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Anyone made the 2gb to 3 gb jump?

polycounter lvl 19
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poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
I'm considering swapping one of my 1gb ramchips for a 2gb ramchip. Has anyone done this, and if yes, noticed improvements in mudbox/max/photoshop?

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  • Hito
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    Hito interpolator
    photoshop opens up alot faster. haven't noticed much difference in mudbox
  • rollin
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    rollin polycounter
    only in ps BUT: .. i switched from 1 to 3 gb and its like the difference between day and night
  • Mark Dygert
    I jumped to 2gb and it improved PS especially the speed of long actions and painting strokes on big canvas's. It didn't do much for Max that much in terms of speed. Where I see it effect max is in rendering, I can que up a few long renders and not have it crash due to lack of memory. It also cut down on the time it takes to switch from PS > Max > Mudbox. But that was being counted in milliseconds so I wouldn't upgrade just for that.
  • rawkstar
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    rawkstar polycounter lvl 19
    i have not really noticed any difference between 1gb and 4gb... maybe if i get 16gb i'll see some improvements...
  • Striff
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    Striff polycounter lvl 18
    I went from 1 gig to 4 gigs of RAM...and It was QUITE a difference. Having Photoshop/Maya/Zbrush and another program open doesn't even make the computer hickup.

    You will notice a large diffrence.
  • McIlroy
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    McIlroy polycounter lvl 17
    [ QUOTE ]
    I'm considering swapping one of my 1gb ramchips for a 2gb ramchip. Has anyone done this, and if yes, noticed improvements in mudbox/max/photoshop?

    poop.gif

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I might be retarded for asking this but don't you have to have the exact same size chips to get double data rate ?
  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    I just upgrade from 2GB to 4GB. XP 32bit only supports 3GB of course. Still, I noticed I can have many more apps open, and Photoshop/Max generally run a bit faster. Windows Vista is much faster overall, with 4GB than 2GB. I think that's the 'sweet spot' for Vista, much like 2GB has been with XP.
  • rollin
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    rollin polycounter
    [ QUOTE ]
    i have not really noticed any difference between 1gb and 4gb... maybe if i get 16gb i'll see some improvements...

    [/ QUOTE ]

    what are you doing? working on 64^2 textures with one layer?? tongue.gif
  • Ryno
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    Ryno polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah, it really depends on what you're doing. Photoshop is a pig, and can really benefit from extra memory if you're working on large psds. On a recent project we were doing textures at 2048, and in our psds we'd have layer groups for diffuse, spec, normal, and sometimes damage. These files could get fairly large even if we were fairly ruthless in merging layers down. Most were in the 200 meg range or so.

    Now take into account that I tend to be the color correction guy here, and I'd often have 2 or three of these large psds open, color correcting elements of them so that they matched. This would have been a total pain with less than 2 gigs of memory. Photoshop would just drag to a crawl, and previewing anything would have been difficult.

    I was working with 2 gigs of memory which was tolerable, but just upgraded to 3 plus a new graphics card. I'm definitely getting better performance now.
  • EarthQuake
    [ QUOTE ]
    [ QUOTE ]
    I'm considering swapping one of my 1gb ramchips for a 2gb ramchip. Has anyone done this, and if yes, noticed improvements in mudbox/max/photoshop?

    poop.gif

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I might be retarded for asking this but don't you have to have the exact same size chips to get double data rate ?

    [/ QUOTE ]

    You need 2 indenticle sticks to do dual-channel, i'de go for 4 gigs before 3. Theres things you can do to get windows to use up to 3 gigs per app, leaving a gig free for the OS. Some /3gig switch in some ini file, i dont remember....
  • conte
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    conte polycounter lvl 18
    nice one, Ben! good question.
    >I just upgrade from 2GB to 4GB. XP 32bit only supports 3GB of course
    umm, i thought xp supports only 2 gigs, not 3
  • ebagg
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    ebagg polycounter lvl 17
    So... I got XP, and it only supports 2gbs right, does that mean if I had 4gbs, 2gbs would be completely useless?
  • Emil Mujanovic
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    Emil Mujanovic polycounter lvl 18
    Well I've had 2GB for quite a while, I couldn't test the difference from jumping 1GB to 2GB mainly because I got an entire setup in the one hit. But it seems to be enough for the crap I do.

    -caseyjones
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us

    Microsoft says XP Professional supports 4gb of RAM. However, I think only 3gb can be used on programs which support it.
    WinXP 64bit can use 4Gb RAM for 32-bit apps if they support it.
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Yeah at work we had to upgrade from 2gig ram to 3gig ram, we use XP Pro and we could not upgrade to 4gig, not sure what the reason was something to do with the particular pc's we are using. Basically the opening Maya + Photoshop + pipeline left us with zero ram so we had to go to 3gig to finish our game.
  • tpe
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    tpe polycounter lvl 18
    As mop says you can getXP to support more than 2gb or ram but you have to set a switch in the boot.ini if the pc didnt come with more than 2gb before xp was installed, otherwise it wont address it when you upgrade.

    tim
  • BRUTICUS(CW)
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    BRUTICUS(CW) polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    I just upgrade from 2GB to 4GB. XP 32bit only supports 3GB of course. Still, I noticed I can have many more apps open, and Photoshop/Max generally run a bit faster. Windows Vista is much faster overall, with 4GB than 2GB. I think that's the 'sweet spot' for Vista, much like 2GB has been with XP.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I thought the same thing... Is that not the case anymore? Or only with certani types of RAM. I have an XPS but I dont even know hat type of ram it uses. I want to upgrade to 4 Gigs but it seems really expensive for a 2 gig chip! I hope the prices go down sometime soon.
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    I think my mac only supports 2gb but an upgrade from 1gb to 2gb is certainly next on the shopping list... I'm a bit poor right now

    the 24" mac supports 3gb and the Mac Pro supports something insane like 64gb
  • Super
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    Super polycounter lvl 18
    I went from 1.5GB to 3GB 6 months ago. I have noticed *NO* difference. Zbrush/Mudbox still perform the same (1m+ polys and it chugs). Photoshop still has a hard time opening while Maya/Mudbox running. Whats annoying is, despite me setting the /3GB switch and Windows seeing it, it doesn't seem to *USE* the additional RAM, instead it maxes out the Page File.

    I've got Opera, Mudbox, Windows Media Player and Maya open right now.. total PF useage is 1.1GB, *available* pyshical mem is 2.2GB. What the hell!
  • tpe
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    tpe polycounter lvl 18
    If you are not getting any difference in performance after a memory upgrade then change the boot ini reference

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/information/bootini.mspx

    hth

    tim
  • Naked Templar
    i got a AMD Athlon x2 5200+
    and 2gb of RAm

    its flash gordon on crack.
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    [ QUOTE ]
    Buy 4, it's not expensive.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    My problem is that it is, I have a laptop, so only two slots, 300 bux a stick, makes for 600. It's not *that* pricey, but I wanted to make sure it would be a good upgrade, hence the thread. Sounds like it would be though, so I'll be saving up for it. Thanks for the feedback guys.

    poop.gif
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