Recommended Amt/Type of RAM for Logic Pro 8/9 using MAC PRO

[MacMolly]

Hi All,

I'm running Snow Leopard on a 2.66GHZ Quad Core Mac Pro that has 4 GB Ram presently (4 slots x 1 GB each). I'm moving up from Garageband to an Apogee Ensemble and want to increase my ram for music production to (at least 8 GB).

I'm not sure if the 8 GB will be enough - anyone who uses the program, it would be great to get some advice.

My question is this:

Would I lose anything in terms of processing power/ functionality if instead of putting 4 2GB chips in the machine, I instead opted for 2 4 GB chips now or one 8 GB so I can upgrade if needed, or am I better of filling the 4 slots at once with 2 x 4 GB now and just selling the matched set later if I need top upgrade.

I do alot of multitracking and learned the hard way that 2 GB of ram on my G4 Powerbooks just didn't cut it.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[ChrisA]

...
I'm not sure if the 8 GB will be enough - anyone who uses the program, it would be great to get some advice.....

It all depends on how you use the software. The way you figure out if you need more RAM is to look inside Activity Monitor. It will show yo how much RAM is in use. If not all of it is being used it does no good to add more. And if you see all of it in use then add more until some remains free.

Want a car analogy? OK you get one anyways.. You want to get to work faster so you think maybe if you put a bigger engine in the car you can go faster. Maybe that might help but only if the current engine is smaller than you need. It's the same with RAM. Making it larger will only help if you currently do not have enough and you need to look inside Activity Meter to see if you have enough. You can work around problems with an under powered computer by freezing (aka "bouncing") tracks and so on but yo can't work around poorly recorded sound. So if the pot of money is fixed don't spend it on RAN unless activity Meter tells you you need it

With Logic some things use lots of RAM and some things don't. Virtual instruments that are sample based d use RAM. 4GB shopuld be enough for most uses in a small studio.

The question is really "What is the best use of a fixed amount of money. Usually the answer is to invest in the front end, acustic treamants and microphones and preamps.

 

[zimv20]

Want a car analogy? OK you get one anyways..

thank you for providing a much-needed mid-day laugh.

 

[MacMolly]

All you need is RAM, or maybe not

Thanks Chris A for a thoughtful and humorous reply. I liked you car "analogy".
It's on par with "I always say live and let live...unless I don't"

I get the point that more RAM is not necessarily better unless it's needed. I guess my secondary question might be, putting aside the obvious upgrade possibility, would 4 2GB chips be in any way preferable to 2 4GB chips in terms of how the RAM is utilized by the machine?

 

[seisend]

The other question is, will you be using Logic in 64 bit mode? Logic 9 is standart still in 32bit mode, that means the max. use of RAM is limited 4GB of RAM anyway. If you use it in 64bit mode, you can use it with an unlimited amount of RAM. Although there are some options which do not work in 64bit mode like ReWire.

Wikipedia:

"The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or −2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory."