VRAM question

Hey guys,
As I've noticed, I can increase or decrease VRAM value in Windows 7 ( bootcamp ) in Intel Graphics Tool ( included to bootcamp drivers ) up to 2048 MB.
So the question is - can I do the same on Mac OSX ?
Small note: after Mavericks update I got 1024 MB ( it was 512 MB before ). So it's possible somehow, but... obviously, how?
My current chip is "Intel HD Graphics 4000".

Open System Profiler (Utilities folder) and click on the Display/Graphic option in the left sidebar list. The data information will show how much VRAM is installed.
The default configuration of a 20" iMac comes with 128 MBs of VRAM. As an option you can expand that at order time to 256 MBs.

Similar Messages

I have a Macbook Pro june 2011... I have 8GB ram but I only have 256mb VRAM... I've read some other questions about this and I realized... Why do I not have 560mb of VRAM since I have 8GB of RAM? Is there any way to get more VRAM to play games on steam?

I have a Macbook Pro june 2011... I have 8GB ram but I only have 256mb VRAM...
I've read some other questions about this and I realized... Why do I not have 560mb of VRAM since I have 8GB of RAM?
Is there any way to get more VRAM to play games on steam?
I've learned by reading other topics that I can't upgrade my graphics card on my Macbook Pro because it's soldered into the motherboard or somthing like that, but please tell me if there is any way to get more video ram by chaning some setting or upgrading something else. I'd also like to know why I only have 256MB of VRAM when I have 8GB of RAM, since I have 8GB of RAM I thought I was supposed to have 560mb of VRAM...
So the two questions are...
Is there any way to upgrade my VRAM, so that I can play games on steam?
Why do I only have 256MB VRAM when I have 8GB total RAM?
Other Info:
I have a quad core i7 Processor.
My graphcics card is the AMD Radeon HD 6490M.
I am also trying to play games on my BOOTCAMPed side of my mac, or my Windows 7 Professional side.
THANK YOU SO MUCH IF YOU CAN REPLY,
Dylan

The only two items that a user can change on a MBP are the RAM and HDD (Retinas not included). You have what the unit came with and the only way you will be able to change that is to purchase a MBP with superior graphics
If you are very much into gaming, the I suggest A PC. They are far superior for that type of application to a MBP.
Ciao.

Vram failure and display mirroring question

Sorry if this has been asked before...
I have an older imac g5 ambient light sensor and have had a vram failure for the past 6 or 7 months. Recently the display has gotten to the point where it's impossible to read or see anything on it.
My question is, will mirroring show the same distorted video on an external display?
Thanks.

Can you explain this "vram failure" in more detail?
Have you tried using these two procedures?
Reset PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
and reset SMU
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1767
Whether the external display shows the same issue or not depends on the cause. If the cause is at the graphics hardware, it will probably be the same on the external display. If the cause is LCD (or the connection between the LCD and graphics hardware), then the external display should work OK.

ML Ram, VRAM paging and allocation questions.

Question 1: I have been dealing with ram issues since I got my 2012 13 MacBook air since I put mountain lion on it. I benched the machine for awhile because of it and used my 2011 MBP since it has 16gb of ram but it recently gave up the ghost so im back on the air. I did all the updates it needed since being benched and for my light duty work it’s always good but as soon as I have more then 2 or 3 apps open at the same time or 6 or 7 safari tab it really goes to crap. After a cold boot with nothing running the OS is using 1.4-1.6gb ram to idle the older MBP used 1gb or less after a cold boot. I have gone to the trouble of doing a complete reinstall and not using any extra apps other then iLife and iWork and that hasn’t helped. The wired ram sits right at a gig and the active ram right around 4-5 hundred mb. I have added up all the running processes and factored in a 10% increase over that number just in case and added in the video ram(which with 4gb of system ram I thought was supposed to be 384mb but its actually 512mb, which is another topics ill be asking about) at 512mb the totally ram usage is only 918mb. I asked this once before and didn’t get any help so ill ask again, is this ram usage normal for this kind of machine or is there something wrong? The apple store says there isn’t anything wrong but there has to either be something wrong or the OS has hidden processes that cant be seen in activity monitor?
Question 2: did one of the updates increase the video ram allocation and is the video ram automatically and always paged or does the OS and graphics processor (HD4k) page VRAM only as needed?
If the graphics processor doenst always page all the video ram and does it dynamically then I have an even bigger problem and more ram being used and not accounted for.

