Ableton Forum

How much difference will this make, and in what categories? Loading time? I have an amd64 3200+ and 1 gig of pc3200, but am thinking of picking up 2 gigs... but dont know specifically how it would help. Thanks

Well, that's subjective...How much RAM do you use? I mean more is always better but not always needed…(the following is written not knowing your general computer knowledge, so sorry if it’s stating the obvious for you…)

My point is, RAM is one of those things that having "extra" of isn't going to help you performance wise. So you're the only one that can answer that...look in your processes and see how much RAM you use up in general. The extra is just buffer, more headroom when needed. But again, it just sits there until it needs it. If you are only using 500 MB and you have 2 GB of RAM, the other 1500 MB of it just sits there, waiting to be used.
As for loading time, the only way it would really help is if your PC already takes a long time to load because of minimum RAM, which doesn’t seem to be the case with you.

It’s like a gas tank; getting a bigger gas tank isn’t going to improve your cars performance, but you can go farther than before you run out of gas because it holds more. But once you run out of gas; you stop and you’re fucked. The same with RAM and your PC. I have 2 GB and have never even came close to maxing it out. But I like knowing it’s there in case I need it. But I’ve never even used up a gig, came close but…

So, I don’t think anybody will argue against more RAM, it insures you can load up more samples and do more before the system starts doing page file swaps to keep up. But you’re not going to see an improvement until you hit your threshold and then decide to add more.

The only way to improve RAM performance is to buy RAM with an increased speed, which will probably require you to update your motherboard, which then means you will probably need to update your CPU... ad infinitum…

It's not going to make your performance worse, that's for sure.
Hard to say how much it will help until you actually put it in.
One thing it could be good for is if ever you run out of CPU steam, you could switch all or most of your clips to RAM mode.

when I upgraded to 2 gigs from one I saw a HUGE improvement. I do a lot of intense orchestrations with Romplers and stuff and now I can run twice as many instruments. ( Actually more than twice factoring in the system RAM usage). Do it you won't regret it. Even if you don't use a lot of ROMPLERS maybe you just want to be able to run tons of apps simultaneously.

I dont think it is as much of an improvement thing as much as a, it works or it doesnt. If you dont have enough ram, you will know, because you actually wont be able to do what you are trying. and if you add some and you are fine, then there you go. I dont think it will simply help make things faster.

would you guys agree with this? i could be wrong.

Where you'll see the improvement is by not having a page file after upgrading to 2gb. The OS will be a bit quicker. You can also set some memory management tweaks to really realize it. The rest of the tweaks in that cat are pretty good. If you don't feel like editing the registry manually, the best tool is X-Setup.

Loading your audio into memory can definetly help with performance.

Moody wrote:Loading your audio into memory can definetly help with performance.

especially if you wanna be able to play more audio simultaneously .