RAM = Overrated

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue May 24, 2005 8:35 pm

mckeed wrote:Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff.

Bullshit. Where's your data, or, indeed, where's your reasoning? The amount of RAM necessary to process a given filter chain is directly dependent on the complexity of that filter chain. If you're swapping in preprocessing, that is definitely going to impact rendering time.

The only thing that will help render time is a faster processor and fast hard drives.

Or, say, a dedicated hardware video processor.

Video is pretty basic stuff really. What takes time is calculating opacity, transitions, overlays, masks, etc. RAM doesn't help you here, but processors will.

RAM certainly still helps. If you're using a multi-frame video effect (say, some sort of time-average) that requires multiple frames to be kept in the computer's active set BUT you cannot store all of those frames in (relatively fast) main memory, guess what you have to do? Oh no, here comes secondary memory; oh no, here comes swap.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue May 24, 2005 8:42 pm

trythil wrote:
mckeed wrote:Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff.
Bullshit. Where's your data, or, indeed, where's your reasoning? The amount of RAM necessary to process a given filter chain is directly dependent on the complexity of that filter chain.

That should be "memory complexity". Clearly it's possible to create a filter chain that is CPU-bound, but it is also very easy to create a filter chain that requires large amounts of memory. Consider, for example, a filter chain that involves a (non-tail) recursive filter.

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Wed May 25, 2005 6:47 am

trythil wrote:
trythil wrote:
mckeed wrote:Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff.
Bullshit. Where's your data, or, indeed, where's your reasoning? The amount of RAM necessary to process a given filter chain is directly dependent on the complexity of that filter chain.
That should be "memory complexity". Clearly it's possible to create a filter chain that is CPU-bound, but it is also very easy to create a filter chain that requires large amounts of memory. Consider, for example, a filter chain that involves a (non-tail) recursive filter.

Most people do not use overly complex filter chains. You can look at your task manager when rendering and see how much RAM a given process is taking up. Windows by nature will allways use some swap space and will occasionally use it even when RAM isn't maxed out for various reasons which escape me. I've never seen RAM in my system be the limiting factor. My cpu maxes at 100% way before my RAM gets hoosed. I've never seen any process take up more that 50% of my availiable RAM at any given time. Yes, i do preprocessing with AVS and don't see it. Granted, my computer isn't top of the line, only a 1.5ghz processor and a GIG of RAM. . But that is why I said "up to a point." Depending on your usage 8GB of ram may not do you any more good than 1GB. Adding RAM for the sake of adding RAM won't do you any good if your not being limited by it. I was making an argument based on the average person's usage. You are not in the category Tyrill, you are more like a power user. But assuming single tasking with only average usuage i still stand by my statement.

I encourage everyone to take a look at your task manager next time you render and see how much memory the application takes up versus your total memory. If you see it getting close to max, then upgrade your RAM if it doesn't, then your fine. There is no point spending money on something that you don't need.

bum · Post by **bum** » Wed May 25, 2005 6:52 am

anubisx00 wrote:Well I just bought two more 256 mb sticks of PC800 RDRAM today to bring my system up to 1 gig. The main reason I'm upgrading is to increase my editing performance, but mainly for Photoshop and games.

Why not just get a single 512 stick? I've heard that 1 stick perorms a little better than two sticks of the same combined value (unless its ddr2). Oh and about games, Trackmania Sunshine apparently looks gorgeous and playes damn well too.

If you are looking to increase rendering speed get a badass processor, superfast harddrives, and render to a harddrive that doesn't contain the source files or the system pagefile.

I wouldnt mind 2 76GB SCSI drives, for some incredible hdd speed. Then again, 1 of thoughs hdd's probably costs more than twise what my computer does.

FurryCurry · Post by **FurryCurry** » Wed May 25, 2005 12:05 pm

bum wrote:
anubisx00 wrote:Well I just bought two more 256 mb sticks of PC800 RDRAM today to bring my system up to 1 gig. The main reason I'm upgrading is to increase my editing performance, but mainly for Photoshop and games.
Why not just get a single 512 stick? I've heard that 1 stick perorms a little better than two sticks of the same combined value (unless its ddr2). Oh and about games, Trackmania Sunshine apparently looks gorgeous and playes damn well too.

Notice he said RDRAM. As in Rambus. That means in some computers, or perhaps all, you have to add the memory in pairs, and unused slots require special terminators to be placed in them.

NeoQuixotic · Post by **NeoQuixotic** » Thu May 26, 2005 4:10 pm

FurryCurry wrote:Notice he said RDRAM. As in Rambus. That means in some computers, or perhaps all, you have to add the memory in pairs, and unused slots require special terminators to be placed in them.

Yeah, I have to install in pairs and if the slots aren't used I need to place continuity modules in them.

Digitalex · Post by **Digitalex** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:49 pm

mckeed wrote: I encourage everyone to take a look at your task manager next time you render and see how much memory the application takes up versus your total memory. If you see it getting close to max, then upgrade your RAM if it doesn't, then your fine. There is no point spending money on something that you don't need.

I use the RAMpage utility to see what memory is being used up (I have 1GB). The processor power (P4 2.4GHz) and hard drives (ATA100 7200RPM 8MB cache) are definitely the limiting factor on my own machine. I initially thought about buying more memory before checking out how much I was really using. I had over 500MB of RAM available during my video processing.

I am now looking into getting a dual processor setup for my next machine.

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 7:44 pm

Digitalex wrote:
mckeed wrote: I encourage everyone to take a look at your task manager next time you render and see how much memory the application takes up versus your total memory. If you see it getting close to max, then upgrade your RAM if it doesn't, then your fine. There is no point spending money on something that you don't need.
I use the RAMpage utility to see what memory is being used up (I have 1GB). The processor power (P4 2.4GHz) and hard drives (ATA100 7200RPM 8MB cache) are definitely the limiting factor on my own machine. I initially thought about buying more memory before checking out how much I was really using. I had over 500MB of RAM available during my video processing.

I am now looking into getting a dual processor setup for my next machine.

AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

Remember kids, knowledge is power.

The14thGOD · Post by **The14thGOD** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:24 pm

theres got to be some kind of exception isnt there? becuase i went from 1gb of ram to 2gb of ram and when i checked i was using 72% of ram, with all the same stuff i have running normally, so that would be approx 1474.56 ram...

The14thGOD · Post by **The14thGOD** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:25 pm

1474.56 mb of ram*