Unmissable deal

[poorsod]

The day I was going to take the plunge on that DIY upgrade, I spy this on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160172056615

As I'm sure you'll all agree it's a much stronger setup (q6600, two graphics cards, 4gb ram) and for only a hundred quid more they are practically paying me to get that Q6600 ;).

So there goes another hundred out of the savings. Oh well.

[poorsod]

had a thought: how will 32bit XP handle all that ram? It's 4GB plus 1GB video memory. Will some of the memory just be ignored by the system, and will it be the ram or the video memory?

[tech1]

Installed RAM is ignored. hardware RAM is always addressed first. Chances are only 2.5 GB of that 4 will actually show up, depending on Windows sees that 1 GB video RAM.

[Bops2000]

It appears you can use the 4Gigs on a 32 bit ap machine...I really don't know personally

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

[tech1]

A 32-bit OS does have enough memory addresses for 4 GB of RAM, but unfortunately these addresses are allocated to hardware (BIOS, video card, DSP accelerators, etc.) prior to install DIMM's. In practice, systems with 4 GB RAM installed usually see between 3 and 3.75 GB rAM in System Properties...which is the amount made available to programs. Having a 1 GB vid card would mean that 1 GB of memory space are allocated to the vid card...leaving 3 GB for the DIMM's and the rest of your hardware.

[Bops2000]

The other question is why 2 video cards?, why not one dual at low end res. for Audio Aps? In my case I use one Machine for video, and another machine for audio. Another thought is those video cards are juice seekers, there is no mention of PSU, or MOBO, I for one, went through a few ASUS boards, and am quite confident in my scenerios, the video card killed the radio star..

[poorsod]

video cards are for games, this is not purely an audio PC. They run in tandem.
mobo is a respectable one (asus p5n-e) with a lot of good reviews (and it supports the new 45mm thing too).
PSU will be functional I'm sure, but I will probably end up replacing it in the near future.

Re the ram thing... I thought that would be the case. I might sell one stick on later.

[itsplayed]

Besides for the fact that Windows XP is limited to 4Gbs of physical ram, service pack 2 is the culprit here......if you start out with 4gbs of ram running Windows XP SP1, you may see something like 3.87gbs of addressable ram(depending on ram addressing for system resources), but after upgrading to SP2 that initial number may indeed drop to something like 3.12gbs of addressable ram....the fix is to initiate the PAE switch within the boot.ini file.

[poorsod]

would changing that hit performance in any way?
Obviously not getting SP2 is not an option.

[Bops2000]

What is PAE ? Physical Address ??? emulation??
Freakin acronyms drive me C R A Z Y, (Certifed at Rampant Aloogrythim Zanious iYrony)

[itsplayed]

Sorry, PAE stands for Physical Address Extension. It's a memory address extension that enables processors to expand the number of bits that can be used to address physical memory from 32 bits to 36 bits, through support in the host operating system for applications using the Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) API.
Although support for PAE memory is typically associated with support for more than 4 GB of RAM, PAE can be enabled on Windows XP SP2 in order to bring the amount of ram seen by the system to what it saw prior to installing SP2.
I have used the PAE switch in conjunction with the 3gb switch to get the most ram addressing to programs with Windows XP.
You will not see any performance hit by implementing, however you can have driver issues as a result from using the switch, which in turn may cause stability issues to arise. All I can advise is to give it a try, if issues do occur, just re-edit the boot.ini file.

[Bops2000]

Not me, I break enough stuff...
Sorry for hackin SOD
Thanks Played and Tech

[poorsod]

And what's the 3gb switch?
I will track them both down on the Tubes and find out a bit more about them.

Your advice is to give it a whirl and see if it all goes wrong though played?

[itsplayed]

And what's the 3gb switch?
I will track them both down on the Tubes and find out a bit more about them.

Your advice is to give it a whirl and see if it all goes wrong though played?

Yes, but before implementing the PAE switch, I would first see how much available ram the system shows you have beforehand and then look at see what Windows shows afterwards....if there's no change than remove the boot.ini PAE extension. If Windows does see more available ram, run the system to see if any stability issues occur. If you are then running stable, implement the 3gb switch.
The 3gb switch is a given IMHO, as it will limit the amount of ram given to kernal to 1gb and provide more ram for processes and applications.....that is assuming the programs can make use of the extra ram.
I go into the 3gb switch with more detail here at this thread.....
http://www.audioforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19457&highlight=3gb+switch

[poorsod]

Thanks played. Does the kernel only having 1gb slow down Windows at all?

[87PRS]

dang...itsplayed thats some intense stuff on your thread there, nicely done! Got me wondering what to do with my system and I'm still confused haha

poorsod the quad core 2 system looks like it would rock, good call!

[itsplayed]

Thanks played. Does the kernel only having 1gb slow down Windows at all?

It can if 1gb is not enough ram for the system to function....I see this as a rarity however and will most likely be exclusive to those systems dedicated to intensive graphics applications. Kill as many running processes as possible(always a good idea regardless), then implement the switch.


87PRS dang...itsplayed thats some intense stuff on your thread there, nicely done! Got me wondering what to do with my system and I'm still confused haha


LOL....Thanks. It's easy to be confused about all this stuff....I'm constantly updating my approach to system tweaking and I dread the day that Vista becomes mainstream in the DAW world.

[poorsod]

Just posting to let you know that it's all up and running. I'm just setting up Firefox with all my extensions now; music etc comes tomorrow and Itsplayed's tweaks later on. Looking forward to see how many Massives I can run at once :D
One fairly major annoyance, there aren't enough PCI slots so I can't use the A/D D/A daughter card from my 1212M. I'm stuck with the horrible Realtek onboard sound ATM - going to have to rush the 1616M I was queuing up to get any kind of IO.
The 3 fans are also a bit louder than my old machine, even though they are all larger. It's tolerable when I'm not wearing my Producer's Hat but I might unplug one of them.

[itsplayed]

Congrats on the build poorsod and good luck with the finalizing.

[jrides]

Nice stuff in this thread.