2 GB RAM: Is it enough?

I was also wondering, does having a 17" inch display with only 2GB of RAM make the computer a little slow? Does it even matter?

That would be mostly dependant on the amount of graphics RAM in the system, if the 15.4 units you were using had the optional graphics upgrade then the smaller display would refresh faster. Of course, they all come with loads of graphics RAM now so they should both be better, note that Pro models do not use system RAM for their graphics so this is irrelevant to screen performance unless the images are so large they require system processing.
For intensive graphics use there will always be an advantage to having a smaller screen with the same amount of graphics RAM, so a 15.4 with the upgraded graphics will be the best overall.
I've used 15 inch displays since they've been available on Apple laptops, I've always found them plenty big enough (particularly as the resolution has improved over time) and to represent the best compromise in usability verses weight/size.
Hope that helps....

Similar Messages

I'm a normal user, using cad programme, not using my laptop for games, my question is: do I need to get 16 gb ram in my retina macbook pro or 8 gb ram is pretty enough?

I'm a normal user, using cad programme, not using my laptop for games, my question is: do I need to get 16 gb ram in my retina macbook pro or 8 gb ram is pretty enough?
Thanks for support.

8 GB may be sufficient for CAD but 16 would be a much better idea.
All the Macs I have ever owned were eventually upgraded to the maximum amount of memory they could use. Considering that as of now, the RAM you specify is all the RAM you will ever have, get as much as you can. That is the only way to maximize its economic life.
If Apple offered a 32 GB version I'd get it.

512 MB RAM - is it enough to play Matroska 1080p files?

Does anybody know the answer?
I intend to buy a 1.66 GHz mini just to play HD files on my TV; I've tested one with 2GB RAM; it's great, but I really wonder if the native 512 MB would be enough for VLC/Quicktime/MPlayer to play 1080p files without dropping frames...
Thanks in advance

It's not so much the RAM in the system that determines whether you can play these kind of files as much as it depends on the CPU and graphics card.
A 1.66 mini has sufficiently good CPU and graphics and thus even with 512Mb RAM should work just fine, with the only caveat being as Boece says - that 512Mb would not be adequate if the software in use is not intel-native. VLC and Quicktime are both native, as are all the software components such as DVD Player supplied with the system. MPlayerOSX is also 'binary' meaning it runs natively on both intel and earlier systems. For any other software you may intend to use, it would be wise to check first and if found not to be intel-native, get at least 1Gb RAM or as Boece suggests, preferably 2Gb for best performance and flexibility.

Is 4gb of RAM would be enough for AE CS5?

Hi guys, I have a problem that bothers me sometime. I have 4gb of RAM running 64bit windows 7 and I use a lot of heavy programs like after effects, 3ds max, CAD, photoshop, etc. Is 4gb enough for my computer or should I increase my RAM? Please somebody help me, any suggestion would be appreciated. Thank you

4GB is enough to run After Effects, but it's far from the optimum amount. It's an especially low amount if you'll be running any other programs at the same time.
It depends on what kind of work you're doing. Let's say that you'll be working with HD video and maybe 2K film. In that case, you'd ideally have 3GB installed per processor core. So, if you have a four-coure computer (which has eight processor cores with hyperthreading), you'd have 24GB of RAM. That's exactly how my home computer is set up. If you're working with 4K film, you'd have more RAM; for SD TV, you could have less.
See this page for some information about memory settings and performance:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/543440

8 GB ram is not enough for Illustrator to export a PSD file?

Hi, I'm using Illustrator CS4 and tried to export an image letter size large to a PSD file at 300 dpi resolution with write layers checked. There are 10 layers with fairly simple flat colors. Illustrator complained that there is not enough memory for this operation. So I had to reduce the resolution to 150 and it worked. My computer has only 8 GB of ram. How much ram Illustrator needs to export a letter size image with 10 simple layers to PSD at 300 dpi?
I'm using Vista ulitmate 64 bit SP2.
edit:
I just realized that Illustator exports each path as a layer with makes the layers much more than 10. How can I prevent this?

My computer has only 8 GB of ram.
Illustrator is still a 32-bit application. While a 64-bit operating system can make full use of the 8GB (and much more), a 32-bit application is still limited, in practice, to 2GB of addressable memory within its footprint. Increasing physical or virtual RAM, therefore, is not the answer in your case.
Within the CS4 suite, the only native 64-bit application is Photoshop for Windows. All other Adobe CS4 programs are 32-bit applications. Some are "certified" to run under 64-bit operating systems, but Illustrator is not one of them. That said, many AI 13 (CS3) and AI 14 (CS4) users reportedly run the program under 64-bit Windows without problems... almost.
There have been reports of a problem that's sort of the opposite of yours -- the inability to place PSD images into AI 13/14 documents when running under a 64-bit OS. See, for example, this discussion: http://forums.adobe.com/message/1267833#1267833. There are other topics here along those lines that you should be able to find (even though the search feature here is pathetic).
Many Vista 64 users reporting memory problems when running Illustrator seem to find the compatibility mode (discussed at the above link) a successful workaround. You might give that a try first.

