conversion times versus amount of RAM

[randytsuch]

I am trying to decide if I should keep some RAM I just bought, so I tryed a little experiment.

TMPGENC settings were, Highest quality motion search, constant quality 8000 max bit rate, 704x480.
Converted a 1hour, 35 minute video.

With 512 M of PC 4000 ram, running at DDR520, took 10 hrs, 50 mins.

With 256 M of PC 2700 Ram, running at DDR350, took 11hrs, 20 mins.

That's only around 5% difference in speed, using 1/2 the amount of slower RAM.

One other difference, with 256, FSB speed was 265, with 512 it was 260.

Randy

[mats.hogberg]

As expected. Encoding is almost 100% depending on processor speed.

/Mats

[Gazorgan]

Yep, it's nearly 100% processor based. The true difference you experienced is actually just plain old XP. You need a minimum of 512 MB to do anything useful. It will run with 256 MB, but really 512 is much better.

[hhhhbk]

on my old xp1700 256mb ram i stuck an extra 512mb ram in barely noticed the difference

when i got my new xp2600pc 512mbram it appears to do video editing tasks a fair bit quicker i think the new xvid codec has something to do with it also(in my case)

[randytsuch]

Yep, it's nearly 100% processor based. The true difference you experienced is actually just plain old XP. You need a minimum of 512 MB to do anything useful. It will run with 256 MB, but really 512 is much better.

Curious about this statement. I am running xp pro, and it seems to work fine with one 256 mb stick of RAM. Right now, I am leaning towards returning my 512mb of PC4000, and just using my cheap stick of 256. So far, I have not seen any problems, or real performance hits in the things I am doing at home.

BTW, I have seen people recommend buying 1g of ram for heavy video rendering. Glad I did not go that route.

Randy

[Gazorgan]

I have 512 MB or RAM at home (W2K, less of a RAM hog) and I routinely run out of RAM. It's not from encoding, it's from doing other things. 256 would definately bog down a LOT!!! For an 'average' user they can get buy on 256 Mb, just don't have 3 torrents open, be editing video, and 3 webpages up....

1 GB is probably overkill for 99.9% of users. The remaining 0.1% know what they are doing and have the 1 or 2 GB :P