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    Fully Utilizing 4GB RAM for MBP

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Skotarach, Mar 6, 2008.

  1. Skotarach

    Skotarach Notebook Enthusiast

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    I recently upgraded my MBP to 4GB RAM to help simultaneously run video and graphics programs and decrease render times in general. FCP, AE, Photoshop, etc.

    So far I am unimpressed. I am running OSX ver. 10.4.11 and I see virtually no faster results opening and closing documents, and even launching programs still takes longer than I expected. Granted I am still at the mercy of my processor, but I feel that with 2X as much ram as I had before would be noticeably different.

    Is there any tweaking I need to do with my system settings to get the most out of this RAM?
     
    Skotarach, Mar 6, 2008
    #1
  2. mpullen

    mpullen Notebook Enthusiast

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    <caveat>I'm not a Mac expert</caveat>

    RAM will only increase performance if your computer is spending time writing to disk while you are performing those action. So, if while you are working on a PS document and rending, it is caching the in-progress work to disk, you will see some advantage to adding RAM.

    If you have added RAM, in that scenario, and it is still slow, then you should look at each applications settings for how it uses memory. Sometime they have been set lower than optimal. Some applications call it available RAM or virtual memory. If you have it set at 1GB, but you want to make 4GB available, you could see a performance increase.

    HTH,
    Matthew
     
    mpullen, Mar 6, 2008
    #2
  3. Xirurg

    Xirurg ORLY???

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    more ram will only affect if you open more applications at the time ,other times you wont see much difference.
     
    Xirurg, Mar 6, 2008
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  4. RadcomTxx

    RadcomTxx Notebook Deity

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    more ram will not affect opening/closing of documents/programs. that is still dependent on the hard drive/processor.
     
    RadcomTxx, Mar 6, 2008
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  5. 00fez

    00fez Notebook Deity

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    Indeed, it won't affect your speed, but with more ram you will be able to maintain that speed with a crapload of crap :)p) open.
     
    00fez, Mar 6, 2008
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  6. Arquis

    Arquis Kojima Worshiper

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    Right. It's possible that those apps were already working at the speed your HDD/CPU could handle, and wasn't using up all your RAM to begin with.
     
    Arquis, Mar 6, 2008
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  7. hollownail

    hollownail Individual 11

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    Can you even have 4 gigs addressed on an intel chip under 10.4? I thought the 64 bit stuff for intel ws solely in Leopard?

    Which MBP are you using? CD or C2D?
     
    hollownail, Mar 6, 2008
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  8. hoolyproductions

    hoolyproductions Notebook Evangelist

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    hoolyproductions, Mar 6, 2008
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