2Gb to 4Gb RAM and no quicker?

Former user wrote on 8/28/2006, 12:18 PM

The speed is based on your CPU and the harddrive speed. Memory will not speed it up.

Dave T2

Jayster wrote on 8/28/2006, 12:32 PM

The speed is based on your CPU and the harddrive speed. Memory will not speed it up.

I assume you meant that only for his case, not as a blanket statement.. If, for example, you only have 512MB, a jump to 2GB could make a huge difference. When RAM is unavailable, the machine goes to the swap file, which is hundreds of times slower.

Vegas 6 (and older) is a 32-bit application. 32 bit apps have a maximum of 2 GB of address space available (RAM plus swap file), some of which is taken away by the operating system. And this 2GB of address space is the limit for each independent application. Because it's virtual addressing, each app has its own separate 2GB address space, i.e. they don't fight for the same addresses.

Bumping up to 4GB of RAM adds memory that Vegas can't use. Or, perhaps more accurately, memory that Vegas can't see. The OS could allocate that additional memory to other applications...

Where you could potentially see an improvement is if you are running other apps at the same time. Like if you were running Photoshop and doing things that take a lot of RAM. Or if you are running a 2nd instance of Vegas and doing a render with it.

And of course you won't get to use the full 4GB of RAM anyway unless you are running a 64 bit operating system (like XP x64) or a version of Windows that uses PAE (Physical Address Extension, which is somewhat of a hack that has its own disadvantages; I think one of the Windows Server 2003 OSs can do it).

Former user wrote on 8/28/2006, 12:34 PM

Also - Win XP will only ever be able to properly access 2GB of RAM...you can fudge the system into thinking it can use more with a few tweaks to boot.ini etc but the gains are minimal at best.

More RAM certainly won't help with the speed of a render.....

erievw wrote on 8/28/2006, 1:06 PM

Thanks for the clear (and quick) replies.

riredale wrote on 8/28/2006, 1:57 PM

Just to add my two cents:

After just finishing a new upgrade to an AMD 3800x2 and an Asus A8V motherboard, I installed 1GB of memory (my older system had 512KB).

The little freeware RamPage indicator in my system tray usually shows the number 500-700, which means that I have 500+ MB of ram sitting fallow. Certainly in some situations I would imagine the extra memory would be very useful, but not for most. With my old 512MB system, I almost never had to go to the pagefile.

RBartlett wrote on 8/28/2006, 2:42 PM

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

The above cites two issues:
1. Microsoft 32bit OS limitations for application environment space and OS space.
2. Software building tools (compilers) bothering to provide >2GB support as standard when building for the likes of XP.

Things are moving on, Sony and Vista must be at least almost friends.

Jayster wrote on 8/28/2006, 2:48 PM

Riredale - if you look at the Windows Task Manager, you'll find that your programs are almost always using the swap file. Go to the processes tab. From the "View" menu, click "Select Columns." Make sure "Virtual Memory Size" is enabled. Virtual memory is the swap file. ("Mem Usage" is RAM. If you turn on the column "Peak Mem Usage" you can see what the max used by your application is).

I did a render of a 1080i project where "Mem Usage" peaked at 1.4 GB. This means that at some point in time the swap file was no more than about 500~600 MB and RAM was 1.4 GB (the total can't go much over 2GB due to address space limitations). If I had less RAM on my system, the numbers would have been slanted to mostly swap file. The swap file is tremendously slower than RAM, thus my render time would have been a whole lot longer.

(Also note: the VM Size also behaves like a peak number, too. This is why it is possible for the sum of the two in Task Manager to be a bit more than 2GB.)

And, actually, I found that when I was using 32-bit Windows XP the total (Mem Usage + VM Size) never quite got up to 2 GB, more like 1.5 GB. This is because 32-bit Windows takes a chunk of the address space for the OS. When I switched to 64-bit XP, I found it was giving the full 2GB of address space to Vegas and my render times got noticeably faster. This really doesn't come into play much for simple, undemanding renders, but it really kicks in for a complex HD project.

Jayster wrote on 8/28/2006, 2:53 PM

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

That is true; I commented a bit about this in other threads.. To take advantage of this a software company must use a compiler switch when they develop their software. Microsoft's development kits even include an executable that can hack a binary and insert this compiler switch. Also the machine has to change the boot.ini file, essentially reducing the amount of address space available to the operating system and giving it to the applications. And PAE has its own pitfalls which are documented by Microsoft.