Your issue almost certainly has nothing to do with RAM. Right now I am running Photoshop, FileMaker Pro, Word, iTunes, Mail, I have 8 tabs open in Safari, and about little utilities running. It is a 2011 MBA with 4GB of RAM and it feels no slower now than it did when I rebooted it yesterday after installing an update.
Obsessing over the Activity Monitor's report of RAM usage will get you nowhere - there's only one number in the entire dialog box that has any real importance to us: Page Outs - which indicate how much data has had to be swapped from RAM to hard drive, which, of course means you are trying to use more RAM than the computer actually has.
I suggest that you take a close look at what processes are running and the CPU usage of each. You may have a rogue process that is bogging the computer down. Another two prime suspects would be Internet plug-ins and Safari extensions.
One of my most important troubleshooting tools is a test account in which I've installed no software or performed any configurations. When my computer acts up I boot into that account to see if the problem follows me there. If it does not, I know the problem exists in my library.

Another hard drive swap question - re: 8GB partition for OSX in iMac 266

I have a Tangerine iMac 266 that I am setting up for a neighbor's son. The original 6GB hard drive was toast, so I swapped in an old 10GB drive that had previously been removed from an iMacDV 400. The 10GB "new" drive had OSX 10.3.1 and OS 9.1 on a single partition. I am aware that these early iMacs need OSX in a first partition of less than 8GB, so I expected that I would need to partition the "new" drive. However, while I was loading an install CD after powering up, the iMac booted fine into OSX, despite it NOT being located in a first partition of less than 8GB (and has continued operating well - booting multiple times in OS X and 9, surfing the net, etc...the only weirdness is a refusal of Word X to run).
I thought this was impossible, and in researching this I found that the Apple support site says that, for this computer, "Mac OS X must be installed on a volume that is contained entirely within the first 8 GB of its ATA hard disk." see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106235
My Questions:
Is the 8GB limit only related to iINSTALLING OSX on these machines (and not RUNNING OSX)?
Will the machine run into problems later if a portion of the OS (i.e., during an update) gets installed outside of the first 8GB of the disk?
One of the log files says that the driver is out of date for the RageproC, and Classic applications that require more than 4MB of VRAM say that I don't have enough VRAM to run, yet the iMac has 6MB of VRAM (2 on MB and 4 in slot as listing by the system profiler) - do I need to (or should I) reinstall the system software (I already tried loading the latest ATI drivers, but it did't help)?
P.S. - to add more data points on the subject of RAM upgrades in these iMacs, my iMac 266 would not accept a 256MB PC-100 SO-DIMM that worked fine in an iBook and in the upper slot of a Rev. A iMac 233. Well, it accepted it, but only recognized the first 128MB.

I believe Duane is correct. Even with Mac OS 9, you can run fine as long as all OS components used during startup are within the first 8GB of space. However, (even with Mac OS 9) as soon as something used during startup ends up beyond that limit, you will get open firmware or a gray screen at startup. The Mac OS X does not allow the installation target to exceed the limit as a preventative measure, not because it won't work at all.
The best "non-technical" explanation I have heard as to why, is this... The IDE hardware (and its driver) can only "see" the first 8GB of space during the initial start up process before the OS is loaded. Once start up completes, control is handed to the OS, which can see the entire drive. Therefore, apps have no problem running from beyond the limit. Only components needed before the hand-off is constrained to the 8GB limit.
FYI - On my iMac and 120GB drive, 7.78 GB (as shown in a Finder window) is the precise point where the Mac OS X Installer allows the volume to be the install target. "Precise" to with a few hundred MB's.

