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Author Topic: How much memory is enough?  (Read 3537 times)

rick.ca

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How much memory is enough?
« on: July 24, 2009, 05:24:07 pm »

Quote
And that's on an "old" AMD XP3500+ machine.

How much RAM?
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raldo

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How much memory is enough?
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2009, 05:25:52 pm »

2gB
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rick.ca

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How much memory is enough?
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2009, 05:29:29 pm »

So my theory holds—512 Mb is not enough. :(
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raldo

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How much memory is enough?
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2009, 05:49:27 pm »

So my theory holds—512 Mb is not enough. :(

True, True...
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JimH

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How much memory is enough?
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2009, 06:07:05 pm »

So my theory holds—512 Mb is not enough. :(
You're kidding, right?
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rick.ca

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How much memory is enough?
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2009, 07:31:40 pm »

No. Kidding about what—that I'm still using a machine with 512 Mb, or that it's not enough memory for this particular circumstance?
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JimH

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How much memory is enough?
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2009, 07:38:55 pm »

No. Kidding about what—that I'm still using a machine with 512 Mb, or that it's not enough memory for this particular circumstance?
On XP, 512MB is adequate.  On Vista or W7, I wouldn't feel good without 4Gb.

Memory is so cheap now, that trying to find the right level isn't worth your time.  Throw $60 at it.  Sample price.
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benn600

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2009, 09:16:54 pm »

I've had 2GB in my main machines for a while and then was wondering why some larger files would cause trouble.  So I (accidentally) upgraded to 18GB in my Mac Pro.  I mistakenly ordered the wrong memory for another project but it worked in this so I got two times 8GB--twice what I wanted to add (plus existing 2GB).
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jmone

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2009, 09:32:10 pm »

On XP, 512MB is adequate.  On Vista or W7, I wouldn't feel good without 4Gb.

FYI - You would feel just as good with 3GB on Windows 32-Bit OS's as they can only address up to 4GB of combined memory space (including RAM, Video Mem, PCI Bus etc) so the max addressable RAM will always be less than 4GB (eg 3.5, 3.2 etc).
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rick.ca

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2009, 09:42:19 pm »

In splitting the topic, I'm afraid we've lost the original question...

With all my movies having Actors metadata off IMDB (meaning the entire cast for every movie), and with an "Actors" section in my "Panes and Detail" view, every time I select all movies (or a big chunk of them) to perform some action, everything freezes for a noticeable amount of time, until MC is responsive again. We're talking some 3-400 movies currently. I'm curious if it's just me, or if this is a sign that we overdid it here importing stuff like crazy. Not having an "Actors" section resolved the problem.

In the absence of any other explanation, we established the problem some of us are having might be due to a lack of memory.

Unfortunately, my machine is maxed-out at 512 Gb. It's probably not "worth my time" to be using it at all. But part of the fun is keeping it going. I also figure it's my duty to let others know MC still runs reasonably well on such a tired old machine. I think it says a lot about the quality of the software.

My tentative plan is to hold out until I can replace it with one with pre-installed with W7. I'll likely put 8 Gb in that—just so I can sleep at night. Or should it be 16 Gb, so I can play HD movies from memory? 8)
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2009, 06:10:07 am »

Unfortunately, my machine is maxed-out at 512 Gb.

That must have cost a few pennys  ;)

I have a clean Vista 64 machine with 2gb, which pretty much just runs MC, and a few graphics packages.
It's been up for over a year now and is really speedy.

My dev machine has 3gb and it runs like a dog, and needs clearing off desperatley, but sadly there's never time to do it!

rick.ca

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #11 on: July 26, 2009, 06:27:28 am »

Quote
That must have cost a few pennys

 ?
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KingDoughnut

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #12 on: July 26, 2009, 07:05:16 am »

Its all relative.  The number of processes that are running [needing] memory and the amount of memory available.

With your typical Windows install you might have somewhere around 60 processes running so you will need all the memory you can get, especially if you have Windows security, indexing, and other programs running in the background.  I would suggest that you first take the time to slim down your OS [disable un-needed services], put the OS on a defrag schedule, and do some general house cleaning.  You should be able to get your processes down to in mid-20's in Vista at least.  Do some Googleing but you can start with BlackVipers Windows Services to reduce your services. 

Afterwards if you are still not satisfied spend some cash on some new memory...in the end you will have a lean mean running machine.
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Daydream

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #13 on: July 26, 2009, 07:18:22 am »

I'd say for any small constructions around an microITX board the max is 4GB since there's only 2 slots and we try to stay inside a price point (not 2x4GB). Sure a device like that made for only one purpose (be it multimedia or related) can function on less (2GB).

For any kind of desktop 8GB I think is the sweet spot, costs practically peanuts. Sure we can discuss 6 or 12 GB but I think the mobo + the DDR3 it's still not that widespread and it's more expensive.

On a sidenote, I find MC really, really low on memory usage overall. I'd be willing to give it much more in order to cache everything left and right.
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #14 on: July 26, 2009, 08:39:18 am »

tdipower

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #15 on: July 26, 2009, 08:55:25 am »

How big is a fish?
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rick.ca

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Re: How much memory is enough?
« Reply #16 on: July 26, 2009, 02:29:36 pm »

You put GB not MB  :)

 :-[ ...Maybe that's what I need in the next machine. ;D
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