RAM = Overrated

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RAM = Overrated

Postby Pyle » Sun May 22, 2005 3:22 pm

I had 512 RAM previeously, and when I was exporting finished videos I it would just stop halfway through, saying it had an error. I was able to restart my computer and finish it, but I was getting sick of the intense load time I had to wait for whenever I did a single edit. I bought a 512 RAM stick off of Ebay and put it into my computer.

Waste of money and time. My computer runs exactly the same as it did before. It fact I think it might even be worse. Bottom line = you don't need RAM.
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Postby Otohiko » Sun May 22, 2005 4:24 pm

...and where's your numbers to support that obviously-unfounded claim? :roll:
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Re: RAM = Overrated

Postby Kai Stromler » Sun May 22, 2005 11:57 pm

Pyle wrote:I bought a 512 RAM stick off of Ebay and put it into my computer.


Note that this does not say "I checked to clean up whatever bogus processes were clogging my system, then looked at the manual to see what specs my motherboard would support, and bought a compliant DIMM from NewEgg that had the balance I wanted between low price and positive reviews". You may have done due diligence, but it sure doesn't give that impression.

Pyle wrote:Bottom line = you don't need RAM.


More like "buying random stuff from eBay as opposed to established vendors is a crapshoot". Sometimes you get the part you need, and sometimes you get junk with very little means of redress. It may not be technically dead, but there are some damn dodgy parts out there.

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Postby Otohiko » Mon May 23, 2005 12:05 am

Good points.

Actually, while we're on the subject, does anyone have some hard numbers or at least ideas on how much RAM affects rendering speed? I haven't yet tried editing on my recently-increased RAM, myself, but I find the 1GB a minimum requirement for most other things right now.
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Postby bum » Mon May 23, 2005 5:56 am

Depends on the source footage. vob's will eat ram like hugh hefner ate his wife on their honeymoon. Editing with low quality divx files however woent take more than their fair share of ram. I've never edited with lossles or avs, so I've got no idea how much ram they eat up.
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Postby Coffee 54 » Mon May 23, 2005 6:50 am

I've found that with my system's 256k rendering times range from two to five minutes for every thirty seconds, depending how many fades or other tricks I've thrown in to the project file. I can work with lossless codecs no problem, but I do run into memory errors trying to run final encodes off uncommpressed RGB's. All that said, the main reason I want to upgrade memory, you try playing Half-Life 2 with only 256k of RAM.
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Postby mckeed » Mon May 23, 2005 5:18 pm

RAM doesn't help rendering that much unless you have really complicated scene which means you have to process many different video layers. RAM will help the performance of your system while editing. Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff. The only thing that will help render time is a faster processor and fast hard drives. Unless you are using AE which renders to RAM cause its way faster than rendering to disk. When you are rendering you are essentially encoding. Encoding is a process using mathmatics. RAM only gets you so far, the rest is CPU cycles. Faster memory will help you CPU work better, not more of it. Video is pretty basic stuff really. What takes time is calculating opacity, transitions, overlays, masks, etc. RAM doesn't help you here, but processors will. If you are multitasking between AE and premiere and have them open at the same time while using virtualdub to find clips, then you need ram cause the programs use RAM when they are open.

Moral of the story, FAST RAM and FAST CPU coupled with a hard drive in a raid 0 array will help render times, not more RAM.
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Postby Otohiko » Mon May 23, 2005 5:29 pm

Aha, good points then. I didn't really notice a difference between 256 and 512 back in the day, either....

But as Coffee 54 mentioned - at least there's other reasons to have good RAM. With my other hobbies, I can't imagine getting by on less than a gig nowadays :roll:
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Postby bum » Mon May 23, 2005 10:47 pm

Coffee 54 wrote: you try playing Half-Life 2 with only 256k of RAM.


:shock:
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Postby NeoQuixotic » Tue May 24, 2005 7:33 pm

Well I just bought two more 256 mb sticks of PC800 RDRAM today to bring my system up to 1 gig. The main reason I'm upgrading is to increase my editing performance, but mainly for Photoshop and games. If you are looking to increase rendering speed get a badass processor, superfast harddrives, and render to a harddrive that doesn't contain the source files or the system pagefile.
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Postby trythil » Tue May 24, 2005 8:35 pm

mckeed wrote:Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff.


