Ram Question-Doesnt belong anywhere else

[Kingnog]

I couldnt find a specific forum that this question fits into, but:

I have a pentium 4 1.6ghz computer; I use it mostly for games and dvd backups. I have 256 mb PC133 (around there somewhere) SDram, and I know I need more to put the full power of my computer to use. My question is, will adding more RAM increase game or dvd backup speeds (or at least let me use my computer during a dvd backup)? Also, is there a way to upgrade to a faster-speed ram, and will this help?

[Gazorgan]

Generally speaking? No.

256 MB RAM is fine for backups. Going to 512 MB generally won't speed anything up. It does matter for games somewhat. It also depends on your OS. 98 doesn't do much with anything over 256 MB, whereas W2K/XP will.

You probably can't use faster RAM. You can experiment with your ram timing settings in BIOS, but this is only a 1-10% speed improvement.

[Kingnog]

Well...is there a big difference between PC133sdram and DDR ram? and is there a way to upgrade to the new 2100 speed rams? 133 compared to 2100....mine seems very slow

[SaSi]

P4 1.6 and SDRAM? Sounds odd, unless you have one of the first P4 motherboards that used SDRAM for compatibility. If so, not much you can do. Read the motherboard manual to find out what kind of memory it supports. DDR RAM is doubling the bus frequency to 266 (as a minimum) achieving (supposedly) double speed in memory operations. Don't expect this alone to double your PC's speed, that is if your motherboard supports DDR memory.

DDR has come from 266 to 333 MHz and now to 400MHz. For these you must replace your motherboard.

Very roughly speaking, if you get a brand new motherboard that supports DDR333 and a P4/2GHz, you should expect a 50~80% increase in speed (compared to P4/1.6GHz and PCI 133 MHz SDRAM). That should cost you (rougly again) $250.

If you work with video, you will probably need to work with files larger than 4Gb. Windows 98 and Me don't support this. For that you need to go to 2000 or XP (I tried XP and returned to 2000) and convert your disks to NTFS. 512 MB RAM is much better and PC performance is smoother. I have 1Gb and can't claim better performance. Anyway, Windows always claim that half a Gig is free RAM all the time while dealing with Video.

[Greg12]

with all that ram (512 or more) u can force windows to load into the ram and not page itself to disk.

This will cause an increase in speed.

[Kingnog]

Aww, man....I was hoping I wouldnt have to play around with my motherboard...that always causes major problems. Now im very sad....stupid Dell people, giving me cheap RAM...LOL! Everything else was top notch when I bought this thing a year ago...EXCEPT THE RAM! lol. So you say increasing RAM (even sdram) from 256 to 512 WILL increase performance? by a lot?
Oh yeah...I have WinXP[/b]

[disturbed1]

Here's a pic of what CCE uses on my system



If you use apps that are ram hogs (CCE, anything adobe, some newsreaders, Avid apps etc...) you'll notice a huge speed increase by increase the amount of ram.

There is difference between SDRAM, DDRAM, and RDRAM. SDRAM being the slowest, and DDR, and Rambus being much faster.

[Kingnog]

But!!! Will increasing my cheap, slow, retarded SDram increase speeds noticeably?

[SaSi]

The answer is always yes. How noticeably, is another question. Now, regarding the very interesting screen-capture of memory usage by CCE, and because CCE just happens to be encoding in the background I was curious to verify the situation.

Out of the 1024MB I have, 554Mb are free RAM. I have quite a few programs loaded (my PC's memory is as cluttered as my desk) and CCE is currently using 71% ofthe CPU, 112MB of RAM out of 194Mb or Virtual memory space (meaning 80Mb or so are swapped onto disk). You can't fool Windows not to use the swap file. It appears windows prefer to swap out than allocate more of the free RAM).

I am surprised that "disturbed1"'s CCE is using all that RAM. What OS version is it? I'm using W2KSP2.

What's more interesting is the CCE is taking it's pace. ONLY 71% of the CPU? Even in the screenshot, it says 91. Other encoders strive for 99%. CCE seems to be "polite". And is that much faster than Tmpgenc even with so low CPU usage. Wooaooo!

[disturbed1]

I am surprised that "disturbed1"'s CCE is using all that RAM. What OS version is it? I'm using W2KSP2.

It's XP Pro. CCE version 2.66, frameserved via avisynth beta 2.5 with a couple of filters - mpeg2dec, MSharpen, convolution3d, bicubic resize to add overscan areas and to optimize for blocks - at a whopping speed of .78

I have 1500mb of RDRAM (PC800) with windows default swap file. I've disabled the swap, configured it for a set size (1024), and put it others drives (I have 4 hard drives), but didn't notice a meaningfull difference so after a fresh install I left it alone.

The memory usage depends (for me) on the resolution, and parameters of the avisynth file. A basic 720x480 avs file with no resize, only mpeg2dec plugin uses 256,000 - 260,000 useage, with a speed of 1.6 - 1.8.

[SaSi]

While I noticed the 71% CPU utilization, CCE was doing a first pass CBR encoding. I am now doing a 3-pass VBR and CCE is consuming 91~95% of the CPU. It seems utilization is also affected by the type of encoding it makes.

[disturbed1]

Here's the same script, settings etc. This is during the second pass, and a lot fewer programs running (22 vs. 35!) The above shot is from the first pass (VAF).

I guess the script doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.



I did change the priority though, don't think this would much of an effect on ram usage, at least not double.

