512 to 1g make a difference?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
drb
Posts: 302
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:09 pm

512 to 1g make a difference?

Post by drb » Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:36 am

running no VSTs
does it make any difference to upgrade to 1gig from 512?

D DAS
Posts: 890
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 7:37 am

Post by D DAS » Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:54 am

of course it does

joesapo
Posts: 332
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:22 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ
Contact:

Post by joesapo » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:17 am

big time.

in order of performance increase:

1) mb/cpu
2) hard disk speed (rpm)
3) RAM

what that extra 512 will do is keep the OS out of your application memory pool... especially if you have windows xp, this will be a big deal. much less hd accessing too.

do it.

Johnisfaster
Posts: 7251
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:34 am
Contact:

Post by Johnisfaster » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:35 am

I've still been debating about this back and forth for a long time. I want 512 more, I have 512 now. the thing is when I upgraded my other computer from 256 up to a gig I couldn't feel or see much difference in overall performance so I've always been a little aprehensive to upgrade my mac cause I don't want to spend a bunch of money and find out that I still get the same performance. though..... it MUST help to some degree...
It was as if someone shook up a 6 foot can of blood soda and suddenly popped the top.

mdb
Posts: 220
Joined: Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:59 pm
Location: N. Korea

Post by mdb » Sun Oct 08, 2006 3:10 am

The more Ram, the better.. 256 to 512 is hard to notice(not that much of an addition). But upgrade from 512 to 1.5gb youll DEF see a difference.

Another crucial thing is the ram on your CPU. The L2 cache. Having a processor with a large L2 cache REALLY makes a big difference.

BinaryB
Posts: 1016
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:04 am
Location: Sydney / SanFrancisco

Post by BinaryB » Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:42 am

More RAM for ableton is a must for "high-end" performance.

1gb minimum

2gb standard

4gb prefered

for mad usage and LIVE at its best,
with vst's, sample players etc.

The new freeze functions will make me work with audio more
so HDD and RAM are well-important.

LIVE with minimal plugins is so good you can do 512mb
and just werk it with what you got !

So... YES it will make a big difference.
Live8 & Serato
Download NYE'08 DJset

d-plate
Posts: 80
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 2:14 am

Post by d-plate » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:42 pm

Upgrading motherboard is rathed no1 in performance increase in this topic... man I see so many wannabe techs :lol:

frankie123
Posts: 372
Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2006 8:45 pm

Post by frankie123 » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:45 pm

d-plate wrote:Upgrading motherboard is rathed no1 in performance increase in this topic... man I see so many wannabe techs :lol:
Yeah particularly you. :lol: This guys talking about upgrading his ram, and you suggest upgrading his motherboard. Idiot.
dual g5 2.3 ghz 2500 megs of ram

d-plate
Posts: 80
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 2:14 am

Post by d-plate » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:51 pm

joesapo wrote:big time.

in order of performance increase:

1) mb/cpu
:roll:

joesapo
Posts: 332
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:22 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ
Contact:

Post by joesapo » Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:20 pm

Upgrading motherboard is rathed no1 in performance increase in this topic...
The point is dimishing returns.... You could stick a 10,000rpm hard disk and 4 gig of ram in a G4, but it's still going to pale in comparison to newer machines with newer processors. The initial poster said nothing of what kind of computer he was wanting to put this memory into...

"You can polish a turd....."
Idiot.
Too many haters on the forum recently. Good for my productivity in Live tho. I'll let you kids fight it out.

Tarekith
Posts: 19072
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Post by Tarekith » Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:51 pm

I ran 512MB for a couple years with no issues, checked XP task manager often, and I was rarely using more than 384MB or so. Added another 1GB stick finally when I got Kontakt 2, and it helped with running that app, but that's it. Even now, I rarely use more than 384MB, even when running Live very hard for production work. The additional RAM didn't help my computer run better or faster for everyday stuff, unless like I mentioned, I was using a software sampler that liked to load samples into RAM :)

While more RAM isn't ever really a bad thing, I think it's important to keep it in perspective too. Don't spend the money if you don't need to. It only helps if you NEED more RAM, otherwise that extra RAM is just sitting there unused and you might not see any benefit. That being said, 1024MB of RAM is probably a good idea to have, just in case.

This is on XP too, from my understanding, OSX is much more intelligent in how it allocates RAM. More will always be used if you have it available to the system.
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

detroitechno
Posts: 201
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2004 2:03 pm
Location: detroit

Post by detroitechno » Mon Oct 09, 2006 12:15 am

Tarekith wrote:This is on XP too, from my understanding, OSX is much more intelligent in how it allocates RAM. More will always be used if you have it available to the system.
OSX is actually a memory hog. I have mail, ichat, amsn, and firefox open and I'm using 500mb of ram right now! WTF??? luckly I have 2gb of ram in my macbook so it doesn't affect me. But I find XP to be a MUCH calmer on gulping up ram.

I guess OSX handles ram better, but eats more. Where XP eats much less, but is less efficient when ram is needed.
A bunch of gear, cords, and a computer...

Post Reply