Early 2008 Video Card Replacement Question

BACKGROUND
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:                       Mac Pro
Model Identifier:                  MacPro3,1
Processor Name:                  Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:                  2.8 GHz
Number of Processors:         2
Total Number of Cores:        8
L2 Cache (per Processor):     12 MB
Memory:                               10 GB
Bus Speed:                            1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version:                MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version (system):          1.25f4
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT:part number 630-9898
Chipset Model:        NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Type:                       GPU
Bus:                         PCIe
Slot:                         Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width:      x16
VRAM (Total):           512 MB
Vendor:                    NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID:                 0x0611
Revision ID:              0x00a2
ROM Revision:          3233
Displays:
SyncMaster:
Resolution:                       1920x 1200 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth:                      32-BitColor (ARGB8888)
SyncMaster:
Resolution:                       1920x 1080 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth:                      32-BitColor (ARGB8888)
I run one XP drive for games (primarily Flight Simulators) and music/video (CD/DVD) conversion (Danisoft/SlyFox). Mostly stuff that I have yet to find an equivalent that will run on Mac OS. I run one drive with Lion: MSOffice for Mac, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, etc (main use drive). I run one drive with Snow Leopard: still have some stuff that requires Rosetta but is little used. (Thinking about creating a Snow Leopard partition on my Lion drive and using my current Snow Leopard drive for additional storage.) I run one drive thatis purely storage. Everything is backedup to a 2TB Time Capsule using Time Machine. Op systems also backed up to Hitachi 2TB G-Drive using Carbon CopyCloner as well as all important files backed up there as well.
Video card failed. Ifixed it using the ‘bake it in the oven’ trick. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7um_hZYom4) However, still thinking about replacing the card. There are three Apple part numbers foravailable/comparable video cards.
630-9898 – This is the part number ofthe card currently installed. Best pricefound is $586.37
661-4642 – This card is listed as newwith no choke. Best price found is$242.00.
661-4854 – This card is listed as new‘with Choke’. Best price found is$246.00.
Then, I see where some are replacingthe NVIDIA cards with ATI’s.
5770 – $249.00 from Apple.
5870 – $449.00 from Apple.
QUESTION
Based on my current gaming on the XPdrive and the primary use of the Mac OS drives being general purpose (with moreand more getting into iPhoto and iMovie), what are the feelings of the community on which replacement vid card to purchase? (Note: To date I have not had any issues with noise or smoothness using the 8800. But who knows what I might want to do in the future and I want to be prepared as best Ican without spending the $1500 on that really high end card.)
TIA

You should look at those Apple version of the ATI Radeon 5770 and 5780 video cards. They are the current mac pro cards but will work in 2008's.
The 5770 requires one aux power cable and the 5870 requires two. Both have two mini-displayports and a dual link DVI port.

Black Screen, Grey Screen, then flashing question mark, now frozen....

hi everyone,
i know i have probably the most common problem - and i've tried to read all about the logic board problems which i'm fairly certain i have.
I realize i will most likely have to buy a new macbook - but before i do - i need to retrieve files that are on my ibook g3 (bought in early 2003).
This is what has happened in the past 2 days:
1. I can hear the power start up (and chimes) but screen is completely black.
2. Tried resetting PRAM and PMU, now blank grey screen sometimes appears.
3. Now, grey screen with flashing question mark in the middle alternating with mac face. So i assumed this meant it couldn't locate my hard drive. So i found my ibook install disc and inserted it and restarted while holding down "C" key.
4. Grey screen - with Apple (thought this was success) - then it turned to a large grey circle with a line through it (a slash). And then suddenly frozen.
Since then it has just been a lot of lines through the screen alternating with completely grey screen, etc. along with any of the above-mentioned outcomes. I tried pushing on the lower-left-hand corner of the computer and yes, it affects the display - more or less lines, etc.
How can i get my old files off of it? Do i buy a new macbook and connect them via fire wire cable and try that way? or will that not work if the above is happening? Or is it possible for someone (myself or perhaps IT professionals) to remove the hard drive from my old ibook and place it somewhere where i can copy over the files?
Any help is appreciated - i know this is a popular topic - i've just had so many weird outcomes in the past 2 days i'm not exactly sure which solution (if any) would work for me right now.
Thanks so much!

Hi Ronda -
I do have access to another mac (mini) with firewire at my work. Or I might go out and buy a new macbook this weekend as well (preferable since I don't really want my personal files on my work computer, etc.) But yes, i need to get my old files off of this one.
I have never added additional memory or anything to it really since I got it. So it should be the original specs:
iBook (14.1 LCD 900 MHz 32 VRAM)
256MB memory
Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Hard drive: 40GB
Not a lot of space was remaining if i recall. I did get the 'disk full' notice a few weeks ago, but i did end up deleting a lot of stuff. Needless to say, i'm sure it was quite full, but not at maximum when this happened.
Update: Last night i tried to start it up again, and it would ONLY go to a black screen this time (ie. no display at all). What do you think i should do?

How to increase vram in macbook pro 13 early 2011

I recently bought Macbook Pro core i5, 13in early 2011.
Is there any way to increase VRAM in my macbook pro. I want to work for Graphics specially in After effects and Adobe Photoshop. But when I started photoshop I saw an error that I have only 384MB of vRAM I can't work on such low vRAM... I am feeling I lost my money because of no available enough ram
Current specs are:
Macbook Pro 13in i5 - 4GB - 320 GB. early 2011

If all you did to install an application was drag it to the Applications folder, it will be completely uninstalled by dragging it to the Trash and emptying the Trash. How many other files that you've trashed and emptied can you still find on your computer?
Why bother to ask questions if you aren't going to believe the answers you're given? That's just a waste of your time and the time of anyone who answers you.