Currently at 2GB RAM is 4GB enough or do I need 6GB for CS3?

Hi,
I currently have a 2.66 MacPro with 4X512MB (2GB) RAM.
I want to upgrade but if I can run CS3 and Aperture and LightZone with 4GB RAM then it would save me a lot of money.
I will probably never have more than 2 programs open at a time other than LightZone/Aperture. Do you think it would be OK to only ramp up to 4GB (2X1GB sticks) or do I need to go to 6GB?

Theres a similar question here.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4546499#4546499
Bottom line the more ram the better! whether you need it or not depends on how heavy your projects are.
To see whether or not you would benefit from the extra ram I would say (Copy/pasting from the other thread):
I would advise as a simple solution to open up Activity Monitor (Applications/Utility), right click on its icon in the dock (or click and hold, or CTRL+click) and select DOCK ICON > SHOW MEMORY USAGE.
Keep this like this while you are working. If the blue + green areas (available memory) are consistently tiny, and the yellow (used memory) seems to be taking up most of the area then you are consistently at the limit of your memory! Very easy to see.
I also use a program called Menu Meters which is very handy for monitoring all kinds of info in the MenuBar such as free/wired memory, disk usage, paging info, cpu usage, network traffic etc.

512 MB of RAM so not enough!!!

My PB first came with 512MB, later on I got a 1GB module and went up to 1.25GB. Later on, I decided to top it up to 2GB. I saw no major difference from having 1.25GB but don't regret having done it.
My brother lives in Mexico, he has a HP laptop which takes the same RAM as my PB. Since we just met for the holidays I offered him to swap my 2GB for his 512MB (he's going to pay for the RAM I'm going to re-buy for myself, don't shock. I'm his brother, not Santa). I'm still in Mexico. By jan 11 I'll arrive in London, where I live and one 1GB module will be waiting for me.
I can't help to say: I don't know how I managed to cope with the original 512MB! As time passed I've been gathering more Apps and more photos and more music, but honestly, my PB gets annoying slow! Especially now that I got a un-released version of Google Earth for Mac. It makes iTunes to stutter. I never saw that before.
Advice for PB buyers. Do yourself a favor and get at least ONE SINGLE module of 1GB of RAM with your PB. Doing that, when you have to upgrade, all you'll have to do is buy another 1GB of RAM. You will have nothing to take out and you'll have had no waste.
Honestly, I don't think the PBs are meant to work with only 512MB. At least not mine.

Well, it really all depends on what you do. For most basic type of uses (iTunes, web surfing, word processing, internet) and without using Classic apps 512 MB is actually just fine for most modern Powerbooks. But you are correct that it is more of a minimum required, once you start doing things a little more is better. Specially since MacOS X is pretty good about using the unused portions to cache things.

Firefox insists I install latest flash player -FlashP says my P3 735MHz 1M RAM not fast enough! So what to do? I won't be getting a new pC!

Running Win XP SP2
DISPLAY ADAPTER = NVIDIA GeFORCE2 MX/MX400
PCI BUS 1

Ignore Mozilla's '''''recommendation''''' about upgrading Flash. It's not mandatory for using Firefox.

MBP 13 Retina Late 2013 - Virtual Machine on 4 GB Ram Good enough?

Hello,
I'm new to Macs and Mac OS all together. I was wondering if having 4 GB ram is good enough to run VM? I simply wanted to play South Park: Stick of Truth. I might run other small games but nothing demanding.
Secondary question is how about running Windows simply for minor programming and other minimal tasks.
My Laptop is the base model.
Thank You

Yes, Vm lets you sett how much memory you would like to dedicate to the platform. So you should be running it with 2gb on Mac and 2gb on your Vm. If you ever run more games that would require more RAM space I would recomend upgrading to 8gb.

