New 12-Core W/ Refurb RR Card - WOW

[joe hedge]

Just acquired yesterday a new 2.66 12-core and installed a refurbished RR card, and with only the stock 6 gigs of memory it is cranking out 1080 full debayer ProRes HQ's, through a $35 sata card to an external 4TB G-Raid, in slightly less than real time. Installation and upgrading the firmware was effortless, and not one dropped frame, crash, etc. Awesome.

After reading the RR threads on this site recommending more memory, what exactly is it I would need more RAM for, if I am already getting this kind of performance? Even faster transcodes? Running other programs while transcoding?

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

YES

Yes, you will get faster transcodes. It won't be night and day mind you.

Yes you will be more able to effectively run additional applications simultaneously.

I recommend doubling your RAM for most RED production.

There are other circumstances where you may wish to add more RAM, but for now that should be a pleasant upgrade.

RAM is relatively cheap, and more doesn't hurt.

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

In general, I find that MacPro's run best when they have 1 GB of RAM per core, or double that. so 12 GB, in evenly divisible DIMMS, or 24 GB, etc..

 

[joe hedge]

YES

Yes, you will get faster transcodes. It won't be night and day mind you.

Yes you will be more able to effectively run additional applications simultaneously.

I recommend doubling your RAM for most RED production.

There are other circumstances where you may wish to add more RAM, but for now that should be a pleasant upgrade.

RAM is relatively cheap, and more doesn't hurt.

Looking for a little more precise info than "relatively cheap and doesn't hurt"

Paging Dr. Kilgroe...

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Looking for a little more precise info than "relatively cheap and doesn't hurt"

Well gee, glad I could help you out.

The answer is really that it depends on you and how you wish to use this system.

Are you using the computer for anything else, or is this just a RED Rocket ingest system?

If you want real detailed advice, then you need to be more precise yourself.

 

[joe hedge]

Well gee, glad I could help you out.

The answer is really that it depends on you and how you wish to use this system.

Are you using the computer for anything else, or is this just a RED Rocket ingest system?

If you want real detailed advice, then you need to be more precise yourself.

I specifically asked in the OP, "would more RAM result in faster transcodes".

Yes or no.

"Couldn't hurt" helps...how?

 

[andrewhake]

See (this thread) on how not to get good advice about technology. yeesh. . .

More RAM will really only be beneficial to you if what you are doing is using up the RAM you have available. You wouldn't, in most situations, see faster transcoding times just by adding more RAM, that will pretty much always be dependent on your storage system, and if you are using hardware to accelerate it (Red Rocket).

When you are transcoding, take a look at Activity Monitor and see how much memory is actually is being utilized and by what applications. Take a screenshot, post it up here, others can take a look at their own results and compare.

I would imagine with .R3D files that can easily be multiple GBs, 6GB could be a limitation, but the actual data rates of your storage will be the biggest factor most likely. Running other programs while transcoding should definitely be possible with more RAM, really just a matter of testing out what you would like to do while eyeing a system monitor to see where you are falling short or are way ahead.

 

[joe hedge]

I was hoping to avoid, by asking on this thread

-transcoding w/ 6gb's RAM and charting the speed, and

-transcoding w/ 24 gb's RAM, charting that, and comparing the 2 results, and

-if the results are negligible, returning the 24 gb's RAM

but, based on the responses, we will apparently be doing that

will get back to you

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I specifically asked in the OP, "would more RAM result in faster transcodes".

Yes or no.

"Couldn't hurt" helps...how?

I don't think you understood me.

Please read what I wrote in my first reply again.

YES

Yes, you will get faster transcodes. It won't be night and day mind you.

Yes you will be more able to effectively run additional applications simultaneously.

I recommend doubling your RAM for most RED production.

There are other circumstances where you may wish to add more RAM, but for now that should be a pleasant upgrade.

RAM is relatively cheap, and more doesn't hurt.

In order to explain...

On a short transcode, something that is just a few minutes of r3d, you may be able to get by with just 6GB of RAM without using up all your RAM.

What is the potential impact? probably on the order of 10-15% improvement, or 2.4-3.6 fps increase in render speed. At best.

In order to TEST before you buy you should load a large project into RedCineX and start a transcode. Then monitor the read outs on Activity monitor. (Alternatively you could use a script to log results from vm_stat)

If you see physical memory usage is high (over 80%) and the VM size exceeds physical RAM installed by a factor of 2.5 or more, then you can use more RAM.

So, going back to my recommendation, I suggested doubling RAM. For current builds of RedCineX my experience is that 12GB is plenty. If Red makes RedCineX more capable of parallel processing this could change. (And I bet they are working hard on exactly that.)

The inbuilt assumption is that you are solely using the machine for Red ingest/transcode.

If you have more types of work you would like to do, say editing and graphics using FCP and After Effects CS5, you may benefit from even more RAM. If this machine has to handle all your studio functions, I recommend 24GB. Mostly to handle multitasking- it won't make things faster, it will just help keep them fast when you have a lot going on.

That's why I asked you what you plan on doing with the machine... The amount of RAM that is of benefit to you depends entirely on how you expect to use the machine.

This thread has been an example of how you don't get help on the Internet, and has been an unpleasant experience for me.

You are not owed answers to these questions, anyone who chooses to answer you is doing you a favor. Please try and remember that.

If you don't want to be polite to respondents, then do what I did: read the various manuals and learn how to basic diagnostics and systems analysis.

If you need more information or detail, then ask for that directly, and skip the attitude. I get that you may want more... and I tossed off my original response to be somewhat helpful in the time I had. If, instead of being a bit insulting, you had asked I probably would have replied later when I had time... like now.

If you want help from a specific person in the future, then PM them and let them know about your question and the thread link. That's always better than throwing that in the face of those who are trying to help you. Jeff is a great guy and very knowledgeable, but you might be better served hearing from Graeme.

You should also thank Andrew Hake, because its his comment that made me reply more thoroughly.

 

[joe hedge]

This thread has been an example of how you don't get help on the Internet, and has been an unpleasant experience for me.

Got it, thanks for your help