How much Ram should I use with 4D?

[Wilson-3d]

I have a duel 867 mac. It only has 256 ram also. It is still fast but I know the extra ram would help. For me it is one of those things on my list to get. It seems silly to invest in a new computer and not spend the extra to get the ram but I have done the same thing. If you can I would go for it but the ram will still be there when you have the cash.

[Per-Anders]

on a pc i would suggest as much ram as possible simply because pc's seem to suffer from "out of memory" errors a lot more than macs (i've got a gig of ram on my pc, and yet it still came out with an out of memory error when rendering a fairly simple scene at only 320/240 :/) anyhow, at other times it's performed very well on very complex scenes. though my mac never ever choked or came up with an out of memory error (both my macs also have 1gb of ram).

more memory will speed things up on a pc also, so get as much as you can afford i would say.

[miketche]

Don't skimp on RAM now. You will only regret it later. Trust me.

[smoke]

Go for the extra 256mb at least

[imashination]

Were those Dell prices? they're well known for over charging. go and have a look at Cruicial who will offer you better prices for specific machines.

[pit]

As mdme_sadie said: as much as you can afford!

@mdme_sadie: Don´t forget to defrag your Ram every now and then when you´re on a PC. You can use a Visual Basic command to do so: all you need to do is create a text file on your desktop. Call it something like "Defrag Ram". Write:
FreeMem=500000000
and save as Defrag Ram.vbs
In this case you would recover 500 Mb ram (500000000) - never write a higher number than half your physical Ram. All you have to do from now on to defrag the ram is doubleclick the Defrag Ram.vbs file on the desktop.It might take a while to defrag (a couple of seconds)- don´t do anything till it´s done. A quick and easy way to get some Ram back .

Btw: I had a lot of out of memory messages back when I ran Cinema on the Mac (1 Gig Ram) - I don´t think it´s a platform specific thing.

[Kotayus]

i have 512 DDR (pc 2100) and i have only experienced memory problems when having 1,000,000+ (thanks dicloner :thumbsup: )

I am going to get a newmobo, so i can have some DDR400...that will be awesome...dont have less than a gig...for sure.

[LucentDreams]

while you want as much ram as possible, sharing Rams of different sizes is typically a bad Idea, so I'd say gor for the 256, or two 256's, always try to keep your ram chips the same size. Mdme Sadie, I rarely get out of memory errors on 256 (got even less when I had 512 of course) but you need to set your virtual memory higher I'd think, windows always makes your VM really quite small. Best practice is to acutally make a seperate harddrive partition about 1.5 to 2 megs, and make that your Virtual memory or page file directory. this way its quicker to sort thruogh and clean as its only dealign with 2 gigs rather thensay 40 or 60 where it needs to find any room on the disk it can thus fragging your hard drive faster and you pagefiles are all fragegeds and takes much longer to sort through.

[grstovell]

I have 640 here at work, and 512 at home... (both are macs)

gotta tell you... for some reason c4d works so much better here at work! (faster processor... but not much!0

I'd say: go for as much as you can afford (512 is a good number!!!!)

-g

[sebek27]

you can get 256mb ram at crucial.com for your pc at $79 so Dell is overcharging you

[handige_harrie]

Here in holland you can get 512MB PC2700 OEM for 52Euro's and 512MB PC2700 brand for 60Euro's so the Dell price's are ridiculous.

Just take a look around at some internetshops for reasonable prices.

[modestmouse]

ya I just found that my comp is a 8200 instead of an 8100 and here is a memory page from crucial:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Dell%2BInspiron&mfr=Dell&cat=RAM&model=Inspiron+8200+Series&submit=Go
40$ for the 256mb
but the picture looks nothing like my ram in my computer. Whats with that???

[imashination]

The Dell inspiron is a laptop computer, that picture is laptop memory.

Perhaps you meant the Dell dimension?

[modestmouse]

I have to use rambus memory rdram and RD ram is the worst!!!

[Emberghost]

Another spot to find really low prices for anything computer related is --> http://www.pricewatch.com

[imashination]

Rambus? The betamax of the memory world ;-)

[mister_r]

rdram...man you got my compassion ;)
i got 512mb pc2100 and i've never experienced the out of memory thing (1.300.000+ at tests) but it didn't get my hdd full so i think that would happen, too if my swap file becomes too big (luckily there are 8gb free on my c drive)
instead my pc loves to render for days than showing me the memory message (earlier versions of windows caused these errors with 256mb though )

[handige_harrie]

PC800 RDRAM 512MB Brand 70Euro's :rolleyes:

that pricewatch link is all you (should) need :thumbsup:

[modestmouse]

thanks for all the help on this guys!

[JIII]

Never buy ram from the maker of the computer. Heck I was in the gateway store and they had singe gig 3.06's for 3 grand, never gonna even consider paying that much for a PC.

And if you had out of memory problems with a mac my guess is that you were in OS 9 and did not set your memory high enough. In 9 it did it manually. However it does help to restart your computer if you are getting out of memory problems.

yeah 200 for 512 is kinda silly.

[Spearhead]

Yes, rambus is more expensive but also pretty much faster than regular ram. More ram is always better but dont overshoot it. Buy a stick at a time and see how much it improves performance. I recently upgraded to 1 gb ram but i dont notice any remarkable differrence except that my ram-cleaner never goes off anymore, thats a good thing tho =P

Also make sure youre powersource got enough juice to supply the extra ram. I actually have a 512 stick of ram lying around just because my psu is only at 240W and cant supply enough power to 1.5gb.

Im not sure on the the wattage rambus needs but your hardware supplier should be able to answer that. Check the label on the backside of your comp or open it up and check on the psu box for a label.

Enough yada-yada from me =P when i start just cant shut it up ;)

To sum it up. If you can afford it. Buy it. If youre low on dineros, wait, cuz the difference isnt that god-like if youre on an otherwise stable system with a fast cpu and graphcard....

yes i will shut up now =P

[ThirdEye]

I have 512 megs but i'd like to have 1024, get the more you can afford

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