How much RAM for ONE App & does OS X limit allocation?

Hello all,
This question concerns how much RAM I realistically need to run ONE application to it's fullest. I mainly use ProToolsLE 7.3, but sometimes use LogicPro 8 and Final Cut Express 4, again, only one running at a time. I've read on the ProTools forum that Windows (yuck) limits the amount of RAM that can be allocated for 1 application. Does Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5 do this?
Right now I have the stock 1GB (2 x 512MB). I plan on pulling it and installing a matched quad of either 1GB sticks (4GB total) -OR- 2GB sticks (8GB total). I understand that matched quads in slots 1/2 of both risers is optimum for the early Mac Pros.
The ProTools forum isn't helping much. A ProTools support person said that starting with 4GB will be good to start and that they test their systems with 4GB installed. What did they mean by "good to start"? Will it increase jumping to 8GB or is 4GB all ProTools can really use?
Another guy on there said "keep in mind that to use 4GB of ram - you'd need a 64bit Operating system (not supported by pro-tools) or on a MAC PAE support enabled, which depending on your hardware may not be a great move." I dont know what that means! Mac OS 10.5 IS a 64bit OS, right? And ProTools 7.4 NEEDS OS 10.5 to run....even if it is only a 32bit app. (though right now I am running PT 7.3 on OS 10.4....not sure if 10.4 is 64bit)
A quad set of 1GB is under $170 and a quad set of 2GB is under $270. Funds are tight right now, but I think I can swing the extra $100 to double the RAM -IF- it will make a difference.
Any thoughts as to wether the extra $100 will be worth it, or am I wasting my money? Thanks!

Hatter,
Thank you so much for your advice! If I may bother you to receive one final suggestion....
Based on the best prices I have found from all of the well known Mac Pro memory dealers, I have narrowed it down to 3 configurations that are balanced. Even though I'm still not 100% confident that 8GB of RAM will give me any noticable imporvement over 6GB, the price is only $42 more to get 8GB. Am I correct in saying that the early Mac Pro would do better to have one matched quad set of RAM over the new Mac Pro's increased performance of having all eight slots filled? Here are the 3 configurations and prices.
4 x 1GB + 4 x 512MB = 6GB Quad+Quad $220 (using my stock 2x512MB sticks)
4 x 2GB = 8GB Quad $262 (pulling my stock 2x512MB sticks)
8 x 1GB = 8GB Octal $278 (pulling my stock 2x512MB sticks)
Which do you think would be the best route?
I already purchased a WD Caviar for my dedicated audio drive. I installed a Seagate 7200.9 in my PowerMac G4 for it's audio drive, but after reading various reveiws, concluded the WD Caviar is a better performer. I LOVE my WD My Book Studio external. I hadn't considered replacing the boot drive, but after reading articles suggesting that it improves overall system performance, and now that you've recommended it as well, I will probably buy a second Caviar for the boot/system drive.
This computer is a DEDICATED audio computer, for ProTools & Logic only....other than a bit of fiddling in Final Cut Express. It's not even connected to the internet and all unnecessary apps are not installed or uninstalled. I also never migrate apps, but always do a fresh install of everything from the ground up.
Thanks again for your advice! It's been a big help!

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Which MAC Pro graphics card and how much RAM for FCE HD usage?

I plan on purchasing a MAC Pro afer MacWorld Expo next month. Any recommendations for a specific graphics card that would complement my usage of Final Cut Express HD 3.5?
Also, should I increase my RAM? I currently use 2 gb of RAM on my G4. Will I see greater productivity if I bump it up to 4gb of RAM on the MAC Pro or will 2gb suffice which I had planned to increase it to from the standard 1gb supplied?
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PowerMAC G4 dual 1.42ghz Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2gb RAM, 3-LaCie FW800 external drives

Any of the graphics cards that Apple sells for the Mac Pro will be fine. Personally, I'd suggest choosing one with at least 128MB video RAM, 256MB would be better.
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How much RAM should I install for new iMAC ?

Hi,
How much RAM should I install for new iMAC* running Logic Studio? It comes with 4 GB - is that enough? (can you run in 64 bit mode..)
*(The 21.5" 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)
Also, I was planning to get the stock 1 TB Hard Drive & save projects to an external drive.
Does that sound reasonable?
Any other recommendations?
Thanks,
Wm Heart

Unless you plan on running huge projects with enormous sampled instruments, 4 GB will do (very) fine. And your disk plan is sound. Choose an external Firewire drive, rather than USB. FW is easier on the CPU and can handle more tracks than USB.
What you should get, instead of more memory, is a (24 bit) external audio interface, if you want to do serious recording and playback.
What type of audio interface you'ld need, depends on what you want to do with it and of course your budget. From decent to brilliant costs from roughly 100 to several 1,000's of europounddollars. Avoid the 16 bit ones, they're worse than the inbuilt audio chip of your iMac. You can recognize 16 bit Audio Interfaces (in webshops) by their prize (often under 100€£$) and the lack of mention of their bitrate.
HTH
Regards, Erik.