About to purchase a MacPro trying to figure out if i need the Westmere Dual Processors or say the single processor 3.32 ghz w/3gb RAM? This is for the electronic prepress department of a printing company. Mainly we need to have multiple apps. running

Will be using applications all at once like Quark ,CS5... Indesign,photshop, AI...etc.
Will be exporting and writing PDF's and Postsript files constantly along with a few networked servers.
Just a lot of application work!
Right now the department has 5 Macs 4 of them are the older PowerPC's and one is a 2008 or 2009 MacPro 2.8ghz QuadCore (singleprocesser) which is by far the fastest machine. Now we need another one or maybe two more but would like to be even faster than the MacPro we have but not go over the 3,000 mark for price.

buy 2,8 4-core and upgrade to W3680 yourself. sell the 2.8 or keep it as backup. Very affordable 6-core, or just spring for the fastest single cpu BTO.
Invest in 8GB DIMMs (4 x 8GB) and SSD - 3rd party RAM, 3GB is enough to boot, period.
Wait for SATA3, more bandwidth, Sandy Bridge E Xeons.
Macintosh Performance Guide: Articles & Reviews

Mixing ram sizes

Hello,
I recently purchased a macbook pro i7 late 2011 edition. It currently has 4GB of ram(2x2GB). I am wondering if it is possible to purchase a single 8GB(1x8GB) stick of ram and trade out one of the old 2GB sticks in order to have a total of 10GB of ram. I am aware 16GB ram kits are available but they are currently too expensive for me so atleast this way I could purchase one stick of 8GB for now and then purchase another down the road.
8GB of ram is not enough for me. So my question is if whether or not I can mix ram sticks. Please only respond if you know for a fact and why, I don't appreciate people making guesses.
Thank you!

No one can answer your question with certainty. Some people mix different RAM brands and sizes and even speeds, and don't have any trouble. Others try it and have nothing BUT trouble. No two Macs or Mac users are alike in all respects, so there's no knowing why it works for one and not for another. It's a safer bet to use exactly matched pairs, but you might be fine with whatever mismatched modules you choose. If you buy from a vendor who offers a lifetime warranty, you'll probably be able to return anything that doesn't work out for you. But you can't eliminate the chance of getting bad RAM no matter what you buy, and you can't be sure that even a good module will behave perfectly when paired with a module that you have now.
There are some vendors who offer RAM modules in pairs from one manufacturer but in unmatched sizes, and warrant them to work properly together. You may want to consider buying a 4GB and an 8GB module from such a vendor, adding a small amount in cost but giving you 12GB and a solid warranty. Here's one dependable source:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_133 3MHz_SDRAM
Note that the extra 4GB only costs $15 more than a single 8GB module.

MacPro Quad Core 32g Ram running slow Logic using only 9g in Activity Monitor

Well its taken a while, but this is my first foray into the world of forums! I'm so hacked off with this regular problem and havent been able to find anything anywhere to solve it i thought i'd see if anyone has any similiar issues and maybe even a solve to it.
So.... im an orchestrator and producer and after my mid 2008 Macbook Pro with 8g ram started freezing up i invested in this 3 years ago -
Mac Pro 2x 2.4ghz Quad Core intel Xeon and stuck in 32gb of lovely Crucial RAM and 3 seperate internal 1TB drives with one for operating system (10.6.8), one for Audio recording/saving and one for all my sample libraries.
32gb ram - should be enough i thought!
So i regularly run at least 30 VI's - Ni The giant, Spitfire Orchestral librabies (say 12 string instruments up to 0.69g per load) LASS strings, plus perc STYLUS, ABBEY road drums, Trillian basses (acoustic/electric), ominisphere etc etc. So pretty hefty sample instruments. But theyre sooo nice!!
In addition, the 32 bit server will come alive (NOT! So unstable i find) with my Waves plugs etc.
Looking at ACTIVITY MONITOR however i might be not touching 9 gig (and sometimes even less) of usage for Logic, and only say 800MB for 32 bit server and have NOTHING else open - and what do i find .....
- Mouse lag and cant really do anything with the mouse whilst playing the track - cant adjust volume - too slow, zooming problems
- Takes a good 2-3 seconds for track to stop playing
Dont get System OVERLOADS so much, its just that the system goes REALLLLLY slow.
What ive tried- - -
- Running Mountain Lion off another drive (havent had time to install it and wanted to be sure everything worked etc)
- Tried all audio prefs - large/small buffers/threads etc and yes i am on 1024.
in a nutshell how come with 32g RAM everything is so slow when barely using 10g of that???????
I dread getting to the end of a project cos i know im gonna be freezing so much, but with so much editing all the time for the orchestral parts i need everything unfrozen and working.
Sorry if this is long winded but wanted to describe what im experiencing.
Any feedback most welcome! Thankyou in advance.
Mac Pro 2x 2.4ghz Quad Core intel Xeon 32g RAM, 3TB storage
10.6.8
Logic Pro 9.1.8

