Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic

James Kitching · Posted - Thu Aug 09, 2001 7:08 pm

Since memory is selling at firesale prices, $29 ea, I am tempted to purchase 2 256 meg 133 128 pin mem from tigerdirect.com to upgrade from my 128 and 64 100 mem sticks.

I am using a 503+ MB with an 400 AMD K6-2 processor. Has anyone doon this and gotten a good result with Cool edit?

It works ok most of the time, but I occasionaly get skips in recording.
Mu hard drive is defragged, and cleaned of junk.

jdechant · Posted - Fri Aug 10, 2001 6:56 am

depends on what OS you are running... Windows 95/98/ME do not support more than 128Mb RAM, so if you are running one of these it really makes no sense to go above 128...

Windows NT/2000 will support as much memory as you have(I think)... I am running Windows 2000 with 256MB PC-166 SDRAM and all of my audio programs perform much better on it than they would on 95/98/ME... 2000 is a much more stable OS...

Also, try disabling "Live upadate during recording" in the options, settings menu... on my older system I always got skips in the recordings and it stopped when I disabled "Live update during recording"

Peace

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

2Bdecided · Posted - Fri Aug 10, 2001 1:36 pm

Indeed - it's a second processor that those OSs don't support - they'll use as much RAM as your machine can handle.

btw, James, you should be able to get skip-free recordings with the hardware you currently have. Cool Edit will work on the most basic system. When it originally came out, the kind of system you have wasn't even dreamt of - but it still worked fine on machines of the day. I've used an AMD 333MHz processor with 64MB of RAM with Cool Edit Pro, and experienced no problems.

To solve the skips, try playing with the buffer settings (see the help file within CE, and FAQ on this website for details).

Cheers,
David.
P.S. You can still add more memory - the current prices are great and it might come in useful - it probably won't help your skipping problem though.

jdechant · Posted - Fri Aug 10, 2001 2:04 pm

Whoops... my mistake... don't know what I was thinking... Windows 95/98/ME will only support up to 512Mb RAM... after that you may run into some problems...

sorry bout that

shagrock · Location: USA

jdechant · Posted - Sat Aug 11, 2001 7:42 am

i didn't say it wouldn't run with above 512... you just may have problems... for example running some dos or 16-bit programs... microsoft says that if you have more than 512MB of physical ram in 95/98/ME that you should limit your caches and stuff to 512 or less, or you WILL have trouble because 95/98/ME aren't 100% 32-bit systems... unlike NT/2000 which are full 32-bit multi-tasking systems... win 95/98/ME are not multi-tasking systems

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

This is quite useful in information terms, although I'm not convinced that it's always a good idea to let Windows manage your virtual memory (swap file) - the OS wastes quite a lot of time by frequently resizing it!

http://www.aumha.org/a/memmgmtz.htm

Steve

Edited by - SteveG on 08/11/2001 08:36:54 AM

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

Winch · Posted - Tue Aug 14, 2001 7:05 am

Graeme, could you elaborate on that last post for us fixed file swap dummies (I don't have aclue what you're talkin about but it sounds interesting)

MERRICK · Posted - Wed Aug 15, 2001 10:08 am

Yes RAM is cheap but you get what you pay for. First>Win 98 supports up to 512MB RAM; after that you must make changes to Vcache in the system.ini file in order to use more RAM. I have 512MB. Now this is important> after using CAS 3 PC 133 RAM, I switched to CAS 2 PC 133 RAM. This was one of the top 5 tweaks I made to my system for improved speed and performance. 256MB of CAS 2 RAM is better than 512MB of CAS 3 (in Win 9 Cool

IMHO.

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

jester700 · Posted - Wed Aug 15, 2001 12:08 pm

Regarding RAM latency: whether faster or more memory will run better is a function of each program & how it uses memory. Most don't take that much advantage of >256MB; that's why less but faster can work better. After all, publishers know that few people HAVE >256MB, at least for now. But in a DV editing prog with 3d animation...it might well be a different story.

