dynamic ram....

ushere wrote on 11/7/2006, 10:21 PM
i know it's been done to death, but i've got to explain it to a bunch of students and though i've read the archives, i'm still missing out on:

a. a clear explanation of what it actually does, other than speed up effects in a selection on the timeline for preview.

b. whether it affects (ie. the amount used) when normal rendering in v7 (i keep reading it slowed it down in 6 with the wrong settings).

c. the optimum settings for v7 (probably percentage-wise since there's a variety of ram installed in peoples computers)

thanks for your patience,

leslie

Comments

Serena wrote on 11/7/2006, 11:36 PM
Dynamic RAM is most obviously used when you select a lump of timeline and hit shift+b to render for full speed preview of effects. The more RAM set the longer the length you can render. However Vegas says (as I'm sure you know) that this setting can reduce preview speed by causing paging. And ForumAdmin advised (yesterday) that the default setting is optimum, because default is determined according to you machine (so we can't say 153MB is what you should use). ForumAdmin also said it must not be set to 0. I'm not sure that I want to reset Vegas to default, so now I've no idea what was set on installation -- vaguely I recall it was quite high, about 600MB, so I cut it back.
So I'll join you expressing interest in the answer to this question!
ushere wrote on 11/8/2006, 4:57 AM
thanks serena.

it really is very confusing, and to be honest, i really don't have that much time (nor interest) in running tests to find out optimum settings. like you i remember it being fairly high, however, since most of my work is generally cut to cut, and having a1gig ram, i set it to 128mb - keeping it in round ram figures. everything works ok, so i'm happy enough,

BUT, ii would really like to know why, and how, sony arrive at their optimum figure on install.

other than that, v7's got my thumbs up.

leslie
fldave wrote on 11/8/2006, 9:02 PM
I hate to beat this to death, also. But my testing showed that my best render times were with Dynamic RAM set to 0 or 128. 16 or 64 were the worst settings, directly and significantly affecting overall render time.

By Forum Admin saying to not set it to zero is them acknowledging that there is some overall system requirement for some value in there, affecting not just ram previews, but renders as well.

So now when I am editing, I set it to about 1GB (I have 2GB RAM), then for render, I try to remember to set it to 128.

Gee, I wonder what the mystery about this is. A clear explanation from Sony would be helpful, instead of "don't do that."

"Doctor it hurts when I do this." Doctor: "Don't do that"
bakerja wrote on 11/9/2006, 6:01 AM
I've been tossing this one around in my head since V6 also. Dynamic Ram in V5 was KILLER! It had no impact (that I could see) on rendering performance or preview performance. Since V6, everytime I try ANY setting other than 0 I see problems. My preview frame rates drop off really quick with any setting other than 0. I have only 1gb in my machine and I am sure that another gig would help, but I use a laptop and would have to replace my 2-512's with 2-1gb sticks (more money than I want to spend right now) to get to 2gb.

I would like to hear why we should not use 0. or, better yet, fix the dynamic ram thing all together so that preview fram rate would not degrade.

Thanks,
JAB