Benefits of RAM!!

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:26 am

No, this isn't a sexual topic. I just upgraded from 1GB to 2GB, and the performance improvement in Live is incredible!

The upgrade was inspired because of the track I just finished up....about 24 tracks of frozen MIDI and audio...the CPU and harddisk weren't overloaded, but Live was taking about 3 seconds to perform every mouse click, and audio was crackling and freaking out every few seconds, often completely disintegrating into granular noise insanity. With the upgrade its smooth as butter! Better hardrive performance, less CPU usage, no slowdowns, and perfect playback. Woooohooooo!!!!!!

My DJ setup has about 200 plugins, and would run at about 80% with only one channel going before....now its at 25% with one channel going. Damn, I wish I had upgraded sooner!

People have recommended upgrading to more RAM so many times, but I didn't believe it would make that much of a difference. It sure did. The best $170 I've spent in a while....

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:34 am

Change your signature, byatch!

and thanks for the tip

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:57 am

Bink!!!
Done!!
Crisis narrowly averted....

rbmonosylabik · Post by **rbmonosylabik** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:08 am

I'm torn between going to get another GB or waiting and saving for a new machine. I haven't got to the point where this one can't handle what I need it to do, but I know I'm getting close.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:24 am

200 PLUGINS IN A LIVE DJ SET UP??????????
dear god, I've never dreamed of using that many plugins all at once...

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:26 am

clearly you only have 1gb of ram...

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:38 am

This upgrade feels like a new computer. I started watching my memory usage when Live gets all crazy and glitchy, and I saw that I was using every bit of my available memory. Everything would glitch out, but the cpu would only be at 50% and the disk overload light wasn't on, so I figured the OS was using the HD as virtual memory, which was costing me in cpu and disk load. I think that was right, because my cpu usage and disk load seems to have gone down with the new memory.

It's easy to get a lot of plugins going when using the chain selector to crossfade between several fx chains per channel. Another motivation for getting more RAM is that it occured to me that plugins get loaded into RAM, so if I'm working on a track with 24 channels x 4 FX per channel = 96 plugins for a track. I don't know if thats really how it works, but my system handles large plugin loads waaaay better now.

continuous · Post by **continuous** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:06 am

Must get more RAM!
Why do I keep avoiding this?!!

...thanks for reminding me.

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:20 am

figures as soon as I get a new computer with twice as much ram I have only enough time to test out max-patches that run like 2-3% cpu...

Alright. I'm gonna make me a rack with 100 operators all running 20 voices and with reverb. That'll be liberating!

rotflmfao!

I got about 6 in one rack before the crackles. Probably not distributing to both processors. The big gain is probably just in audio clips anyway.

monoschall · Post by **monoschall** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:49 pm

more ram really makes things nice!

Last month I upgraded my OSX machine from 512MB to 3.5GB - it doesn't page anymore between the SWAP disk and RAM!! Which makes things nice & fast!

the main reason for the upgrade was for playing the Essential Instrument Collection, with only 512MB many of the sounds would really stutter making them impossible to play - not anymore!

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:50 pm

monoschall wrote:...it doesn't page anymore between the SWAP disk and RAM!! Which makes things nice & fast!

Exactly!!

mbenigni · Post by **mbenigni** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:58 pm

This upgrade feels like a new computer. I started watching my memory usage when Live gets all crazy and glitchy, and I saw that I was using every bit of my available memory. Everything would glitch out, but the cpu would only be at 50% and the disk overload light wasn't on, so I figured the OS was using the HD as virtual memory, which was costing me in cpu and disk load. I think that was right, because my cpu usage and disk load seems to have gone down with the new memory.

You are describing exactly my own symptoms as far as glitching at 50% goes. What the hell, it aint a whole lot of money. I think I'll buy another gig this weekend. I've been toying with an internal HDD upgrade too, but then I've gotta start tinkering with software (ie. all of those proprietary Vaio drivers... then again, maybe I'd run better with just vanilla Windows XP.)

It's easy to get a lot of plugins going when using the chain selector to crossfade between several fx chains per channel.

For what it's worth, I don't think VST suck CPU cycles when they're de-selected by way of the chain selector. That's one of my favorite things about that feature, actually. It's very CPU-efficient to build collections of instruments into racks vs. soloing a bunch of individual channels.

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:28 pm

mbenigni wrote:For what it's worth, I don't think VST suck CPU cycles when they're de-selected by way of the chain selector.

Do you know if they get loaded into RAM?

corygilbert · Post by **corygilbert** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:35 pm

yeah, I'm gonna have to bite this bullet too.
I'm at 1.5 ghz at the moment, but it's just too tempting to max out everything you can when it matters this much.

paolo topaz · Post by **paolo topaz** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:07 am

ethlos4, any chance you post up a screen shot of you dj template and how you use the plugin ins? it sounds savage

Paolo

www.djpaolotopaz.com

Benefits of RAM!!

Benefits of RAM!!

yep!

Re: yep!