Bullshit. Where's your data, or, indeed, where's your reasoning? The amount of RAM necessary to process a given filter chain is directly dependent on the complexity of that filter chain. If you're swapping in preprocessing, that is definitely going to impact rendering time.

The only thing that will help render time is a faster processor and fast hard drives.


Or, say, a dedicated hardware video processor.

Video is pretty basic stuff really. What takes time is calculating opacity, transitions, overlays, masks, etc. RAM doesn't help you here, but processors will.


RAM certainly still helps. If you're using a multi-frame video effect (say, some sort of time-average) that requires multiple frames to be kept in the computer's active set BUT you cannot store all of those frames in (relatively fast) main memory, guess what you have to do? Oh no, here comes secondary memory; oh no, here comes swap.
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Postby trythil » Tue May 24, 2005 8:42 pm

trythil wrote:
mckeed wrote:Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff.


Bullshit. Where's your data, or, indeed, where's your reasoning? The amount of RAM necessary to process a given filter chain is directly dependent on the complexity of that filter chain.


That should be "memory complexity". Clearly it's possible to create a filter chain that is CPU-bound, but it is also very easy to create a filter chain that requires large amounts of memory. Consider, for example, a filter chain that involves a (non-tail) recursive filter.
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Postby mckeed » Wed May 25, 2005 6:47 am

trythil wrote:
trythil wrote:
mckeed wrote:Frameserving vobs and filtering them you only need a certain amount of ram and them any more is fluff.


Bullshit. Where's your data, or, indeed, where's your reasoning? The amount of RAM necessary to process a given filter chain is directly dependent on the complexity of that filter chain.


That should be "memory complexity". Clearly it's possible to create a filter chain that is CPU-bound, but it is also very easy to create a filter chain that requires large amounts of memory. Consider, for example, a filter chain that involves a (non-tail) recursive filter.


Most people do not use overly complex filter chains. You can look at your task manager when rendering and see how much RAM a given process is taking up. Windows by nature will allways use some swap space and will occasionally use it even when RAM isn't maxed out for various reasons which escape me. I've never seen RAM in my system be the limiting factor. My cpu maxes at 100% way before my RAM gets hoosed. I've never seen any process take up more that 50% of my availiable RAM at any given time. Yes, i do preprocessing with AVS and don't see it. Granted, my computer isn't top of the line, only a 1.5ghz processor and a GIG of RAM. . But that is why I said "up to a point." Depending on your usage 8GB of ram may not do you any more good than 1GB. Adding RAM for the sake of adding RAM won't do you any good if your not being limited by it. I was making an argument based on the average person's usage. You are not in the category Tyrill, you are more like a power user. But assuming single tasking with only average usuage i still stand by my statement.

I encourage everyone to take a look at your task manager next time you render and see how much memory the application takes up versus your total memory. If you see it getting close to max, then upgrade your RAM if it doesn't, then your fine. There is no point spending money on something that you don't need.
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Postby bum » Wed May 25, 2005 6:52 am

anubisx00 wrote:Well I just bought two more 256 mb sticks of PC800 RDRAM today to bring my system up to 1 gig. The main reason I'm upgrading is to increase my editing performance, but mainly for Photoshop and games.


Why not just get a single 512 stick? I've heard that 1 stick perorms a little better than two sticks of the same combined value (unless its ddr2). Oh and about games, Trackmania Sunshine apparently looks gorgeous and playes damn well too.

If you are looking to increase rendering speed get a badass processor, superfast harddrives, and render to a harddrive that doesn't contain the source files or the system pagefile.


I wouldnt mind 2 76GB SCSI drives, for some incredible hdd speed. Then again, 1 of thoughs hdd's probably costs more than twise what my computer does.
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Postby FurryCurry » Wed May 25, 2005 12:05 pm

bum wrote:
anubisx00 wrote:Well I just bought two more 256 mb sticks of PC800 RDRAM today to bring my system up to 1 gig. The main reason I'm upgrading is to increase my editing performance, but mainly for Photoshop and games.


Why not just get a single 512 stick? I've heard that 1 stick perorms a little better than two sticks of the same combined value (unless its ddr2). Oh and about games, Trackmania Sunshine apparently looks gorgeous and playes damn well too.


Notice he said RDRAM. As in Rambus. That means in some computers, or perhaps all, you have to add the memory in pairs, and unused slots require special terminators to be placed in them.
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