Memory Increase from 4GB to 8GB helpful with Powerdirector?

OnTheWeb1

Contributor Location: Michigan USA Joined: Jan 02, 2009 12:58 Messages: 511 Offline

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Sep 29, 2009 16:13

A number of questions have been asked about memory... how much is enough, etc.

Having recently gone from 4GB to 8GB on Win7 I'm going to share my highly scientific and technical analysis of the upgrade, and how it works with PowerDirector:

"I can't tell the difference."

Seriously. I don't notice any difference in performance. On the 64-bit platform PowerDirector 8 will allocate 1GB of memory during rendering, but appears to only use about half that. When I only had 4GB of RAM installed, it behaved the same exact way.

Ok. Not scientific. The extra RAM has other benefits, though. You can have more stuff running simultaneously. It probably contributes to system stability too, since it reduces memory thrashing while windows juggles lots of programs. I run a TV tuner card and record and watch HD TV on my PC while PD is rendering and it handles it no problem. Of course the video card is a big factor in that too, but that's my real world result.

On the bright side, it never hurts to have lots of memory, but if the choice comes down to adding more RAM or getting a better video card, I would go with the better video card.

It just doesn't use the extra RAM. Memory snapshot captured during render of 720P AVCHD:

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Sep 29. 2009 16:51

Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

CharlesF

Member Location: Everett, Washington. U.S.A. Joined: Apr 16, 2009 20:49 Messages: 57 Offline

Sep 29, 2009 16:15

Thanks for the info!

Robert2 S

Senior Contributor Location: Australia Joined: Apr 22, 2009 05:57 Messages: 1461 Offline

Sep 29, 2009 19:00

I only have 3 gig of ram on my system as it is a 32 bit system and PD has never used anywhere near all of my ram. When I have nothing else open and rendering with PD I only show 39% of my 3 gig of ram being used. It has bumped up to 50% when it crashed but never anywhere near 100%.

I actually read a report about going to a 64 bit system is only useful if the program has been written to use the extra power of 64 bit otherwise it just runs as a 32 bit system. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

OnTheWeb1

Contributor Location: Michigan USA Joined: Jan 02, 2009 12:58 Messages: 511 Offline

Sep 29, 2009 19:14

I actually read a report about going to a 64 bit system is only useful if the program has been written to use the extra power of 64 bit otherwise it just runs as a 32 bit system.

Sure. It would have to be compiled specially for a 64-bit version... probably several years away before industry will start to phase out 32-bit stuff, even then it will be around a long time.

Still, until you open the pasture up and let the horses run to see which one is fastest its a bit of mystery

3GB can get eaten up fast with hardware reserving sometimes 256MB, virus scanners, multi-page web browsers, tv tuners, Windows gadgets, etc. I had been in the 75% range quite often before upgrading the RAM.

Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.