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dropped frames, Get more RAM but how much?
Hey
I’m starting out an audio heavy animated project. Only using one track of video, but 12 audio tracks. I keep getting Dropframe warning. Wanted to know how much RAM I should get? Money is an issue. Do you think having a total of 2.5 GB of RAM is too little?
Thanks.
I’m running a
2.66 GHz Dual Core Intel Xeon
OX 10.4.7
1 GB RAM -
6 Replies
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Your RAM and processor speed are good. What are you using for your scratch disk?
Also, make sure you increase your realtime audio tracks to at least 12 in your preferences (the default is 8, I think).
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Try mixing the audio down from the sequence render only menu.
A total of 4 gigs seems to be the sweet spot now, but more RAM isn’t going to help your playback problem (but will improve performance of Motion and all apps when running a bunch at the same time). If the audio isn’ t on a disk other than your startup disk, that’s likely the problem with the dropped frames.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D
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Right now I’m using my startup Disk, My Mac HD as my scratch disk. We’re thinking about getting a Lacie external firewire drive 500GB. So you think my 1GB of RAM is fine?
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Oh and I often have FCP and Soundtrack pro open at the same time.
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Oh. I misread. You only have 1GB….I thought it was 2.5GB.
If you have other programs open often…get more…Jerry said 4GB is the sweet spot, and he knows what he’s talking about. I have 2.5, and have no problems at all.
You should NEVER NEVER NEVER use your boot disk as your scratch disk…this is the likely source of your problem.
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And if you’ve got one of them new fancy Mac Pros with all those available
slots for extra hard disks with the easy mounting trays, I’d go that direction
before doing anything with firewire except backup. Add two or three SATAII
drives in those slots, and you’ve got yourself a nice RAID 0 too.Dan
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