A Few Questions About Parallels 5 and Windows 7

Hey guys!
So, I am taking a computer programming class that requires Windows, just so we can all be on the same screen at the same time (lame, I know). Anywho, I have a Mac, so my teacher provided me with a log-in to MSDNAA, to get Windows 7 for free, and he gave me Parallels 5.0 for free as well. (go community colleges!)
A few questions:
1- I am running Snow Leopard right now on my 2009 MacBook Pro, and my processor is the 64-bit processor, but after running the command uname -a I discovered that my Kernal is loading in the 32-bit mode. Is this normal? Shouldn't it be running in 64-bit mode?
2- Which Windows 7 should I get, the x64 or x86 (32-bit or 64-bit)?
Thanks for any/all help!
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Terminal reply after command:
local 10.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.4.0: Fri Apr 23 18:28:53 PDT 2010; root:xnu-1504.7.4~1/RELEASE_I386 i386
the i386 means it's in 32-bit mode, right?

Try the Windows forum area - http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=687

Two questions: pro tools HD compatbility. iMac vs MBP.

I'll first start off with the question regarding Pro Tools HD compatibility. When it says "compatible", what is this meaning exactly? I'm transferring to Belmont University for Music Business/Production next semester and have contacted the studio manager and he said they mainly use Pro Tools HD in the campus studios. I already have Pro Tools LE 7 with an Mbox, so I'll be able to take projects from the studio on a firewire drive into Pro Tools LE for editing.
But I'm curious if "compatible" means that I'll be able to open my projects recorded in a Pro Tools studio in Logic Pro later on or if it means that I could use Logic Pro with the Pro Tools HD interface in the studio and record directly into Logic Pro? The studio manager told me that all the studios are equipped with Powermac G5s and everything I need will be there, but I want the ability to take my stuff away on a FW drive (oh, another question...any recommendations on firewire drives?) and work independently on my own system. Which leads to my next question....
In my email to him, I also asked about the importance of owning a laptop over a desktop and he said it wasn't imperative to have a laptop since the studios were equipped with Powermacs. I know if money wasn't an issue the Powermac is the best choice for audio production, but I am a student, and I cannot afford to buy a Powermac with sufficient RAM plus a display.......I was highly considering a Macbook Pro, but after realizing that I would be carrying my hard drive around more than my computer, it has me wondering about an iMac. I know the 2 gb RAM limit is a downfall for this system, but I would have that limit in the MBP also, so that doesn't affect anything between comparing the two. I have configured both systems with the education discount and Applecare:
15" MacBook Pro: $2,898.00
-2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
-2GB 667 DDR2 - 2x1GB SO-DIMMs
-100GB Serial ATA drive @ 7200 rpm
-MacBook Pro 15-inch Widescreen Display
-SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
-AirPort Extreme Card & Bluetooth
-Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
-AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro/PowerBook (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll
-15.4-inch TFT Display
20" 2.0 GHz iMac: $2,056.00
-2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
-250GB Serial ATA drive
-ATI Radeon X1600/256MB VRAM
-SuperDrive 8x (DVD+R DL/DVD+RW/CD-RW)
-Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
-Accessory kit
-AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll
-20-inch widescreen LCD
-2GHz Intel Core Duo
-AirPort Extreme
-Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
So, with portability no longer being a great concern, for system performance, which would be the best system? I will be using Pro Tools LE 7 for editing/mixing and Logic Pro for MIDI/creating music with virtual instruments. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott
12 Powerbook w/Superdrive; 512mb; 80gb; Airport Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hey Scott.
Check out the "Benchmark Song 2" thread on this forum. That will show some performance test on different computers.
About the choice of computer, well, all I can say is get the best of what you can afford. Logic runs nicely on both those machines by all reports. I would also like to say that the Mac Pros (new Powermacs) should be out before the end of the year and will smoke both of these computers. And the price should be comparable to the MacBook Pro.
X

Getting new Mac for Aperture and have a question...