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If I buy a new iMac, I see that one can get it with 16GB or even 32GB RAM. dMy 2007 iMac has 4 GB now after I upgraded? What would the difference be?

My 10 cents worth:
The minimum configurable amount of memory of a new iMac is 8Gb But...
If you are looking at a new upgradable iMac, absolute do NOT buy the Apple RAM upgrades at the time of purchase. It is grossly overpriced, and although good quality and reliable (I've been led to believe) you can buy just as good, if not better for a lot less. I wouldn't look further than OWC (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/) or Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/). Both offer matched pairs and kits that are guaranteed to work with your iMac and as you will see, cost a lot less than Apple. Don't be fooled by the price, they supply good quality, fast memory.
Secondly, in terms of how much RAM, the question is, what is your budget? I always believe that if you can afford it (and memory nowadays isn't that expensive) max out your system and then forget about it because:
a) There's a fair chance that you'll be upgrading it again at some point if you don't max it out.
b) You are releasing the maximum potential of your iMac (in terms of memory performance, although the jump from 16Gb to 32Gb will not be as significant as the jump from 8Gb to 16Gb))
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*Noob* Which of these would I use for a scratch disk? How much Ram?

Hello, I am fairly new to Photoshop as I have used Lightroom ever since I've been a photographer. I recently got into Photoshop with the cloud as well as layering multiple exposures together. I never KNEW anything about scratch disk, until yesterday.
First let me stress, please answer my questions in layman's terms. I search the net before I start a topic on a forum and I read a lot of answers that seem to be responding to people who have a general idea of what is already going on. Remember, I DO NOT. Here are my questions:
A:If the scratch disk acts like RAM, do I need to allow it to use any of my ram at all? If so, how much? I have two Macbook Pro's, they are the highest model Apple makes, both have SSD drives, Quad Core i7's, etc. I unchecked my Macbook hard drive and told it to use an external SSD drive that is plugged in via USB 3.0. Would it be better to use an HDD instead of SDD? I have lots of hard drives to choose from due to being a music producer.
B:When I exit the program does it delete all the data it created? This question is two fold, does it delete it regardless if I saved the project or not? If I save the project does it stay there? What if I delete the original photo, was the photo imported into photoshop upon camera raw?
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OK, I have now copied your hillbilly text and pasted it into a text editor to change the typeface so I can read it.
I'll try to address the lose ends here.
A:…I have two Macbook Pro's, they are the highest model Apple makes…
Please forgive me for not being impressed. I just happen to consider any laptop a sub-optimal choice for Photoshop photography work. My personal opinion. (Please don't ask me why.)
, both have SSD drives,… I unchecked my Macbook hard drive and told it to use an external SSD drive that is plugged in via USB 3.0. Would it be better to use an HDD instead of SDD?…
I assume you are talking about using the external drive as your primary scratch disk, not as your boot disk. That is the appropriate thing to do. HD or SSD will both do the job fine, as long as they're physically separate, dedicated Photoshop scratch disks.
Obviously the internal drive will be your boot disk. Adobe applications really like to reside on the boot disk, the drive where the OS resides.
B:When I exit the program does it delete all the data it created?
This question is two fold, does it delete it regardless if I saved the project or not?
If I save the project does it stay there? What if I delete the original photo, was the photo imported into photoshop upon camera raw?
NOTHING is ever imported into Photoshop, ever. You use Photoshop to open your files exactly where you put them in the Apple Finder. And you save them wherever you wish, in the Finder as well. Your images will always reside in the Finder.
You don't import files into Adobe Camera Raw either. You open them in or with ACR.
Of course you need to save your data, not only when you quit the application, but at frequent intervals while you're working on it. Nothing you saved will be deleted by Photoshop. How can you even conceive and ask such a question? ?? !
If you ever try to close a file or the application when you have open, unsaved files, the application will ask you for confirmation in an unmistakable way.
Your images will always reside in the Finder, wherever you put them.
Photoshop does not have the abominable "Libraries" scheme that made me detest Lightroom when I tried it. Nor does Photoshop hide your image files in "packages" like the even more abominable iPhoto does.
Please forget anything you may be accustomed to in Lightroom and/or iPhoto, and approach Photoshop with a fresh mind, respecting it like the granddaddy of image editors it is.
C: Like question A, how much ram do I choose? I have 16GB of Ram in each of my MacBooks.
Again, you don't "choose RAM", instead you select a percentage of dynamically changing Available Memory (not RAM; see above) to allow Photoshop to use. Leave at around 70%.
Please see the following post for an important tip.

