Adobe Premiere says: your DDR2 sucks! Is it right?

[BadOmen]

I thought my configuration, although 1 year old now (see below) would laugh at the new Adobe Premiere Pro CS3.

BUT.... as soon as I began working, I started receiving "system short on memory" messages from the software. Man, that memory was expensive at that time. That kind of message hurts...

So, questions:

- Is it really the system who's short on memory, or would that be my video card?

- In any case, what's the best thing to do?

*Buy more memory and make it 4GB?
*Overclocking? (I tried stupid Gigabyte's CIA2 but the computer froze within 2 minutes. I'm pretty good with computers, but never overclocked a thing)

*Increasing virtual memory through disk? How could I do that? Control Panel or a more interesting application?

Any input is greatly appreciated

Thank you all

 

[myocardia]

It's definitely the system that's short on memory, not the video card. CS3 isn't happy, unless it has 4 Gb all to itself. Well, not really, but everyone who uses it much swears that you need 4 GB to make it happy.

 

[Acanthus]

Warning: If you are planning on installing more than 3GB of memory, you will need a 64-bit operating system.

 

[BadOmen]

So, overclocking wouldn't be the answer at all, right?

Well, it doesn't hurt that much to buy 2 extra GB of OCZ 800, I think CS3 deserves it.

But.... isn't Windows XP capable of handling 4GB properly? Or isn't it capable of handling it at all?

Now that's scary.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
So, overclocking wouldn't be the answer at all, right?

Well, it doesn't hurt that much to buy 2 extra GB of OCZ 800, I think CS3 deserves it.

But.... isn't Windows XP capable of handling 4GB properly? Or isn't it capable of handling it at all?

Now that's scary.

You will have driver addressing issues if you go over 3.2GB.

Windows XP-64 and 64bit versions of vista can run up to 16GB+

Overclocking wont help you at all if you are running out of memory.

 

[Rottie]

Just installed Premiere Pro CS3 on 32 bit Windows XP with DDR-400 2GB last night no issue so far

 

[BadOmen]

It crashed once and gave me the "low on memory" message next.

I noticed that Roxio's DVDit was also "complaining" a little, with some occasional crashes.

Now that makes me wonder if everything is really ok in this rig and the only problem is really lack of memory. Especially after my attempt to use Gigabyte's C.I.A.2 Motherboard Tweaking thing and its almost immediate failure (system crashed 2 seconds after I closed Easytune).

So far, I know I need:
-more memory
-windows 64

Anything else I should take a peek on in order to be sure everything is going smooth?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
It crashed once and gave me the "low on memory" message next.

I noticed that Roxio's DVDit was also "complaining" a little, with some occasional crashes.

Now that makes me wonder if everything is really ok in this rig and the only problem is really lack of memory. Especially after my attempt to use Gigabyte's C.I.A.2 Motherboard Tweaking thing and its almost immediate failure (system crashed 2 seconds after I closed Easytune).

So far, I know I need:
-more memory
-windows 64

Anything else I should take a peek on in order to be sure everything is going smooth?

Are you dealing with large files when you work with premiere?

I would check your memory usage in the task manager.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
Now that makes me wonder if everything is really ok in this rig and the only problem is really lack of memory.

It sounds to me like something is wrong with your system, besides not having enough memory. Really, CS3 should run just fine on a system with 512MB of RAM, although it would be dog slow, since it would mostly be using the hard drive, instead of RAM.

 

[IEC]

I've never had issues on 2GB C2D machines... so you must have something else wrong. It should be paging to disk if you run out of memory.

 

[aka1nas]

Have you statically set your Windows page file to a fixed size? If so.... don't.

 

[BadOmen]

Just ran Premiere now with an eye on Task Manager.

It seems to be stacking heavily. As I use it, the ammount of used memory increases pretty quick. Finallly, I had 785mb dedicated to the process, CPU usage going at 70% when producing titles on a file, physical memory at 460mb left and System Cache at 847mb when it finally crashed.

That's frustrating...

 

[myocardia]

Then you definitely have something else wrong. How much vdimm are you giving your RAM, and which RAM is it?

 

[Modelworks]

Are you using plugins ?
There are a few plugins that don't work properly with cs3 than allocate memory and never release it.

I have used premiere plenty on 2GB ram and not had the problems you are having.
Make sure everything but premiere is closed and as few services are running as possible.
I have about 15 items in task manager running when I launch premiere.

Using XP x64.

 

[BadOmen]

My RAM is an OCZ Gold 800mhz ddr2, 2x1gb dual channel. I'll check the vdimm when I get home tonight, but for one thing, I never took anything out of "auto" in my BIOS. Was waiting to get a better cooling system to start tweaking it (got the Arctic Cooler 7 last week). So, everything is working as default.

Plugins, I have quite a few, but not that many. Another thing I noticed is that, when choosing fonts on CS3 (I have LOTS of them installed), Task Manager gives me lots of bright green (meaning: meters soar). Actually, it crashed once while I was choosing fonts.