I totally realize that this is a personal preference with no "wrong" way to do it. However, I would appreciate some thoughts so I can form a better idea of how I will set up an Aperture workflow that will work for me for a long time and how to configure my new iMac.
I use the referenced library workflow and store both my masters and Aperture library on my current internal drive with both backed up to externals. I'm getting a new Mac with the SSD drive for apps and OS (and Aperture library as well). The question is, should I get the mega 2 TB internal HDD along with that SSD for all my masters (which would also include my music and home-made movies)?
My current photo storage adds up to only 130GB right now and grows slowly. I don't even think I would double that in the next year. I realize that if I had, say, a 1.5 TB size Masters library, the the answer would be obvious that I would need to store externally because the iMac HDD isn't big enough. But that isn't my situation.
But since I would be able to fit all my photos on an internal HDD (2TB) to use as referenced, is there a better reason to skip the internal 2TB HDD and just get hooked up with some good, high-speed external system and stick with an internal SSD to just handle the OS, music, and apps? In other words, all my media (photos and movies) would always be stored AND edited from an external drive (I will actually edit on the SSD and then move the referenced files to the external). This means that from now on all new Macs I ever get will only need a moderate sized SSD for OS and apps. I would basicallt forever keep all things media on externals.
I hope this makes sense. Thanks for any help with this.

jbshanks wrote:
One other thing... the only way for me to get a 1GB VRAM now is to buy the top-of-the-line iMac. That's the issue.
I've seen that also. That's why I added the "If you can wait.." statement.
If you need to purchase before say late October, then the specs you list for the 21" iMac are quite good and the possibility of developers designing GPU threads that require caching in the VRAM may or may not need amounts beyond 512 MB. The fact that Apple offers an upgrade to the 2 GB VRAM video adapter on their high-end machine tells me that they know that the Pro Apps will be able to take advantage of that amount (not that it is necessary for the enthusiast looking to have a good Aperture experience).
SierraDragon has much more experience than I with Aperture, so he may be able to shed some light on this one.
For my part, I run a 17" MacBook Pro (late 2011) which has the 2.5 Ghz i7, 8 GB Apple provided RAM, and the AMD 6770 with 1 GB VRAM. I installed an OWC 480 GB SSD and I am connected to the Apple Thunderbolt Display (because this machine only offers a Thunderbolt port to connect video signals with). Aperture runs fine on my machine (although for some reason cropping takes a couple of seconds now, where it was immediate before the AP 3.3 update). I run Photoshop CS6 and Illustrator CS6 without any issues on this machine, so it is definitely capable of running in a professional environment.
Since your specs call-out a 2.8 Ghz i7, 16+ GB RAM and an SSD, I personally would not hesitate to purchase that machine if you need to purchase soon. I just mentioned the 1 GB VRAM due to your wanting to be able to handle 4+ years of updates to the OS and software. That doesn't mean the 512 GB VRAM won't work great, just that the 1 GB VRAM would be additional insurance (sort of like Apple Care).

Few questions about the iMac I ordered.

Hi,
I ordered an 400MHZ,128MB,DVD-ROM,13GB,OS9,2FW,2USB slotloading iMac and while I wait for it I want to ask a few questions.
1. Is there anyway to connect anything serial to it? I have alot of other Apple stuff like my other older Macs and Newton that I want to connect to it.
2. Will Tiger run smoothly with 512MB? How about 256MB?
3. Can I upgrade the processor? Like to a 500MHZ or better a GHZ?
4. I have disks from my previous iMac (Slot Loading) will they work with this one?
5. I need firmware updates! Where to get them?
6. No floppy? Can I get an external?
7. How much fater then a 604ev 300MHZ?
8. Can I run a game that requires a 1 GHZ processor on my iMac? This may sound like a silly question but I really never tried it!
9. Is it noisy like my PowerMac 8600/300?
10. Can I upgrade it to OS 9.2.2 without MacOShelper?
11. It has OS 9.0.4 can I just install OS 9.2.2 without the need of installing OS 9.1,OS 9.2.1?
12. Is the HDD upgradable? To what?
13. VRAM is going to be a problem! Can I upgrade it?
14. Can I connect a VGA or APPLE monitor to it for an extra display?
15. Will the built in monitor support 800x600,1024x768 resolution?
16. Can I change the color of it?
17. Max RAM?
18. DVD-RW compatible?
19. Internal floppy compatible?
20. CD-RW compatible?
Thanks all You dont need to answer them all just answer as many as you can please!