Any tweakers should also see how far they can bump their bus speed while maintaining stability...

shagrock · Location: USA

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

shagrock · Location: USA

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

RC · Posted - Sun Aug 19, 2001 1:36 pm

RC · Posted - Sun Aug 19, 2001 1:38 pm

invader9000 · Posted - Tue Aug 21, 2001 3:26 am

Hi all! Back in business huh?
Well I have just upgraded my RAM from 192MB to 256 MB. I have not tested CEP yet, but here's what i believe abouth RAM/Swap issues:
More RAM, causes the system to use less swap file oprations, such as HD reads-writes, swap file resizing and that is because the OS load more data into RAM which is the advantage of faster data manipulation and use.
So, this is a very nice thing to have much RAM, even if it is not needed. Iti is cheap and useful.
Now about Graeme's thoughts about 3x. CEP manipulates large files and if you consider the virtual wave that is created, this makes memory usage more important. Now the more RAM a system has, the less swap file is created, but when you work with large files, like a wave, you should consider the swap thing more carefully. CEP in a pc with much RAM will load the virtual file into RAM and all other operations will be performed into RAM, and swap file will be creted only if RAM fills up. So, RAM/swap ratio cannot be different from the "more RAM, less swap" BUT, with more space available for the swap creation for CEP operations, than e.g. Word or Excel.
I believe that with my 256MB of RAM, a size of 500MB swapfile will be enough. We have the appropriate tools to check this out dont't we?

Winch · Posted - Tue Aug 21, 2001 12:02 pm

Thanks Graeme for the explanation. I had forgot I asked the question until I read this thread again. I just order 128m to add to my 96m (which will only become 192 IF the old and new are compatible). I've got a 500MHz AMD-K6, 13g HD. Do you think I should go for the RAM upgrade? Being that it should be in my mail box when I get home I'm going to try it anyway!

Winch · Posted - Tue Aug 21, 2001 1:36 pm

YeeHaw, I've got 192m now and so far it looks like a considerable improvement. Windows loads a lot faster and the screen refreshes faster. Next I'll try the memory management thingy. Now to record a big LP. Stay tuned.

invader9000 · Posted - Wed Aug 22, 2001 3:37 am

Winch, how on earth did you sum 96MB with 128MB and now you have 192MB RAM?(!) I had 64MB and added another 128MB resulting in 192MB (!)

Winch · Posted - Wed Aug 22, 2001 4:07 am

I had 2 DIMM banks, a 64m and a 32m. Now I have a 128m and the 64m. I'm thinking now for $21.95 I should get another 128m DIMM and max out at 256m.

Winch · Posted - Wed Aug 22, 2001 5:30 am

How do you monitor the swap file usage? Please don't tell me I need Norton. I helped a friend put a burner in a machine that had it and it gave us fits.

shagrock · Location: USA

Winch · Posted - Thu Aug 23, 2001 5:02 am

I read the article on memory management that SteveG suggested: http://www.aumha.org/a/memmgmtz.htm
then I was pointed to this one: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,18519,00.asp
Now I know how to use System Monitor. I watched CE2K last night. It really uses the CPU and I've already ordered another 128m to go up to my max of 256.
My swap file is 88m at system startup (0 used of course) and it jumped to 104m during one session of CE2K doing NR. Swap file usage didn't get much above 10m. The point is I didn't see the swap file size changing. Does it not resize a lot in Win98? Seems like from what I've read that resizing was more a Win95 issue. I can stil see the advantage to specifying your own. In my case I'll do that after the RAM upgrade.
One question: is the "locked memory" what is in vcache? That got up to 127m (of my 192) and stayed there. It didn't come down until I had quit CE2K and started another app.
The one tweaking parameter I'm considering is from the PCWorld article. It is ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. Any thoughts on specifying that?

