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Computer #1: Dual 1.8 Ghz G5, 1.25GB RAM. Main computer for home tracking, VIs, and mixing. Looking to add an aditional 2GB of RAM (3GB total).

Computer #2: Powerbook 1.5Ghz G4, 768MB RAM. Remote recording brain. Right now, I am able to get approximately 8 - 12 tracks simultaneous, and 24 tracks of playback at 24bit / 44.1khz using a FW800 7200RPM drive. Looking to add 1GB of RAM (1.5GB total).

What effects will I see when I add RAM? Will I notice a drastic increase in the amount of plug-ins, amount of tracks before CPU spikes, overall speed of DP?

Thanks,

Jeff

Jeff,
You will see a bigger difference on the G5. Virtual instruments use RAM. Large files use RAM. If the OS starts to run low on RAM is caches to the hard drive and that slows things down. 3gb is a healthy amount.

Adding RAM to the powerbook will also make a difference, but not as much as on the G5. RAM doesn't make the CPU faster, it just gives it more room to "think". Even if you had 8gb of RAM in the powerbook, it's still a single CPU G4.
On the Powerbook, make sure Work Priority in the DP Audio Driver is set to Medium. That makes a noticable difference to efficiency on a G4.

For reference, I have 6gb RAM in a Quad G5 and 1gb RAM in my 1ghz G4 Powerbook. I get very good performance from both machines.

Magic Dave

Magic Dave,

Thanks so much for clarifying things for me. I wanted to make sure that I am wisely spending my money.

I set my work priority to Medium (following your advice here on the Nation) when I first set up my PB. Huge difference, cured CPU spikes right away. The FW800 drive, coupled with a PCMCIA FW card for the 828mkii (2 separate FW busses) gives me great performance as well.

I bought my PB used back in Feb with Tiger preinstalled. I'm going to do a full Tiger re-install following the "Tracking the Big Cats" article this summer. I expect that I will get pretty amazing remote performance out of the PB once I do this and add another gig of RAM.

For reference, I have 6gb RAM in a Quad G5 and 1gb RAM in my 1ghz G4 Powerbook. I get very good performance from both machines.

Will DP even reference 6GB of RAM on a Quad? How hard have you pushed that machine?

Thanks again!

Jeff

The more ram you have the less paging the system will have to do, the less it has to go back to the HD to get data from the HD. You can't have too much in a G5. on the powerbook, i think each application can use almost a GB of RAM. that info can probably be found on apple's website.
OS X is very picky about RAM. DO NOT get the cheapest you can find. Make sure it is from a reputable place, discharge yourself before installing it and make sure the computer see's it before procedding with your work. Good Luck
BH

Get your ram from crucial.com. They have a lifetime warranty on the ram they sell, plus they guarantee the ram you buy for your system has been tested and is 100% compatible with your specific model of Mac.

I have bought finicky sticks from other places but have never had a bad stick or any ram issues from crucial's ram.

Good luck...
Rainmaker

Get your ram from crucial.com

Awesome! Thanks. that was going to be my next question.

Jeff

I second that opinion of Crucial.

Too bad my G4 iMac can't really be upgraded much (or directly by the user vs. an Apple technician) beyond its meager 384 Mb.

When I buy a new computer next year, is it better to have RAM pre-installed or to buy bare bones and buy/install RAM from Crucial myself?

My understanding is that the memory configurations are such that it is generally better to pre-order the computer with maxed-out RAM.

In the iMac's case (I was naive at the time) this is due to the hardware protection around the system memory, but in general the size of a memory block for what's pre-installed may mean you have to remove smaller blocks to replace with larger ones, rather than simply add on. And that of course is very inefficient cost-wise, but in the end I suppose the quality of the memory used counts for more, and I'm not sure if the Mac suppliers can be trusted to use the best memory chips?

mhschmieder wrote:Too bad my G4 iMac can't really be upgraded much (or directly by the user vs. an Apple technician) beyond its meager 384 Mb.

When I buy a new computer next year, is it better to have RAM pre-installed or to buy bare bones and buy/install RAM from Crucial myself?

My understanding is that the memory configurations are such that it is generally better to pre-order the computer with maxed-out RAM.