1) you can get serial to USb adaptors. How well they work I can't vouch for. If its something that is replaceable by a newer version, its often cheaper to do so.
2) 256 megs is about the minimum it will run with. 512 would be much better, 1 gig of ram would be best. see ramseeker.com and crucial.com
3) fastmac.com is the only place I know of that does any upgrades on slot loaders anymore. its expensive, and not worth it. If you wanted a faster machine, you should have bought one frankly. a used eMac could be gotten cheap and be better in every way.
4) depends. if they are form the same generation, then yes. If not, then it could be questionable.
5) firmware updates are easily accesible from apples software download section of their support page. you need firmware update 4.1.9 for a slot loader, and it must be installed before installing OS X.
6) Do you really need a floppy? Cripes, get a USB keychain drive. They are like 20 bucks and will work on any machine. Hold way more than a floppy to and are smaller. If you really need them, then yes, floppy drives are available externally.
7) hard to quantify exactly how much faster, but a G3 is a much better chip than the 604 from all accounts I've read. you might find benchmarks somewhere like xlr8yourmac.com
8) Doubtful you can run a game where you don't meet the minimum specs. Not just because of the processor speed, but some require G4's (G3's never made it that fast), or better graphics cards than are in that iMac.
9) a slot loader is essentially silent when sleeping. There's no fan to make a lot of noise. S light hum form the CRT and the hard drive is all the noise there will be. Its one of the quietest machines ever made by anyone.
10) I don't even know what macoshelper is, but upgrading to 9.2 is a pretty painless procedure and doesn't require anything other than the downloaded upgrade.
11) you need 9.1 before going to 9.2 unless you have a full retail install of 9.2.
12) hard drive i upgradeable to 137 gigs. 7200 rpm drives are fine. external drives have no limit on them.
13) vram is not upgradeable.
14) that model iMac has a vga port on the back of it, but its for mirroring only, not extended desktop.
15) yes, the monitor supports both those resolutions.
16) not easily. you'd have to find an empty case and swap out parts, which means exposing some of the stuff in the CRT, which you do NOT want to mess with unless you know what you are doing.
17) max ram is two 512 meg chips for 1 gig.
18) DVD-RW's should work, but any burned media can be dodgy. Note this is for reading only. There's no burner. You could upgrade to a burner, but it would be sssssllllllooooooowwwwwwww.
19) internal floppy is not possible.
20) cd-rw will read fine, but again, it doesn't have a burner on it. You could upgrade internal or external.

Display Questions with Retina and VMware Fusion (Windows 7/8)

Looking to buy my first MacBook Pro and looking to make sure I get the specs I need and have a couple of questions.
I would like to be able to run (simultaenously)
During the day for work:
Windows 7 x64 - 30GB HD - 1 Core - 1GB Ram - Purpose: Has a VPN client that allows me to VPN and RDP only
Windows 8.1 x64 - 60GB HD - 2 Cores - 4GB+ Ram - Purpose: Office 2013 installed on this VM and all my other work applicatons (light weight)
OSX 10.10 - Whatever it can take - Light Web Browsing etc while at work.
After work:
Guess it doesn't matter really - i'd like to play games (bootcamp fine) if possible too. Nothing crazy so barely worth mentioning.
My main questions:
Display: Iris Pro or nVidia - Can the base 15 inch GPU/CPU handle the two VMs at the same time plus the host OS (OSX) without hiccups?
Display: How does VMware Fusion recognize the discrete GPU - will the system be smooth/quiet without activating it?
Battery life: Virtualization is pretty heavy battery wise. Does anyone know what happens to the battery when you're running a couple VMs?
Display: How is running Windows 7/8 on a MacBook with a specifically retina display? Do the Windows PCs look really ugly/blurry due to such a high resolution?
What is the minimum hardware required for these VMs to run fast and responsive? (CPU/GPU/RAM only)
Thanks!!

Sorry - we're users here, just like you, and some questions just get lost sometimes.
The fastest hardware you can buy, the easier you'll be able to run Windows. If you use Boot Camp to run Windows (7, 8 or 8.1) the machine will run at it's best. If you want to run Windows alongside the Mac OS, you'll need to use a VM application (I use Parallels - I've tried VMwareFusion but like Parallels better and it just works best for me).
So, to your questions:
The Retina machine with the NVIDIA GPU will be the fastest - it's a faster processor and has more VRAM.
Any VM is going to use resources - how much RAM, for example, is up to you. I have 16 GB of RAM and 8GB dedicated to Parallels/Windows 7 Pro.
I wouldn't (and you really can't) run a VM for very long on battery. If you're using VM's, that's the time to plug into mains. Running a 'couple' of VM would put further heavy use on your GPU, CPU and shorten your battery life.
I would make sure to get a good, fast quad-core i7 processor, the 2GB of VRAM NVIDIA GPU and the maximum amount of RAM (16GB).
Good luck,
Clinton

