help with good 32gb of ram

You see that a lot now with Windows 7, because it will try to use the memory you give it...unlike past OSes. In this case, the OP sees that a good portion of their memory is used, so they assume more is needed...and that is rarely the case. It will likely be money spent for no noticeable gain.

32 GB is overkill on any desktop system. I have a Dell PowerEdge server with 24 GB of memory running 5 virtual servers for a company of 30 people, and I'm not using all of the resources available.

Thornton said:

idk what my computers problem is,

I can answer that. The only problem is that you are trying to hold your computer to the rules of Windows XP...when they don't apply anymore. Once you understand how Windows 7 uses memory, you'll see that you most likely have no issue at all and don't need more memory.

pparks1 said:

Thornton said:

i think part of my excessive need for ram is, i IDLE at 30%, when in use it runs up to 35% to 40%, realize, that means when i use my computer... GENTLY!!! lol, it is running up to 4gb.

If you are using 30+% of 10GB of RAM at startup, you either are calculating yourself and looking at Free rather than Available RAM, or you have a lot of stuff running at Startup. (check msconfig and reduce startup items to what you actually need).

In looking at Task Manager, under the Physical Memory section, you will see Total, Cached, Available and Free. On my desktop, which I am looking at presently, I have 8191MB total. 3330MB is Cached, 3592MB is Available and 285MB is free. Underneath the Resource Monitor button, it says my Physical Memory is at 56%. So, if you take my total memory (8191) minus my available memory (3590), you get 4601MB consumed. And 4601 divided by 8191 is 56%.

My machine isn't idling right now, it's got 2 virtual machines running under VMWare workstation. 1 VM is Windows Home Server 2011 and it's set to use 2GB of RAM and 1 have 1 client VM for that server running XP Pro and it's got 512MB of RAM. When I go in and shut down both of those VM's, my Physical Memory usage drops to 22%. And now my Available RAM reads 6366MB.

i have used sysinternals to kill all apps except those manditory, i am looking at ram being used on an LCD pannel which i can confirm with task manager. i am idling with about 87 apps open. and when imm at full use i have about 110 apps open, many part of a tree that when i close the apps they close 4-5 processes

DeaconFrost said:

Thornton said:

idk what my computers problem is,

I can answer that. The only problem is that you are trying to hold your computer to the rules of Windows XP...when they don't apply anymore. Once you understand how Windows 7 uses memory, you'll see that you most likely have no issue at all and don't need more memory.

thank you for filling me in. it is good to know. still 32gb is rather important when you are live editing clips of data WHILE its caching, youl find the more you have, the more it can cache , in which case as you edit, more will free up, if you do not have enough, you will be editing as much as you are caching, slowing down your machine.

programs like mentalray take a SUDDEN hard hit on your ram then halt.

programs like lux render use a lot for a long time, as much as a week at once.

programs like maya and inventor fall in the same catagory of working while you are caching. when you have 3.9 million faces it has to prebuffer on you screen, only so much can be done on your graphics card.

and if you have a problem and need yo look somthing up while you are doing all this... your SOL.

there are three parts to this.

i NEED about 20gb of ram for rendering

i WANT allot of space left over

i LIKE to go a little over kill to partially future proof my machine should my other components upgrade and demand more

if i can find a way to fit 24gb of ram over 4 dims i will considder that, especially if it is less expensive. still, over kill is good in the media/communications industry.

pparks1 said:

When you say 87 apps are open, do you mean 87 processes are running?

yes, sry for the lack of communication there, yes, only about 4-7 apps are open, about 87 processes, abot 88-94 on start up, then some things die off

pparks1 said:

I just rebooted my work desktop and it runs 64 processes at bootup. I don't have anything that launches automatically except my AV. I bring up Office and everything else as needed. I also disable all of the automatic updaters. I often untick about 75% of what is listed under Startup from msconfig.

allot of my processes are drivers, or somewhat manditory, or are applications i just dont want to mess with and use a different name for their dll in sysinternals.

(Y)-starts automatically (N)-doesn't
origin (N)
windows explorer (Y)
wmplayer (Y)
Explorrer (Y)
Logitech Gaming drivers (Y)
FireFox Plugins (N)
DWM (Y)
AOD (N)-BUT I WISH IT WOULD!!!
CCC (Y)-Manditory
csrss (Y)
SlideShow Gadget (Y)-dunno what it is, another one of microsofts creations
taskhost (Y)-im not using a tablet so i shouldnt need it
rocketdock (Y)-i use instead of task bar
Logitech lcd apps (x5) (Y)
mssces (Y)
firefox plugin (N)
Firefox plugin (N)
MSI Aftrburner (Y)
WinLogin (Y)-not representing itself as a windows applications... huh
Saitek mouse Drivers (Y)
Adobe Reader (Y)-Turned it off but still runs on startup
firefox plugin (N)
ATiClxx (Y)
taskhost (Y)
taskeng (Y)
MOM (Y)-manditory for display drivers
SaitekDrivers (Y)
RTSS (Y)
ModLEDKey (Y)-more keyboard drivers... i think

Thornton said:

DeaconFrost said:

Thornton said:

idk what my computers problem is,

I can answer that. The only problem is that you are trying to hold your computer to the rules of Windows XP...when they don't apply anymore. Once you understand how Windows 7 uses memory, you'll see that you most likely have no issue at all and don't need more memory.

thank you for filling me in. it is good to know. still 32gb is rather important when you are live editing clips of data WHILE its caching, youl find the more you have, the more it can cache , in which case as you edit, more will free up, if you do not have enough, you will be editing as much as you are caching, slowing down your machine.

programs like mentalray take a SUDDEN hard hit on your ram then halt.

programs like lux render use a lot for a long time, as much as a week at once.

programs like maya and inventor fall in the same catagory of working while you are caching. when you have 3.9 million faces it has to prebuffer on you screen, only so much can be done on your graphics card.

and if you have a problem and need yo look somthing up while you are doing all this... your SOL.

there are three parts to this.

i NEED about 20gb of ram for rendering

i WANT allot of space left over

i LIKE to go a little over kill to partially future proof my machine should my other components upgrade and demand more

if i can find a way to fit 24gb of ram over 4 dims i will considder that, especially if it is less expensive. still, over kill is good in the media/communications industry.

Hi there
I'd suggest for Rendering etc you'd probably be BETTER off with a decent GPU which offloads this stuff from the processor.

VM's tend to EAT RAM for breakfast but unless you are running a Huge server operation and want several dozen VM's up at once 16 GB RAM on a Home computer is probably more than enough with a decent GPU, a good processor such as an Intel I7 and an SSD.

If you feel you want 32 GB -- fine it's your choice but IMO you might get better value for money in looking at a GPU, a decent processor and an SSD.

Gaming BTW doesn't actually need loads of RAM -- fast Video processing and Disk I/O is more important.

Cheers
jimbo