shagrock · Location: USA

Winch · Posted - Thu Aug 23, 2001 8:26 am

So if I add a second HD that is faster than my primary, I should define the swap file on it? I was thinking it had to be on the C drive.

shagrock · Location: USA

Winch · Posted - Fri Aug 24, 2001 7:52 am

I went for it. I defined a 200m swap file on my only HD (right now) and I also specified the ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 parameter. So far looks OK. One question: When I changed system perfomance to specify I want to manage virtual memory it warned me and asked if I wanted to continue. I clicked YES but it still shows up as Let Windows manage it. However after reboot System monitor shows swap file size 200m from get go. I assume then that Windows is no longer manging it?

motorhead_6 · Posted - Tue Aug 28, 2001 3:36 am

Im running Windows 98 with 256 k of RAM and it is supported (it shows 256k not 128k).

motorhead_6 · Posted - Tue Aug 28, 2001 3:37 am

Obviously I meant meg not k.

Winch · Posted - Tue Aug 28, 2001 5:30 am

I bumped on up to 256m RAM last night and it actually looks like perfomance has degraded somewhat. With swapfile now set at 150m I've seen it grow to 160 and swap in use go up to 40m (with CSU = 0) and only up to 4m (with CSU = 1). I've seen unused physical as high as 128m and as low as 4k. The total allocated grew to about 312m at peaks. Seems like it just eats whatever's there. The degradation I mentioned is in refreshing screens when switching between sessions or apps.

Winch · Posted - Tue Aug 28, 2001 5:49 am

Thinking about the swapfile size and in-use. Does it matter if the size increases above your specified min if the in-use never gets up that high? I understand why WIN98 grows the size based on what he "thinks" you'll be using, but so what if it fragments above the min if you're not using it? (and it comes back down to the min parameter eventually anyway). Surely it uses the file from the beginning forward, wouldn't ya think?

motorhead_6 · Posted - Tue Aug 28, 2001 8:13 am

Well if you have that much memory it shouldnt really use the swap file that much which is good because the swap file is slower than actuall RAM. The reason you arent getting better performance could be because what you have is enough. I wouldnt worry about how much it is using or not using as long as you are never told there is not enough memory for something.

dobro · Posted - Tue Aug 28, 2001 8:46 am

I'd like to set up and use System Monitor to get a better idea about what's going on in my system, but I want to check first - this isn't going to interfere with smooth tracking, is it, having Windows monitoring what's happening in the system all the time?

Andrew Rose · Location: United Kingdom

Thanks to this topic I've just had a look at the prices of RAM and can't believe it's so low! I've just spent £25 for a 256MB DIMM in the UK. Has it ever been lower?

Syntrillium M.D. · Location: USA

Just chiming in...Since it was brought up here, I'd thought I'd pass this along again..

In a recent thread, there were concerns about RAM issues with non-NT operating systems(ie, Win98, Me). From what we've gathered and read, it appears that Windows98 and Me can in fact handle (safely) up to 512mb of RAM. Beyond that, it appears that your OS will more than likely 'freak out', and you *may* find yourself stuck in DOS-ville...of course, you can do what you like; just be cautious.

Do a search and look for this related thread. It's no more than a month ago.

---Syntrillium, M.D.

shagrock · Location: USA

AndyH · Posted - Wed Aug 29, 2001 5:32 pm

I hope I didn't miss someone else already posting this, but people can look at
http://online-tonight.com/questions/win98_speed_up.shtml
to see information about how Win98 utilizes the swap file and how they can modify a control file to force Win98 to use available ram before swapping to disk, something it apparently isn't to keen about in default status.

Winch · Posted - Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:02 am

I've been using ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 for a while now and I haven't seen usage > 0 although occasionally I see my fixed swapfile size of 150m grow and shrink back. I'm wondering how much CPU WIN98 is burning trying to determine if it should increase the size regardless whether it's gonna use it anyway. Seems like they'd turn off the whole process.