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will 4gb ram instead of 2 help with itunes' slow artwork loading?

S

scottfenner

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 12, 2008
27
0
hi,
i'm running a 2.4ghz macbook with 2gb ram, and am a bit annoyed with how slow itunes is at showing artwork. itunes has about 700 albums in it at the moment.

every album i have has the artwork inside the actual files themselves, so that it will show in other programs too - maybe that has something to do with it... basically though, if i'm in grid mode, looking through my albums is very jerky, until the covers are loaded up. it helps if i just do a full run from the top to the bottom to load up all the covers, but it's a little irritating to do it every time i open itunes. the same thing goes for coverflow view too, but takes much, much longer to do a full run from left to right to load up all the covers.

if i upgraded to 4gb ram, would it make much difference? ram is pretty cheap at the minute, and it would be good to get it i suppose, but the macbook is fine for everything i do, apart from this itunes thing. i was just wondering really. hope someone can let me know, thanks!
 
scottfenner said:
hi,
i'm running a 2.4ghz macbook with 2gb ram, and am a bit annoyed with how slow itunes is at showing artwork. itunes has about 700 albums in it at the moment.

every album i have has the artwork inside the actual files themselves, so that it will show in other programs too - maybe that has something to do with it... basically though, if i'm in grid mode, looking through my albums is very jerky, until the covers are loaded up. it helps if i just do a full run from the top to the bottom to load up all the covers, but it's a little irritating to do it every time i open itunes. the same thing goes for coverflow view too, but takes much, much longer to do a full run from left to right to load up all the covers.

if i upgraded to 4gb ram, would it make much difference? ram is pretty cheap at the minute, and it would be good to get it i suppose, but the macbook is fine for everything i do, apart from this itunes thing. i was just wondering really. hope someone can let me know, thanks!
Click to expand...

I doubt it, i have twice as many albums and it doesn't even stutter. If you have the money, you can never have too much ram. If not, i don't know...
 
Mr. lax said:
I doubt it, i have twice as many albums and it doesn't even stutter. If you have the money, you can never have too much ram. If not, i don't know...
Click to expand...

i suppose you can never have too much, no. i might get some, but obviously i'm in no hurry if you think it won't make a difference. thanks though!
 
It does make a difference. I had 1GB ram stock with my macbook, and I recently went to 4GB. before I had the same problems as you, but now it rarely stutters, only when I wake it from sleep.
 
scottfenner said:
hi,
i'm running a 2.4ghz macbook with 2gb ram, and am a bit annoyed with how slow itunes is at showing artwork. itunes has about 700 albums in it at the moment....
Click to expand...

The first time the artwork loads it must be read off your hard disk. The disk in the MB is slow. Adding more RAM will not help. But when the artwork is scrolled off screen and you need to scroll it back the data can be read from a RAM cache. The bigger the RAM the more that can be cached and the less that must be re-read from the slow disk.

So, more RAM helps but only if you leave iTunes up and running.
 
also, third party ram is relatively cheap (much cheaper than apple stock). you can go from 2 to 4 in a snap
 
How much is a 4GB stick of RAM going for these days?

Sorry for the dumb question - I just bought my first iMac and have had it for all of 3 days. I know how much RAM for a PC is going...do Macs use the same RAM?
 
I found some on ebay for 100$ +/-
brybarczyk said:
How much is a 4GB stick of RAM going for these days?

Sorry for the dumb question - I just bought my first iMac and have had it for all of 3 days. I know how much RAM for a PC is going...do Macs use the same RAM?
Click to expand...
 
I brought my 4GB's from Frys.com for $40 after rebate which included shipping. It is manufactured by Crucial (many people on here use it and it is a great company). It also has a lifetime warranty. Works great for me.
 
RAM is good and cheap, so you might as well get some. But you don't need to leave this question to theory—figure it out!

Open Activity Monitor and check out your RAM usage. How much do you have free? How much is iTunes using? Are there any page-outs?

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have lots of free RAM (or even free and inactive RAM), then adding more RAM won't help. That is, you're not suffering from insufficient memory.
 
I'd say it depends on how bad the stutter is. I have 4GB of RAM, leave my iMac on 24/7 and I get stutters. I just assume it down to the fact that I only have 2x2.0Ghz under the hood.

It's annoying that you have to have a powerhorse of a machine for stupid artwork to show properly and promptly. Sort it out Apple!

But as RAM is so cheap these days I'd get the max your motherboard will allow, can't hurt, right? It'll also help with other daily tasks.
 
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