OT: 3 gigs of RAM or 2?

[James W.G. Smith]

I'm building another computer for my EWQL stuff and was wondering if there is any difference between having 3GBs RAM or 2. I think Gigastudio had a RAM cap on it, is this true for Kontakt? I can afford 3GBs but don't want to waste my money if there is no point. Thanks,

James W.G. Smith

[JonFairhurst]

I don't think it buys you anything. Windows only allows a certain amount of RAM per application/process. The 3GB thing may make sense if you're running a bunch of different apps at the same time, but not for real-time software.

-JF

[cptexas]

I'm thinking of building myself a system to run with giga since my current one is borderline and doesn't have a DVD drive. I was shopping motherboards online and I found one that supported up to 32 GIGA bytes of RAM.


THIRTY TWO!!!!!
That's bigger than my internal hard drive!!!!!!

Just found it interesting,

Chris

[James W.G. Smith]

I'm thinking of building myself a system to run with giga since my current one is borderline and doesn't have a DVD drive. I was shopping motherboards online and I found one that supported up to 32 GIGA bytes of RAM.


THIRTY TWO!!!!!
That's bigger than my internal hard drive!!!!!!

Just found it interesting,

Chris

?!?!
Does any OS actually support that much? You still have a 32GB hard drive? I'm sorry...hehe.

James W.G. Smith

[Martin Hines]

The whole question of memory usage in a Windows computer is complex.

Processes in Win XP
- are allocated VIRTUAL memory space (virtual addresses)
- by default are each assigned a 2 GB Virtual memory space
- know nothing about PHYSICAL memory (real memory)

Physical Memory in Win XP
- a maximum of 4GB can be installed
- There is a part of the OS called the "Memory Manager", whose job it is to translate those virtual memory spaces into REAL physical storage addresses
- Processes can (and do) have sections of their virtual address space "paged" (stored on the hard drive)
- the more physical memory installed, the smaller amount of "paging" that occurs
- there are a number of variables that can be set that result in how much physical memory is actually used by a program
- the Operating System and other "kernal level" processes also use virtual and physical memory

What this Means -- Any Application
- since any process is limited with a 2 GB VIRTUAL address space, this also means that any process is limited to using 2GB of physical memory

What this Means -- GIGA
- Part of GS sets itself up to run in Kernal Mode, so GS can actually use MORE physical memory than other applications (by running in Kernal mode it gets access to some of the "protected" Operating System memory. This is also why GS can crash a PC if you try to use too much memory, because Giga is actually stealing operating system memory)
- Even Giga "with OS tweaks" doesn't appear to be able to actually USE more than 1.5 GB of PHYSICAL memory (even with 3 GB installed)

What this Means -- Kontakt
- 2GB would be the theoretical maximum of physical memory it could use, but I doubt the OS will allow anywhere near that amount
- I am not sure what "actual memory usage" tests have been performed with Kontakt

To answer your question
- one COULD make a case for 3GB of memory (or even 4 GB) assuming Kontakt could use 2 GB's itself, leaving the other GB for the Operating system and other running proceses
- Doug Rogers has mentioned that all of their EW systems have 3GB of RAM installed

[c.k]

?!?!
Does any OS actually support that much? You still have a 32GB hard drive? I'm sorry...hehe.

James W.G. Smith



64-bit OS does support it.


Cheers,


ck

[Martin Hines]

I was shopping motherboards online and I found one that supported up to 32 GIGA bytes of RAM.



The different Windows OS products (and different variations within these products) support different amounts of physical memory.

For example:

Win XP Home/Pro (32-bit version): Max physical Memory 4 GB
Win XP Pro (Itanium version): 16 GB
Win Server 2003 Datacenter (Itanium edition running SP1): 1024 GB

[jc5]

I know there are some running Giga systems with 3 gigs of ram that are getting positive benefits from it. There were some actual numbers posted up, but it was a while ago... hmmm...

[Theodor]

Anyone feel like trying out XP 64 ? :p

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/upgrade.mspx

[Tobias Erichsen]

One thing that you should always keep in mind is the fact, that
most newer mainboards cannot be populated by uneven counts
of memory-modules. So you either have 2 or 4 GB.

In case you decide to go the way of 4 GB you should know,
that the mainboard-chipsets reserve about 512 MB of
memory space for their own needs (PCI, periperals etc.).

So in this case you end up with 3.5 GB, wasting a full .5 GB.

Tobias

[cptexas]

?!?!
Does any OS actually support that much? You still have a 32GB hard drive? I'm sorry...hehe.

James W.G. Smith
Actually, I have a 20 gb hard drive. but I have an external 120 gig.

[Rich Pell]

A while back some guy , posting in the E/W Forum section figured out how get Kontakt to address more than 2GB by changing the boot log , so when XP starts up, it recognizes 3 gb of ram. Do a search, i think it was about 6 months ago...Ive loaded 1.75 GB worth of PF usage memory (according to the Windows Task manager) with SX and Kontakt with DFD on. That was about half a full orch.. :) Rich

[James W.G. Smith]

Maybe I should just get the 3GBs so that both computers have 2 (my current has 1.5). Whatcha think?

James W.G. Smith

[Martin Hines]

A while back some guy , posting in the E/W Forum section figured out how get Kontakt to address more than 2GB by changing the boot log , so when XP starts up, it recognizes 3 gb of ram.

There is a Boot Option parameter that can be set (/3GB) that increases the size of a user process virtual address space from 2 GB to 3 GB, assuming that the application has been "flagged" as a 3 GB application. I am not sure what the real "end result" is in terms of actual physical memory usage.

I have never tried this since my computer only has 1.5 GB of RAM.