Laptop memory?

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progmr

New member
Hello:

This may be a dumb question but I'll ask anyway.

I've got a 1.8 GHZ / AMD Turion (1mb l2 cache up to 1600mhz system bus) processor running at 512MB ram. I plan to use this for live performances running with my Presonsus Firepod in (only 2 inputs used) and running Guitar Rig and perhaps Reason.

I know more memory is better but can anyone explain why? If I upgrade to 1GB what will I notice in terms of how the machine's is used (e.g. fewer drops, etc)

Thanks!
 
Basically memory is used for storing information to be kept close at hand for quick use. This is called caching.

So in basic terms, the more memory you have, the more information your computer can cache and bring up quickly. If you don't have much RAM, then your computer is having to find it, and pull it up from your hard drive all the time. When it runs out of RAM it also uses some of the hard drive as 'virtual memory'. This ends up with your pc trying to find and pull information off your hard drive, storing it back in another place on your hard drive and pulling it up again, all while searching and pulling other information off your hard drive at the same time. Which causes stuff to slow down and in some cases hang and/or lock up.

The more memory you have, the more room it has to cache information and the faster things will run.

There's kinda more to it than that but its the best basic explanation I can give.
 
Sounds logical, so things like drops outs and pops can be the result of the PC becoming overloaded because of hitting the HD for data?
 
progmr said:
Sounds logical, so things like drops outs and pops can be the result of the PC becoming overloaded because of hitting the HD for data?
Click to expand...

Yeah pretty much. More broadly, your computer would be working harder than its capable of, so it can't keep up, and thats where the pops and clicks etc come from. Basically the audible equivalent of lag.
 
I'm not sure about AMD's but I know if you're recording on Intel mobile processors you want to make sure the windows power setting is set to 'always on'. Windows has a dynamic speed switching mechinism that can cause all sorts of problems while recording on a laptop. Basically, it will switch back and forth between CPU speeds depending on the load on the processor, each time it switches it messes with the audio. There are some programs that can help you control it. A quick test is to view the System Properties (control panel -> system) and see what the clock speed reads as. If it's not what your CPU is supposed to be rated at then you've probably got the speedstep stuff against you. Switch your power settings to 'always on' and look again.
When I first started recording with my laptop, that had me frustrated for a bit.
 
on a notebook, the speed of your hardrive also matters. i had to upgrade from 4200 to 7200 (sorry, these may not be exact numbers, but something thereabout).

And ofcause the speed of your cpu.

Upgrading everything - as i have done over time - will cause yor notebook to sound like a vacuumcleaner.

Anyway, i went from 512 to 2gb, and it made a huge difference
 
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