How much RAM ?

[dalamar17]

Hello,

I am debating whether to upgrade my RAM from 2 GB to 4GB. I am running a dual core Pentium 4 on WinXp Pro and have heard conflicting information on whether Cubases SX3 will take advantage of RAM above 2GB. I would love to do the upgfrade but maybe I need to wait for the next Windows OS beforeits supported?

Can anyone clear this up for me?

Jeff

[PeterRoos]

From your question (sorry, I don't know the answer...) I understand that you are using sample players from within your DAW? So you need as much RAM as possible? If so, why not add another/more PC's to which you can offload the sample playback?

[Tobias Erichsen]

Cubase SX 3.x does support the /3GB option of Windows and
therefore can use up to 3 GB of RAM.

Two remarks though:
1.) Most mainboards access their RAM faster if you install
either 2 or 4 RAM-modules, so it would probably be either
2 or 4 GB
2.) When you install 4GB, .5 GB of that is completely lost
as long as your are running a 32bit operating-system.
This is due to the fact that 32bit can only address 4GB
and all the hardware like chipsets, graphics-cards, PCI-
busses etc. are mapped into this 4GB address-space.
The memory between 3GB and 3.5GB is used by the
Operating-system (the kernel itself, drivers, buffers,
caching etc.)

So if you go the 4GB-way, you are currently wasting
512MB of that. This RAM could be made available
as soon as 64bit OSs become more readily available
(and obviously all the drivers for your hardware,
especially soundcards also exist 64bit versions).

Best regards,
Tobias

[dalamar17]

Thanks for the info. Though I gather when you say 512MB is lost or wasted it is technically being used for other purposes to run OS related systems and hardware thus not competing for the rest of the RAM? And yes I am using EWQL Gold and have an ADAT enabled soundcard on my new machine but haven't purchased one yet for the other older machine and use VST system link.

Problem with my older sytem is there is only 1GB of RAM and due to a strange motherboard its maxed out currently so I would have to spend a heap to upgrade that machine too but it may be worth it to share the load.

Thanks again for your help guys.

Jeff

[TomcatII]

I have an ADK Proaudio machine that I got last february and it has an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with 4 gigs of ram and the 3 gig ram switch is done. Windows Info, Everest Home, SiSoft Sandra all say that I have 4,096 Mb of ram installed (4 1024 Mb sticks), and that I have 2.87 gigs of "available" ram, ie, for use by programs. Everything above 3 gigs is dedicated to the OS and the 130 Mb missing to give 2.87 Gigs is taken up by things running in the background.

I'm quite happy with it.

Tom

[Tobias Erichsen]

Thanks for the info. Though I gather when you say 512MB is lost or wasted it is technically being used for other purposes to run OS related systems and hardware thus not competing for the rest of the RAM?

Right - the 512MB (the amount may vary depending on your chipset
and installed hardware) is lost (even to the operating-systems) because
the address-space is needed to address hardware that is either already
onboard within the chipset or plugged in in one of the various PCI, PCIe or AGP-ports. The other 512 MB above 3GB is used within the OS for the
kernel itself, drivers etc.

Tobias

[Daryl]

FWIW with 3GB I can load about 2.7GB of samples and with 4GB I can load about 2.85GB. I can get more, but things become a little unstable if I push it too much.

D