The better solution is 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit applications. But even running the 32-bit app on the 64-bit OS, the memory management is a lot better, leaving more RAM available to the application from that 2GB address space.

quokka wrote on 8/28/2006, 5:20 PM

We have Vegas on a 2GB RAM system but everytime we set the options of 'Dynamic RAM preview' we can't set it past 1GB.

I'm interested in how some of the above posts said Vegas (as a 32bit XP app) could use 2GB? I was under the impression that the software limited the use of RAM.
Surely the software alone doesn't take up 1GB.

It is great for running multiple instances of Vegas though.

Chienworks wrote on 8/28/2006, 6:33 PM

Dynamic RAM preview has nothing to do with Vegas processing your video. That is memory set aside for rendering portions of the timeline to a RAM-based file for quick previews. This space is completely outside of what Vegas uses to do it's own processing.

riredale wrote on 8/28/2006, 10:12 PM

Jayster:

You may be right about the swap file stuff--I really don't know much about how Windows manages this stuff. One thing, though: if I delete the swap file from my system, then the little RamPage icon should be showing the complete memory demand, right? I'll have to play with this some time.

Another thing: with all this ram available, I don't understand why Windows doesn't keep program chunks loaded in ram. For example, say I open Paint Shop Pro. It takes maybe 5 seconds to start up. Now, if I close it and come back to it 5 minutes later, it again takes 5 seconds. With all this ram, why doesn't Windows just leave the guts of PSP loaded in ram until some other higher priority needs the space?

DJPadre wrote on 8/28/2006, 10:59 PM

it WILL make a difference when working with Stills, PNG's and Targa sequences.. not THAT much of a difference, but a difference nonetheless...
Im still on 1gb...
V5, DID use Ram (everything was buffered into it before output) but now V6 doesnt do this unless ur working with stills or QT

Grazie wrote on 8/29/2006, 12:12 AM

Can somebody please tell me why more RAM would speed up Vegas? I mean this - I really do.

I think of RAM as a volatile feature to hold all the balls in the air WHILE stuff is being either done to it OR it is being used to set up programs to ALLOW for stuff to be done to something else. I can image MORE RAM allowing for more stuff to be done. But adding more RAM makes that PC do more? I can understand FASTER RAM being used to and creating faster and faster access to programs and functions and thence this could make a process somewhat faster? But why should adding more RAM improve/enhance render times? More RAM is just a larger warehouse? The speed of the forklift trucks may have conceivably got a wee bit faster, but increasing the size of the warehouse means it can hold more stuff? In which case I could feasibly make an observation - undoubtedly incorrect - that a bigger warehouse=moreRAM means that more stuff can be held and needing to be manage and in turn turn THAT places more strain on the CPU?

Look, I don't hear, see, read or have been told that Vegas makes use of extra RAM to do the things Herm thought could/would happen. What I can tell you is that when I went from a 1gHtz P3 Laptop running 250RAM up to a 3.2 P4 with 2gb Ram I suddenly was astonished by the render and preview speeds I now get. And before you jump on me and say "Ah-ha! More RAM!" But this was the faster CPU and NOT the RAM. If I'd added more RAM to my Laptop this would NOT have Vegas's use if it - it would just have been more expense!

We are often told Vegas is hardware agnostic. But giving it a faster CPU does make it fly - I know this. Adding more RAM would require Vegas to be coded to make/take advantage of extra lumps of RAM as a kinda hardware solution? It has stayed away from the issues of needing separate cards and so on. There HAS to be a reason why this has been done? Maybe it is to do with the experience/issues "others" have had in the past with hardware compatibilities - render cards and so on? Having Vegas coded to accept more RAM as a potential volatile rendering option - even for my small IT brain - could open up the can of worms around providing "fixes" for all the various and many types of RAM configs out there. What do you think about that then?

What I see with Vegas is that it will make use of faster and more efficient CPUs. Can this have been a conscious decision by the Madison crowd - to keep and improve a stable NLE? To keep improving a stable NLE that WILL adapt and adopt any OTHER pc improves that come along? Faster CPUs; more CPUs (duallies - double duallies - quad duallies! ) and generally faster and more efficient OSs - yeah?