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The fastest 6-core is the "sweet spot" in the lineup. near twice the compute power of the entry model at only 1.5 times the cost.
6GB is fine for "regular" stuff you do on a Mac. Video editing without pain often requires more ... up to as much as 24GB if you can afford it. Apple's prices for this are quite high (like a convenience store). Many folks buy aftermarket RAM from Mac-centric vendors who can tell Users what modules will work in their Mac -- "guaranteed or your money back".
You can run as few as a single RAM module in 2009 and later Macs. So when adding, choose the densest modules you think you might EVER need, to avoid throwing away less-dense modules later.
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How much ram do i need for serious video editing?

early 2008 2X2.8 Quad Core Intel Xeon Mac Pro, with 8 GB RAM (8X1GB sticks), 2 @ 1.5 TB hard drives +. Use Final Cut Express for video editing. CS4 for typical daily workflow. How much RAM do i really need to make this a powerhouse video editor?

To make any 'good' recommendations it would be helpful to know what you are editing - DV, SD, HD? That is a big factor in determining specifications.
If you do more than one stream of HD, you will eventually want an external video drive solution from CalDigit, Dulce, Promax, G-RAID, or any of the others you see on the side. And it also depends on what 'flavor' of HD - I doubt your running 1920x1080 uncompressed 10-bit HD off of one drive. an external RAID array might seem like overkill. Generally, the advantages are increased speed (necessary for dealing with uncompressed, high-res footage) and redundancy so you don't lose everything if a single drive dies.
Get AJA System Test to test the speed of your logical drives so you can get an estimate of what you are looking at.
You really DON'T want your OS and programs on the same drive as your media files. It'll cause performance bottlenecks and all kinds of grief.
Those WD 10K 300-600GB drive is perfect for your OS, applications, and swap files. That's ALL that you want to have on it, and add one or even two faster drives as a RAID 0 pair for more speed and space. Get at least one 7200RPM drive for video/graphics/etc.
For your video storage:
The hard drives you mentioned are fine for standard definition video. However, if you want to edit high definition or otherwise have complex / advanced ideas for your projects, you'll need something with higher read rates than just those single drives. This gets pricey, so depending on what you're intending to do, may not be appropriate for you.
During video CAPTURE your hard disks need to be able to write at a speed meeting or exceeding that video data stream. If other programs use the same disk you are saving too, then you have and increased change of missed writes to the drive. That is why they suggest having a seperate set of disks for capture. Not a bad idea.
*Strip size*
should be => 128K, I would use 256K. More importaint is cluster size. The default is 8 K which is good for the operating system plus programs as over 50% of the files are =< than 8K. For large files (is dot VOB can be 1 gig) it is not the best. When you write a large file each clustter contains a pointer to the next cluster that is to be read. I used 32K, or 64 K (at work so not sure) cluster size for my disk containing Pitures and video. The size of the file allocation table is also reduced by using the larger cluster size.
Back in 2007, this is what was recommended:
<a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://www.manifest-tech.com/mediapc/pc_syshd.htm
Compressor can do virtual clusters (you need at lest 2GB/core of RAM.
Apple Final Cut Pro
http://forums.creativecow.net/applefinalcutpro?view=s
Basics
http://forums.creativecow.net/applefinalcutbasics?view=s
Compressor - doesn't hold up well.
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/20/865329
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http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/200/888050
Final Cut Studio
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=123

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Hi
how much ram does your lightroom consume ?
to me 160mb but I have seen it up over 230mb while doing work
does abode plain to increase the cache like Bibble , Phase one or SILKYPIX Developer to be more light??

Currently sitting at about 1.8GB (real) 2.5GB (virtual), but then it's working rather than idle. At idle it drops to around 15MB (real) and 270MB (virtual).

How much ram does my macbook pro have?

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Time Machine backup disks should be external ... separate from the computer.
Several places sell external disks that are already formatted for Mac. Others tell you that external disks not formatted for Mac can be reforatted, but save yourself the grief for now and buy Mac-ready.
Buy a *new* disk, in my opinion. Do not reuse an old disk.
Some can suggest certain brand names as "better", but even the best disk-brand will have bad apples in the mix.
If any others have a convenient link for Time Machine Tutorial, please provide. I have learned enough alreay, generally through trial and error on my own.
But focus on getting that first backup done within the next 2 days.
As to "probably need a new HD", perhaps you can move enough off to an external disk. Cross that bridge after you get the backup.
If you get the sense that critical things are done first and that you should save yourself complex things like "how to replace a harddisk" for later, you are reading my posts correctly.