Last night I checked on memory paging and yes, it was using static 2000 mb. I changed to System Managed Size. No crashes so far, but Task Manager is basically reading the same numbers as before (but then Page File was going up too. Never more than 1.3g, though).

XP 64..... would that be recommended, even if I keep using 2gb ram only? Would that be worth the reformat and reinstall on my C drive?

 

[Modelworks]

Having tons of fonts myself I did have problems with it crashing occasionally. Not to mention the long time it takes to load them in. I found it better to break the fonts up into smaller directories.

XP64 I wouldn't install just to use premeire. Its not going to make that big a difference.
I do think xp64 is more stable than the 32 bit xp. But I don't know if I would scrap a working 32 bit install just to install it. If starting from scratch , then yes.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
My RAM is an OCZ Gold 800mhz ddr2, 2x1gb dual channel. I'll check the vdimm when I get home tonight, but for one thing, I never took anything out of "auto" in my BIOS. Was waiting to get a better cooling system to start tweaking it (got the Arctic Cooler 7 last week). So, everything is working as default.

Plugins, I have quite a few, but not that many. Another thing I noticed is that, when choosing fonts on CS3 (I have LOTS of them installed), Task Manager gives me lots of bright green (meaning: meters soar). Actually, it crashed once while I was choosing fonts.

Last night I checked on memory paging and yes, it was using static 2000 mb. I changed to System Managed Size. No crashes so far, but Task Manager is basically reading the same numbers as before (but then Page File was going up too. Never more than 1.3g, though).

XP 64..... would that be recommended, even if I keep using 2gb ram only? Would that be worth the reformat and reinstall on my C drive?

You likely wont see any benefit from XP64 with 2GB of memory.

The fixed virtual memory size was probably your issue.

As for the OCZ memory, a lot of their stuff is rated for 2.1v or 2.2v. Most motherboards when set to auto will run it at the JEDEC stock settings of 1.8v, causing instablilty.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Have you statically set your Windows page file to a fixed size? If so.... don't.

Bingo, we have a winner.

 

[BadOmen]

Well, so far:

- It seems that non-static paging will fix the main problem
-No need for x64 now.

And, as Acanthus pointed out, cpu-z says ddr voltage is really 1.8, so:

-Pushing up a notch on vdimm would help. Now that's a good one, voltages are something I never played with. If I change it, is there any other voltage I should increase as well in order to keep balance, or am I not making sense at all?

Thanks for all the patience, guys!:beer:

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
Well, so far:

- It seems that non-static paging will fix the main problem
-No need for x64 now.

And, as Acanthus pointed out, cpu-z says ddr voltage is really 1.8, so:

-Pushing up a notch on vdimm would help. Now that's a good one, voltages are something I never played with. If I change it, is there any other voltage I should increase as well in order to keep balance, or am I not making sense at all?

Thanks for all the patience, guys!:beer:

Make sure the memory you have is rated higher than 1.8v before upping the voltage, unless of course youre overclocking.

 

[ryderOCZ]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
And, as Acanthus pointed out, cpu-z says ddr voltage is really 1.8, so:

-Pushing up a notch on vdimm would help. Now that's a good one, voltages are something I never played with. If I change it, is there any other voltage I should increase as well in order to keep balance, or am I not making sense at all?

CPU-z does not report what voltage the ram is running at.

It reports the voltage that the SPD is set for, including any voltage setting in the EPP profile if the particular model ram has one.

The ram you have if it is the Gold series (OCZ2G8002GK?? ) is rated 2.0 - 2.1V for DDR2-800 operation. The board will default to 1.8V, set your bios to +0.2V...that should take care of the ram voltage issue.

 

[BadOmen]

Oops... my bad. I knew there was something fishy. After changing voltage, the values were the same on cpu-z. Now, sorry about the stupid question, but.... how do I know the current voltage the memory is running at? Is it displayed somewhere in the bios?

And yes, I had checked it, it was really rated 2.0 2.1.

So I added .2V. So far, so good, totally stable. I'll test Premiere today, make it kinda angry and overloaded, and see how it goes. I'll post the results here.

Thanks again!

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: myocardia
It's definitely the system that's short on memory, not the video card. CS3 isn't happy, unless it has 4 Gb all to itself. Well, not really, but everyone who uses it much swears that you need 4 GB to make it happy.

that's why my friend stepped back to CS2 version of that program, it just hogs up so much on the computer. however, you can increase paging file size, make it bigger like 4GB pagin fixed size on a fast HD, see if it make things better, and also you probably editing large files, see if you can section them for import so not to open an enormous file at same time.

 

[BadOmen]

Maybe paging static for a larger value would help.

BECAUSE I increased memory voltage to spec value, I used System Paging instead of static.... and CS3 crashed last night again, during audio edition of a second audio channel that I had just added.

Rats.... I'll try a 4GB static paging (it was 2 before), my HD is the seagate 7200.10.

If it doesn't work..... 4GB and xp64? Would that be the last resort?