My 2 pees worth.

( we HAVE been here before .. we WILL be here again . . )

Steve Mann wrote on 8/29/2006, 1:05 AM

"Can somebody please tell me why more RAM would speed up Vegas? I mean this - I really do."

More RAM would speed up any process *if* you are coming from a minimal RAM size to start with.

Windows will *run* with 256Mb of RAM, but it will use most of it just to run, leaving nothing for applications, thus the constant swapping virtual memory in and out of the hard-disk which makes everything run slow.

Windows and a few applications will run in 512Mb of RAM with little virtual disk swapping going on, and Windows on 2Gb of RAM will run most applications without using the virtual disk.

Steve M.

Grazie wrote on 8/29/2006, 1:32 AM

Steve? I kinda knew that. I thought my analogy of the warehouse was an attempt to describe how I understand this. More RAM is more volitile real estate for the WHOLE pc. As far as I can tell this is not the same as Vegas making direct "use" of it?

I realise that things can get out of the way from the Vegas-process if more ram is slotted in, and yes, of course from a minimal setup too - but apart from providing LARGER previewing build where exactly is it stated that Vegas makes use of more RAM - here for speeding up? Our examples are using extra RAM in spite of what Vegas does. Not because Vegas makes use of it? I don't see a submenu saying "Click here to make use of RAM for faster rendering" or faster previewing builds? And yes I can see an option to designate more than 1 thread for rendering.

Now it maybe something we would wish - but how/where does Vegas make use of more RAM? And Herm's original question demonstrates he (he?) has an understanding of the value of adding more RAM by him asking that exact question? Along the lines of - well I added more RAM? So where's the improvement? This to me implies he does have an expectation of improvement
in speeds for Vegas to make use of? And I guess here IS the crux of it. Extra RAM - as you rightly point out - can and does make s/w perform better - the disk swap efficiency. But this is NOT the same as Vegas making direct use of that extra RAM to perform better. It may well perform better because the whole pc is performing better. But that is different.

DJPadre wrote on 8/29/2006, 3:40 AM

actually its not the ram that makes vegas perform better.. teh increased ram inherantly increases ur pagefile size (if ur letting windows allocate the PF which most people do... in turn allowing more throughput and calculations to be buffered within the pagefile prior to output.
As for the video, its buffered through the pagefile, then ram (or vice versa) and the more u have, the better it will perform in THAT regard.. doesnt mean ur rendering is faster it means theres more room for your rendering/previewing calculations to occur... before being output...

dont forget.. this is all maths.. the larger the chalkboard, the more computations u can fit within that stream (Or on that board)
but thats about it..
however in vegas' case it no longer uses the ram or pagefile as intently as it used to in V5... the only time is uses the PF/Ram is when its doing conversions during rendering, such as Targa sequences to DV

farss wrote on 8/29/2006, 3:48 AM

I would think if you were trying to render a large number of HD tracks with all of them being composites more RAM might help. I have no clue as to where Vegas buffers frames while it does calcs on them but certainly if it had to start swapping them out to disk things would slow down enourmously.

But also doesn't Windoz have a disk cache, more cache is better?

All that aside though more RAM = higher chance for bits to flip and things to get ugly. One of my clients bought a new Mac nearly 12 months ago with oodles of RAM. Only recently did he get it to run reliably. Took swapping the RAM twice to get the gremlins out of it. He's the second Mac user I know of who has had this problem, I wonder also how many OS crashes on the Windoz side are caused by dodgy RAM.

Bob.

DavidSinger wrote on 8/29/2006, 5:02 AM

Exactly why you pay the price for "matched" ram.

To increase ram, I go so far as to remove the existing ram (give it away), and insert totally new ram sticks that are matched.
To me this is no different than making sure the two tires on front of the vehicle are matched, and the two on back are matched, and ideally all four are matched (circle-track setup excepted).

Matching makes a huge difference when you are [driv][comput]ing for performance.

Jonathan Neal wrote on 8/29/2006, 5:06 AM

Why not create a RAM drive and put footage on that? Seems to me that you could place your footage on the RAM and then it can read/write to it much faster, off-load the hard-drive, and improve the speed of everything. Right?

