatribe on RAM and it's types and usage, I'd be willing to oblige.
encrypt3d said:
Ahhh... which machine are you running? CPU speed, video card, how much video card memory, etc.?
RAM will only improve to a point. I believe that Unreal Tournament 2004 will work in 256MB... but it really wants 1GB if it can get it. This is critical in game play. But equally critical is the video card you are playing it on and the amount of memory on the video card. I could have a dual 2Ghz G5 with 2GB of RAM and put in a GeForce 2MX and Unreal Tournament would totally choke to death. However... I could take the same G5 and put in the Radeon 9800 Pro and it would scream along. In fact, I could reduce the RAM to 512MB on the computer and it would still be screaming along nicely. For real speed for UT 2004 I wouldn't play anything less than a card with 64MB ever.... and wouldn't settle for less than 128MB of video RAM anyway. Probably want a GeForce 5200FX or Radeon 8500 or faster to get decent playback speeds.
DesterWallaboo said:
I mean the standard amount of ram that encrypt3d had in the first place and his comment on how he had no performance increase with the extra 256. Very impressive line of work. DesterWallaboo. I work in a retouching house, and the main thing we worry most about is colout profiling, thats our bigger night mare. I didnt realise that most software only take advantage of the first 2GB of RAM, explains the reason that our machines only have 1.5GB, even our newer G5 have only 2GB.
amen!
Yes... hopefully 10.4 will finally allow us to utilize greater amounts of RAM without the software developers having to rewrite all their code to take advantage of the memory.
And I can definitely sympathize with you.... color profiling is a pain in the rear. Amazing how many designers (great ones at that) who don't ever consider the technicalities of color and the final output medium. I guess that's what separates the men from the boys.
Alte22a said:
Yes... hopefully 10.4 will finally allow us to utilize greater amounts of RAM without the software developers having to rewrite all their code to take advantage of the memory.
And I can definitely sympathize with you.... color profiling is a pain in the rear. Amazing how many designers (great ones at that) who don't ever consider the technicalities of color and the final output medium. I guess that's what separates the men from the boys.
doubling your ram should make many tasks noticeably faster (and other will be faster, you just might not notice). ut2k4, however, is a beastly game, and it will take more than adding 256mb RAM to change the gameplay appreciably. sorry. 
baby duck monge said:doubling your ram should make many tasks noticeably faster (and other will be faster, you just might not notice). ut2k4, however, is a beastly game, and it will take more than adding 256mb RAM to change the gameplay appreciably. sorry.
To add on to that, if your CPU/chipset are already too slow (167fsb G4, < 1ghz compared to 1000fsb G5, = 2ghz), then memory ALONE will not help. Then there is also the issue of video performance (is it geforce2/geforce4 mx?), you need to have at least a 4200 or higher to start seeing a difference.