In the iMac's case (I was naive at the time) this is due to the hardware protection around the system memory, but in general the size of a memory block for what's pre-installed may mean you have to remove smaller blocks to replace with larger ones, rather than simply add on. And that of course is very inefficient cost-wise, but in the end I suppose the quality of the memory used counts for more, and I'm not sure if the Mac suppliers can be trusted to use the best memory chips?

I upgraded the internal memory on my G4 iMac. It's much easier than you think. I also upgraded my CD-Rom to a Superdrive. No problem.

This link will walk you through the process:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/iMac ... apart.html

-jordan

Unless I am mistaken (and please correct me), I understand that the G5s address a maximum of 2 gb per program. DP treats the MachFive as part of DP. Therefore, the amount available for samples in the MachFive is less than 2 gig. You can stream the samples - fast hard drive recc'd - which frees up some RAM but it's 2 gig, tops. Which means that if you use altiverb plus MachFive, you need to split that 2 gig between the two as well as the DP data.

I've confirmed this with MachFive, which is why I use that as an example. I haven't confirmed if the same is true of other VI's opened within DP, eg a kontakt-based VI.

I assume that if you open them as standalones and play them via Rewire, you can access more than 2 gig of vi's on a maxxed out G5. EG, using Reason plus MachFive. I haven't double-checked that, however. I've just grabbed what I needed.

What this means - and again, the more computer savvy should correct this - is that if you only use vi's within DP, there seems little point in maxxing out a G5 to 8 gig. You need enough for the Mac OS plus 2 gigs plus a comfortable margin. Meaning something like 4 gig.

I did, btw, max out my G5 2.7 to 8 gig before I knew this. I probably would still have done so, even if strictly speaking it wasn't necessary to run DP, because it's useful to have Finale open and Peak at the same time. But if you're only planning on using DP, my understanding is that 8 gigs isn't necessary.

hth

Gearboy, I recently upgraded my G5 dual 1.8 from 1GB to 3GB RAM (from crucial as well!) and it is a great improvement, especially for the money spent.

Now, I quite often assume I'm runnning at 512 or 1024 in a heavily laden project (with lots of VI's, verbs, EQ's, sampler etc) just because of the good performance of DP ...but then realise I'm actually at 128!

Running hefty VI's like BFD is a breeze now ....not that it was a problem as such before, it's just that now I rarely worry about maxing out and having to increase buffers or bounce down other VI's or samplers temorarily or tweak things in other ways ....

... it all adds up to being able to spend more time being creative, spontaneous and focusing on the music

Spikey Horse said:

Gearboy, I recently upgraded my G5 dual 1.8 from 1GB to 3GB RAM (from crucial as well!) and it is a great improvement, especially for the money spent.

Now, I quite often assume I'm runnning at 512 or 1024 in a heavily laden project (with lots of VI's, verbs, EQ's, sampler etc) just because of the good performance of DP ...but then realise I'm actually at 128!

Running hefty VI's like BFD is a breeze now ....not that it was a problem as such before, it's just that now I rarely worry about maxing out and having to increase buffers or bounce down other VI's or samplers temorarily or tweak things in other ways ....

... it all adds up to being able to spend more time being creative, spontaneous and focusing on the music

Thank you so much for this post (as well as a thank you to everyone else). Can't wait to do the upgrade. The buffer setting statement above is making me drool a little.

Have to wait for a few weeks. I just ordered a Radial X-Amp Re-Amp box last night.

Jeff

i just upgraded from 2gb to 4gb... honestly, i cant tell the difference except that i "feel" better the RAM is maxed out... i have a dual 1.8 G5... im pretty sure when i loaded an older song that the cpu amount was still relatively the same... but, blow a few hundred on ram... its cheap now..lol... i bought my 2gb from macmall.com and it cost like $240... eh... whatever...

I can comment about the Powerbook. I had 1gb of ram for a long time, and while it worked pretty well, I couldn't go overboard with a few things (mostly VIs). I maxed out the ram to 2gb and everything works smoother. I won't say it's a lot faster, but things like quitting apps is faster, and less virtual memory use is apparent with apps that use a lot of VM. I can use BFD much more comfortably. I guess what I'm saying is that the benefits don't make it seem like you're getting a new, faster computer as much as a lot of little things work much better and it improves performance and capabilities in multiple ways.

richardein wrote:Unless I am mistaken (and please correct me), I understand that the G5s address a maximum of 2 gb per program.

The theoretical maximum with a 32 bit system is 4 GBs per app, but I think it tops out somewhere around 3.5.