JJKizak wrote on 8/29/2006, 5:13 AM

They already tried that. It's slower.

JJK

grh wrote on 8/29/2006, 5:20 AM

> But also doesn't Windoz have a disk cache, more cache is better?

Yes, Windoze uses a disk cache, but caching is bad. The overhead of moving pages of virtual memory to/from the drive is an impediment to performance. That's why having physical memory is, in general, a good thing. The problem is that XP can only handle so much memory, and a given process (i.e. an instance of Vegas) can only take advantage of so much real memory. There are practical limits at play.

Default space is 2GB per process, with the ability to use the boot-time /3GB switch. Although that affects every process, which may create overhead. Best bet is to read the referenced microsoft.com article.

Jayster wrote on 8/29/2006, 8:14 AM

A couple of things about RAM and swap files... First, Windows ALWAYS uses the swap file. Doesn't matter if you have gobs of excess, currently unused RAM. Windows has its own optimization logic where the most frequently used data gets primed in RAM and less frequently used data gets paged to the swap file. I can't answer all the whys and mores about it; this is a general thing. It allows you to use more application "memory" than what is physically available, which of course means little to users with boatloads of RAM.

This is also done in UNIX. It is far superior to what the older Macintosh operating systems did. They allocated a fixed amount of RAM to an application, whether it needed it or not. And if they couldn't use what they had, or if you loaded too many apps, things would go awry. (Of course the newer MAC OSs are much much better than that.)

As far as keeping programs in memory, even after the user closes it, well that's actually not a good idea. Most software (major apps, anyway) has bugs, memory leaks (some small some large), etc. When the program is unloaded all of this gets cleaned up. Left alone, a memory leak can cause instability and crashes. I've heard that Vista will have a feature where they preload your most frequently-loaded apps so that you'll see quick loading times. And that it will be possible to turn off this feature. Personally I think i'd prefer it to be off. The more stuff you have running in the background, the less resources you have for the rest. That "idle" program in memory can still be draining some of the horsepower you'd want during a render.

Jayster wrote on 8/29/2006, 8:20 AM

Regarding the big question (from Grazie): how is more RAM going to make Vegas faster, and why? Well it really depends on the kind and complexity of the project you are rendering in Vegas, what FXs, etc. It is true that the CPU is the number one bottleneck in a really complex render. What is the CPU doing? Well, its crunching on the data that it has loaded into RAM. If you are doing a simple cut edit on one video track, the RAM used probably isn't much and more RAM would be useless. But some things require fast availability of a lot more data. Loading stills and QT files can be a good example (as someone mentioned before). If you are doing lots of compositing, Vegas is working with multiple frames simultaneously (not just crunching the frame on track one, for example), thus there is a heck of a lot more data to work with. With RAM being hundreds of times faster than HD, render time would be a lot faster in these cases because the data is loaded into fast RAM.

It also depends on the efficiency of the software. If the app keeps data in RAM when it is no longer needed, it would start swapping to the hard disk unnecessarily, unless you have a ton of RAM. I have seen that Vegas 6 is far more efficient than Vegas 5 in this regard (I observed this HD projects using CFDI). The total amount of memory in use at a given moment is less, which means that it is either unloading what it finished sooner, or it is biting off less at a time.

And make no mistake, the "law of diminishing returns" applies in a big way. A system with 128KB of RAM will hugely benefit from adding another 128 KB of RAM. A system with 2GB of RAM will gain little if anything from adding more RAM, unless it is using multiple, demanding apps at the same time or it has a huge database server running.

Also, RAM is really generic (for the most part). Video cards are so varied that they might offer all kinds of optimizations. But RAM is at such a low level that there really wouldn't be any "hardware acceleration" analagous to GPU acceleration.

Photoshop does offer configuration options for how much RAM can be used up by the app. PS is actually (in my opinion) better than Vegas in this respect. If you have a 64 bit system, PS can use more RAM. Why is this important? Take a high resolution photoshop file that has a lot of data layers (e.g. compositing) and it'll use a lot of memory. Try batch processing on a bunch of these images and it'll use even more RAM. But for the average Joe who wants to take the red-eye out of a jpg this is irrelevant. But also the options in PS are a courtesy to other apps on a person's machine. By limiting the amount of RAM that PS can take, it allows other apps to run on the machine.