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I am in the process of setting up my new 27" iMac i7. I'm brand new to Apple computers so this is a learning curve for me! I have installed Parallels Desktop 5 so I can run Windows 7 side by side with Snow Leopard. Now I am trying to install Windows 7 Ultimate but I don't know how much RAM and CPU to allocate to my virtual machine. Has anyone done this and can anyone help? I have 8 gb RAM and 1 tb Hard Drive.
Thank you for your help!

Hello SwissCanuck,
Just FYI, with regard to 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7:
You will not be able to "upgrade" from a 32-bit version of Windows 7 to 64-bit -- the architecture between the two is too drastically different to allow such a change. To learn more about the differences between a 32-bit operating system and 64-bit please go to the following link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/32-bit-and-64-bit-Windows-frequ ently-asked-questions
Additionally, check out the requirements here for Windows 7:
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
•1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
•1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
•16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
•DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Obviously covered as per your hardware. Essentially, it is always better if you run Windows 7 as a "Native OS" you can do this with boot camp from Apple. Typically, the performance is not as fast in virtual environments
John M
Microsoft Windows Client Team

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I plan to buy a new MacBook Pro in the next month for school and hopefully for work. I would like this computer to get me at least 4 years of use. I will be majoring in software engineering. My question is how much ram would I need in a Macbook Pro for software engineering? I am currenty looking at the 15" 2.3ghz base model with 8gb of ram as well as the 15" 2.4ghz base model retina. I really like the retina but its at my max budget. Will the 8gb of ram be enough since it is not upgradable? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I am currenty looking at the 15" 2.3ghz base model with 8gb of ram
The MB Pro 15" 2.3Ghz with 8GB of RAM should do the trick.
Save your $$$ on the retina and stick to your budget

OK, So How Much RAM Does Photoshop CS5 Use?

ANSWER: All you give it, lol!
I posted this for those buying or building a PC and are deciding "how much RAM do I need?"
I built a fairly powerful rig for Photoshop and editing in Premiere Pro, and without all the tech specs, I have 24GB of ram, mostly for encoding HiDef video. Surely Photoshop wouldn't eat THAT much, right? Dead wrong. I have Photoshop set to utilize 75% of my available ram which would be near 19GB. I just worked on a fairly large image, where I took 23 vertical shots with my 5D Mark II (5616x3744 resolution files, pretty big) and did a large photomerge which ended up at about 60,000 x 5,500 after the crop. Granted, large image, nearly 3½GB .PSB file. So while the merging and aligning was taking place, I watched my Ram Gadget soar, right up to 19GB within 4 minutes of processing:
Yowza. I expected that from Media Encoder processing 1080p HD video into a Blu-Ray disc format, but not a Photoshop file. So, the point of all this: ram is lower in cost than it's been in many months, a 12GB Mushkin kit (3x4GB) is down to $169 on Newegg. Don't skimp in that arena, fill 'er up as best as you can. Future versions aren't going to use less ram, let's face it, the software has to process a lot of pixels! Try to go a minimum of 6GB, but definitely 8-12GB if you can. Of course this means bye-bye FINALLY to 32-bit operating systems, but once you have a large playground of memory, you and Photoshop will be happy campers.

I purposely waited to respond so I wouldn't write things I'd regret later:
"Nice system."
Huh? I didn't list my system on purpose. The point wasn't showing off gear, it was PS's use of RAM.
"With regard to RAM and Photoshop, people often say more is better without qualification, and you have just confirmed that advice."
You actually have no evidence of my qualifications. I'll send you a link to my Microsoft transcript if you'd like, there are 16 certifications you can peruse.
"Personally, with 24 GB of RAM I'd suggest settting Photoshop's limit even higher - e.g., to 95% (which is what I use for 8 GB) ... The OS doesn't need much on that scale."
24GB x 95% = 22.,8GB... that leaves 1.2GB of RAM for everything else including Windows 7 64 bit. I'm sorry, that's an extremely unwise choice. Noel, maybe you need to remove the "unqualified" beam from your own eye before you point it out in others.
If anyone is reading this please PLEASE don't set your Photoshop limit to 95% of your available ram. Your system will mostly likely crash within minutes of starting Photoshop. The proven setting is 75%, set it there and move on. Thanks.

How much RAM for ONE App & does OS X limit allocation?

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