Hi
A few thoughts:
julian6400 wrote:
In addition, the 32 bit server will come alive (NOT! So unstable i find) with my Waves plugs etc.
The 32bit server is a pita: Waves v9 are 64bit compatible (they run fine). 32 bit VI's can be run outside Logic using Vienna Ensemble Pro (see later)
julian6400 wrote:
So i regularly run at least 30 VI's - Ni The giant, Spitfire Orchestral librabies (say 12 string instruments up to 0.69g per load) LASS strings, plus perc STYLUS, ABBEY road drums, Trillian basses (acoustic/electric), ominisphere etc etc. So pretty hefty sample instruments. But theyre sooo nice!!
Some of these VI's are extremely CPU hungry: Abbey Rd drums for example, really do hammer the CPU. What does Logic's Performance meter show in the way of CPU load. What does Activity Monitor show regarding CPU load?
With 32G of RAM, this should not be the issue, but you might have general CPU problems (see above), and you may also have Sample disk streaming limitations if all the Loibraries you mention are on the same drive. How does Activity Monitor look regarding disk access? You might find it helpful to add a second drive and split the sample libraries across 2 for faster disk access.
I presume that you have plenty of free space on the System drive?
Logic can get sluggish if the Undo info gets way too big, and also if there are loads of regions in the Arrange: check Options:Project Information.
Many are finding some benefits (me included) by running the VI's in Vienna Ensemble Pro:
Better CPU load distribution than directly in Logic
"Persistant Samples": they can remain loaded whilst you switch Logic Projects
Logic is effectively running much less itself, so generally flies.
32bit Plugs hosted separately in VEP so no 32bit Bridge issues in Logic
Something to consider,though perhaps not yet, would be setting up a Slave computer using VEP.
CCT

MacBook Pro 13" Late 2011, 16GB RAM and Apple Premium Service Center

Hello all,
My dad has a MacBook Pro 13" Late 2011, it came with a 4GB RAM. When he got Parallels and installed Windows 8, 4GB RAM were not enough to even deal with Safari so he had to buy 16GB RAM from Cruical. Today when he went to Apple Premium Service Center here in Qatar (51 East) they refused to install the x2 8GB RAM and only installed one of them. They kept warning my dad that installing the whole 16GB can cause issues with the MacBook Pro HDD and can make it go faulty. I wanted to ask if installing RAMs can pose the HDD life to any danger. Because my dad uses his Mac for work and wouldn't like to lose any of his files against small additional speed.
Thanks.

its very easy to do, here are step by step instructions with photos

Why don't I have enough memory on Nokia 6230?

Hi: I have a Nokia 6230 and sync it regularly with my computer. I have about 700 contacts and sync a relatively full calendar from one week ago to two weeks in advance. A to-do list also synchronizes. I regularly get the following error on my computer: [Nokia 6230] The phone calendar is full. Please delete some calendar events on your phone or change the filtering options and synchronize again. And, I regularly get a "to-do memory full" error on my phone. However, the memory status on my phone says: Phone: Free memory 6.1 MB Used memory 1.2 MB Memory card: Free memory 24.5 MB Used memory 5.9 MB Size 30.2 MB As you can see, both memories are only partially used yet I get constant errors regarding lack of memory. Contacts settings are set to use "Phone and SIM". Memory Status for Contacts reads Phone: 30% free, 70% used, SIM Card 250 free, 0 in use. How can I use the phone's memory more efficiently? Thanks,

Yes, Charlie is right. With any OS, the listed minimum RAM is always enough to just barely run it. In practice, this is rarely ever enough, because as soon as you add the demands of software etc it can't keep up. I am impressed you can manage at all, quite honestly. (Smiles)
What really impresses me, however, is that someone was actually selling computers with 1G of RAM 2 years ago. Four years ago I bought a cheapish Windows laptop, and the choice was btwn 2 or 4G. I have since worn it out (did I mention cheap?), and have inherited a four year old MacBook Pro. It came stock with 2G, so I upped it to 4G. It walks like my grannie, and I do all my 'real' work on an iMAC with 16G. Most people these days buy 8G.
The problem you may have with upgrading is that your board is probably old, too. If you do purchase a new one, ask around in here regarding specs.. and don't buy one from the person who sold you that one! (chuckles)
~The other, cuter Charlie.. Chuckles

Adding RAM and making room/trying to upgrade Mac Mini

I have a 2007 Mac Mini on Tiger and wanted to upgrade to Snow Leopard but even taking the machine down to base with erase and install, it still says the RAM is not enough. Where and how can RAM be added?

your mini has 1GB of memory, with maximum 2GB. SL requires minimum 2GB ram.
If you decide to add ram, use good reputation supplier like Crucial or OWC. Be sure to buy compatible ram.
In OWC sites you find the way how to do it.

2 GB RAM: Is it enough?

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