Adding a RAID card to help speed up export (and other drive question) in Premiere Pro CC

First of all, I have read Tweakers Page exporting section because that is where my primary concern is. First my questions, then background and my current and proposed configurations:
Question 1: Will adding a hardware RAID controller, such as an LSI MegaRAID remove enough burden from the CPU managing parity on my software RAID 5 that the CPU will jump for joy and export faster?
Question 2: If true to above, then compare thoughts on adding more smaller SSDs for either a one volume RAID 0 or smaller two volume RAID 0 to complement existing HDD RAID 5. That is, I'm thinking of buying four Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB SSDs to put in a four disk volume to handle everything (media/projects, media cache, previews, exports), or split it up into two volumes of two disks each and split the duties, or keep the four disk volume idea and put the previews & exports on my HDD RAID 5 array.
The 850's are rated at SEQ read/write: 550/470 MB/s thus I could get around 2000/1500 MB/s read write in a four disk RAID 0 or 1/2 that if I split into two volumes to minimize volumes from reading/writing at the same time, if that really matters with these SSDs?
The Tweaker's page made a few comments. One is splitting duties among different disks, rather than a large efficient RAID may actually slow things down. Since the SSDs are much faster than a single HDD, I'm thinking that is no longer accurate, thus I'm leaning toward the Four disk configuration putting OS & Programs on C drive, Media & Projects on D (HDD RAID 5), Pagefile & Media Cache on SSD (2-disk RAID 0) and Previews &Exports on 2nd SSD RAID 0 (or combine the two RAID 0's and their duties).
Just trying to get a perspective here, since I haven't purchased anything yet. Any experience/stories, I would appreciate.
My current drive configuration:
My D drive is software RAID 5 consisting of four 1 TB Western Digital RE4 (RED) 7200 RPM HDDs with a CrystalDiskMark SEQ Read/Write of 339/252 MB/s.
The C drive is SSD 500 GB (Samsung 840 (not Pro) and does 531/330 MB/s. My OS, Program Files and Page File are on C, and data/media files/project, etc all are on the RAID drive.
Problem:
Current setup allows for smooth editing, only the exporting seems slow, often taking between two and two and a half times the video length to export. Thus a 10 minute video takes 20-30 minutes to export. 15 minute video can take 30-40 minutes to export. The first 10% of the two-pass export takes under a minute (seems fast), but it gets slower where the final 10 or 20% can hang for many minutes like my system is running out of steam. So where is the waste?
I have enabled hardware acceleration (did the GPU hack since my GPU isn't listed) and it may spike at 25% usage a few times and eat up 600 MB of VRAM (I have 2 GB of VRAM), otherwise it is idle the whole export. The CPU may spike at 50% but it doesn't seem overly busy either.
Our timeline is simple with two video streams and two audio streams (a little music and mostly voice) with simple transitions (jump cuts or cross dissolves). We sometimes fast color correct, so that might use the GPU? Also, since we film in 1080 60P and export 1080 29.97 frames/sec, I think that is scaling and uses the GPU. I know without the GPU, it does take a lot longer. I have ruled out buying a faster GPU since it doesn't appear to be breaking a sweat. I just need to know if my system is bottlenecked at the hard drive level because I'm using software RAID and my disks are slow and will hardware RAID significantly reduce the CPU load so it can export faster.
Our files are not huge in nature. Most our clips are several MBs each. Total project files are between 5 GBs and 10 GBs for each video with Windows Media File export being 500 MB to 1.2 GB on average. We shoot using Panasonic camcorders so the original files are AVCHD, I believe (.MTS files?).
Considerations:
1. I'm thinking of buying (and future proofing) an LSI Logic MegaRAID 9361-8i that is 12Gb/s SAS and SATA (because some current SSDs can exceed the 6Gb/s standard).
2. I'm not replacing my current RAID 5 HDDs because not in my budget to upgrade to 6 or more large SSDs. These drives are more important to me for temporary storage because I remove the files once backed up. I don't mind a few inexpensive smaller SSDs if they can make a significant difference for editing and exporting.
I can only guess my HDD RAID is slow but the CPU is burdened with parity. I would imagine running RAID 10 would not help much.
My setup:
my setup:
CPU - i7-3930K CPU @4.5 GHz
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 2133 @2000
Motherboard - ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011
GPU - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC 2GB (performed the compatibility list hack to enable hardware acceleration).
C drive - 500 GB Samsung 840 SSD (Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and programs).
D drive - four 1 TB WD RE4 Enterprise HDDs 7200 RPMs in software RAID 5
Case - Cooler Master HAF X
CPU Fan - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO with 120 mm fan
Power Supply - Corsair Pro Series AX 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold
Optical Drive - Pioneer BDR - 208DBK
thanks in advance,
Eric

