RAM vs CPU

[newtfish]

Hi,

Ive been using live a while and there are many posts regarding the fact that when you "turn off" live devices that CPU is reduced.

However, this does not seem to be the case with RAM. It seems each new device that is added to a set takes up a bit more RAM and turning the devices off does not affect (or reduce) the amount of RAM usage.

Ive created sets, with a large amount of devices/tracks, many of which are turned off and I have reached the RAM limit (seems around 2.5gb for 32bit ableton). Ableton crashes out with a "out of memory" error", or "serious program error".

Why is that that "turning off" devices saves CPU, but not RAM?

[H20nly]

**super over simplified version:

everything opened up takes RAM... it sits there until calculations need to be made

when calculations or commands need to be processed the CPU kicks in

the CPU swaps things in and out of RAM as it needs to work on them
(note: some, or all, of this can also be done with the (small) RAM cache built into the CPU)

think of RAM as the counter top and the CPU as the stove... your data is butter and cheese and such. your hard drive is the fridge... if it's in the fridge in ain't cookin

VSTs and Live both use RAM & CPU when they're active. if they're idle they mostly just use RAM


hope this helps.

if you want a more scientific explanation i recommend wikipedia.org

[newtfish]

Surely if a device is off, the program needs to store nothing more than a placeholder (a few small text identifiers) to aknowledge that "this is a phasor effect" and "these are 6 parameter settings for it? Im quite surprised that this small amount of text information for a few hundred plugins can amount to 2.5gb of memory. Once a device is switched on, then everything about it could be fully added to RAM.

Im realising now that my issues with Live mainly centre around RAM and not really CPU. A few extra effects here and there (that I want to switch on/off when making a track) and live performance really takes a hit. Quite often crashing without any means of recovery. At least with CPU we get some information on how much were using whereas RAM is different story. Live also seems to be quite a resource hog for RAM, and doesnt seem to make use of it as efficiently as it does CPU.

[H20nly]

if a program has been executed (launched) then it is using RAM. the GUI, the availability of... what ever it does... is all available at a heightened response time because it is loaded in RAM. it's more than just a little text... or, that is to say, there is a lot of text (code) that is ready to be processed and interpreted. being ready at a moments notice vs. having to wait for the program to load and open comes at a cost.

you're probably 100% correct that RAM will solve a lot of your CPU issues with VSTs. a CPU relies heavily on RAM for the offloading I touched on earlier. if it cannot meet its needs in RAM then it relies on your hard drive (in Windows this is called the page file or "swap") once you get into the realm of using your hard drive to make up for a lack of resources you will really begin to see a big decrease in performance. this is why having extra applications (browser, antivirus, photoshop, etc) closed when making music or using any resource hungry software is preferred.

having said all that... do you have a 64 bit operating system?

what OS is it?
how much RAM do you currently have?
is your RAM shared with your video, or do you have a dedicated graphics card?

[TomViolenz]

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[H20nly]

Live does come in a 64Bit flavor and RAM is cheap nowadays. I have made the jump about a year ago and never looked back!

Exactly. That's what I did... Switched to a MAC during the process. The only trouble it caused was a little grief in the 32 bit VST department... Jbridge solved that problem for all but the ones with Windows only or pre-intel MAC installers. I would open those on my Windows 7 laptop and strip the plug... If I had any that wouldn't open, but only the BBE Sonic Maximizer didn't port over due to being coded for older MACs with a Motorola processor and having no upgrade options. I simply remove it from old sets that use it. They've all opened though... they just throw up a message stating that the 32 bit plug is not available. I get that with Waves plugins if jbridge is temporarily offline for some reason... Having said that, Waves offers an upgrade path that will solve the problem for a fraction of the cost if/when I upgrade to Waves 9 which supports 64 bit.

My iMac came with 4 GB of RAM. Since old sets were made with 32 bit Windows they were already working with that amount of memory... But I installed an extra 16 GB for a total of 20 GB of RAM. It cost around 50 bucks... Since I bought it from Crucial (maker of good RAM for over a decade) through Newegg.com I didn't have to pay the inflated Apple price and haven't had a single issue... just great performance.

RAM has always been the most sensible and rewarding upgrade to any computer I've worked with... Literally dozens and dozens of them since I'm a network administrator by day and was hired from a computer repairs and network solutions firm... after my first 6 years of self taught tinkering, building, and helping friends in need.

[/resume]

If you have a 64 bit OS and/or a 32 bit OS with less than 4 GB of RAM... Add more!! You won't regret it. Unless you have a single core processor that is less than 2.0 GHz it's guaranteed to boost your performance with Live and your VSTs.

[TomViolenz]

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[newtfish]

Yep, ive also started using x64 for about a year and it does work great.

However, I have a requirement to get the sets im using to work as well as possible on 32bit, because I am sharing them with others that dont use 64 yet and possibly may never use it.

I guess I (wrongly) assumed that if devices were "off" Live would act like it does with CPU , where it frees up resources when devices are not being used.

This has turned out to be a real pain for me, because Ive spent a long time customising sets on my system, however when I try to open them on other systems (32bit) even if all devices are off, ableton craps out.

[TomViolenz]

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[clydesdale]

It seems intuitive to me that a loaded but non-functioning device would take RAM but not use CPU, but I understand your disappointment. If you're coming up on RAM limits you should really consider two things. First, manage your set more efficiently to use fewer devices or group tracks to share devices if necessary. Second and more importantly, freeze tracks that don't require your attention during playback. It is certainly convenient to have every device and every parameter available on every track during playback, but the reality of your situation dictates that your sets be managed more efficiently when you use them on other less capable hardware. I'd bet you already knew this though.

My experience is similar to yours, CPU overload makes clicks and pops but run out of RAM and you've crashed into a wall. It would be interesting to see the RAM resource usage of the different devices. Probably not worth the effort to figure out but interesting nonetheless.

[eyeknow]

I know it's not the answer you want, but if at all possible, go x64 and have 8+ GB of ram. HONESTLY all those years ago I totally tried EVERYTHING to get around it and doing that was the only thing that worked. And it worked well.