Maybe CCE does a check to see how much RAM you have and then buffers as much as possible.

Since most encoding takes place in RAM, the more you have and the faster it is, the faster you can encode.

Guess I do need that new P4 with PC1066 RDRAM (cha-ching $$ )

[Kingnog]

You guys forgot about me, or what? :arrow:

[SaSi]

You guys forgot about me, or what? :arrow:

Sorry Kingnog, we haven't. I think I gave you an answer in my previous posting. Increasing RAM will always improve performance and responsiveness. At least, RAM will be used for disk cache's functions and with big files, this helps. Now, regarding how much it will help DVD backups (sorry, can't offer an opinion on games), depends.

512MB is enough for any DVD conversion (in my opinion).

Ripping will not substantially improve. Ensuring UDMA is enabled on the DVD-ROM will. A faster DVD-ROM always does. If you rip at more than x8 then you're probably ok.

Any conversion will not improve beyond 512MB. However, a second disk will help much more. Read the file from one disk and save it on another. Can give more than 50% increase.

Encoding also is doubtful to improve. I still have CCE running and using 150MB (only ). Can't understand why it uses 1Gb on another machine, but perhaps in XP it uses more memory. In any case, MPEG-2 encoding is not by itself memory hungry. Making DVD compliant streams imposes limitations that limit the encoder's interest in less than 30 or so frames so it doesn't have to use more than 30Mb for frame strorage in memory.

What I have found to be more drastically helpful (with lot's of RAM) is a tweak in the registry that forces Windows to store all of the kernel in RAM (and not swap the kernel on disk). I have tried that once and it did help a lot. Sadly, after a recent re-install of everything, I can't find the article and re-do this tweak.

And to go back on the basics. What is the Motherboard type you have? Does it take DDR RAM? Let us know the specifics and perhaps we can help you more.

Regards

[disturbed1]

You guys forgot about me, or what? :arrow:

No, it was just in a round about way to decipher it

Maybe CCE does a check to see how much RAM you have and then buffers as much as possible.

Since most encoding takes place in RAM, the more you have and the faster it is, the faster you can encode.

It was hidden inbetween.

Get what you can spare to spend. You can only gain by getting the fastest RAM available, and as much as you can get. Buying the faster PC1066 RDRAM, or PC400 (?) DDR will only be less future upgrade.

I won't look at anything under 512 DDR 333mhz

[Kingnog]

Dvd ripping at 8x or higher??? Omg! Wow.....I rip at 1.6, if im lucky! Im using smartripper....my drive can supposedly go up to 16x, and I used to be able to go up to 4, but now the maximum is 1.6 (and maaaybe 2). How in the world do i fix this? Wow...Anyway, how do I find out what my motherboard is? Ive been trying to, but i cant find a detailed description. (plus, im way too lazy). Another problem for me is my horrible 40gb (thank god its at least 7200rpm) hard drive, which came with over 10gb already full. Lol. Plus i cant really afford a new hard drive, so im stuck with my 16 or so gb left (i have 2gb left when im done with a movie ) So thats the story of my pathetic financial situation...im sure you dont really care, but i need to vent my sadness

[SaSi]

My friend, slow memory is not your problem. And you are certainly not lazy if you do DVD ripping and MPEG encoding with your system

The 40Gb HD won't get you anywhere. This is the first thing to take care about. In the meantime, have it spend a night to defragment. Don't rip before you defragment.

Ripping at 1.6 with a x16 drive is pathetic (and normal if DMA is not enabled on the drive). Go to control panel, system, hardware, Device Manager, and within Device Manager drill down to IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Check the primary and secondary IDE channel and in advanced settings make sure Transfer mode is set to DMA If available. The default (for reasons unknown) is PIO Only. This kills performance.

(If it's already in DMA Mode, then your 7200rpm drive is probably very very badly fragmented.)

You will have to reboot afterwards and then go back there again to check the current transfer mode. If ULTRA DMA mode is not enabled, then your HD, CD or DVD drives don't support it, although I can hardly think of a 7200rpm HD or a 16x DVD-ROM not operating in Ultra DMA mode).

Come back with your results and budget for a second disk. 80-120 GB are the best value for money these days, however if you can only afford a 40Gb, then wait a bit longer. Don't buy now what you will regret soon.

[Kingnog]

Well, UltraDMA mode was enabled, and I defragmented/'optimized' my harddrive with the Norton Speeddisk thing (I cant stand the defragmenbter that came with winxp) and...nothing! Absolutely nothing changed. Im ripping with smartripper, and i even tried DVD decrypter...1.7x was the max i got. Any other suggestions? Hehe

[Kingnog]

Anyone? Hello? Why is my smartripper doing this? 16x dvd drive speed, but only 1.6x rip!

[SaSi]

If you are still stuck at 1.6x, then perhaps it's your DVD-ROM. Some are "crippled" to perform ripping at low speeds. My SONY DRU500A can read DVD-ROM at 8x but rips at <2x. On the other hand, my DVD-ROM (Pioneer 116) rips at > 5x and up to 11x, depending on the DVD inserted.

Of course, the above is assuming that your disk CAN write at faster speeds. 1.6x means 1380x1.6 = 2,2 MBPS sustained write speed. Any UltraDMA Hard disk should be able to exceed this. You can use VirtualDUBs AuxSetup program that has a nice benchmark utility to check write speed of your hard drive.

Finally, it may be possible that your PC isn't up to top notch performance. It is a real possibility and something to keep in mind for your next upgrade