........software RAID 5 off the motherboard ??????......NOT a good idea, from what I have read here on this forum from experts like Harm Millard and others. They have mentioned a LARGE overhead on the CPU doing this....causing sub-par performance. RAID 0 off the motherboard will NOT do this, however.....RAID 0 would provide optimum speed, but, with the risk of total data loss if ANY drive fails. You may wish to reconfigure your RAID to be RAID 0...BUT...you would need to DILIGENTLY back up its entire volume onto perhaps a quality 4TB drive very frequently.
A lot depends on the nature of your current and FUTURE codecs you plan to edit. You may not want to sink a lot of money into an older setup that may have trouble with more demanding future codecs. For now, in the 1080p realm, your rig should be OK....the read/write performance on your CURRENT RAID 5 setup is not great, and a definite drag on the performance. The rest of your components appear to be fine.....the Samsung SSD, though not ideal, is OK.....it's write speed is WAY lower than the Pro model,but, the drive is used mainly for reading operations. Since you have Windows 7 Pro, and NOT Windows 8.......you CAN put the entire windows page file onto the RAID 0 you might create.....this will take that frequent read/write load OFF the SSD. Read the "tweakers Page" to see how to best TUNE your machine. To use your current setup most efficiently, without investing much money, you would :a. create the RAID 0 off the motherboard, ( putting all media and project files on it ) b. install a quality 7200rpm 4TB HDD to serve as a BACKUP of the RAID array. Then, install a Crucial M550 256GB or larger SSD, ( close in performance to Samsung 850 Pro...much cheaper), to put all previews, cache , and media cache files on....AND to use as " global performance cache" for After Effects...if you use that program. Exporting can be done to ANOTHER Crucial M550 for best speed...or, just to the either the FIRST Crucial or, the 4TB drive. Your current GPU will accelerate exports on any video containing scaling and any GPU accelerated effects. Your CPU is STILL important in SERVING the data to and from the GPU AND for decoding and encoding non-GPU handled video....your high CPU clock speed helps performance there ! You may want to check out possibly overclocking your video card, using MSI Afterburner.or, similar free program. Increasing the "memory clock speed" can RAISE performance and cut export times on GPU effects loaded timelines,or, scaling operations. On my laptop, I export 25% faster doing this. With my NEW i7 4700 HQ laptop, I export in the range of your CURRENT machine....about 2 to 3 times the length of the original video. PROPERLY SET UP...your desktop machine should BLOW THIS AWAY !!
Visit the PPBM7 website and test your current setup to possibly identify current bottlenecks,or, performance issues. THEN, RE-TEST it again, after making improvements to your machine to see how it does. Be aware that new codecs are coming (H.265 and HEVC,etc.) which may demand more computer horsepower to edit, as they are even MORE compressed and engineered for "streaming" high quality at a lower bandwidth on the internet. The new Haswell E...with its quad-channel memory, 8 core option, large number of PCI gen. 3 lanes, goes farther in being prepared for 4K and more. Testing by Eric Bowen has shown the newer PPro versions provide MUCH better processing of 4K than older versions.

Question about Parallels and ATI Radeon 5770

Ok, so I have a Mac Pro 3,1 here. I'm upgrading it to 16GB and two 7200 RPM 3TB drives which I'll run in Raid 0.
It has an ATI 2600HD with 256MB VRAM. This card has two DVI ports.
I just purchased an ATI Radeon 5770. I will use it with two Cinema Displays (DVI connections).
To connect the second display, I have the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter at Firmware 1.03.
My question concerns Parallels 8.
My Windows 7 VM will be a heavy-use VM so I want snappy performance. I was planning to dedicate 8GB RAM, half my CPU cores to it, and 512MB VRAM on the 5770.
What I was wondering about was the possibility of leaving in the 2600 HD and using its GPU to support my Parallels VM. Is that feasible? Practical?
Thanks

Dump the 2600XT (put it on the shelf, don't use it)
Install Windows natively first, then you can use it both ways, natively and dual boot, plus in a VM when that works.
Another option is 10.8.2 supports more Nvidia cards and more then the 1GB.
Don't use green 3TB in an array.

VRAM question

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