Sound cards.
 

On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:16:57 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

Ah yeah, M$'s wonderful 'ReadyBoost'. can make matters worse see
http://www.mpieters.com/2007/01/read...benchmark.html
It ain't equal to 'real' RAM but if you are trying to run Vista on very low RAM
(512k) it's just about better than nothing sometimes.
It is not however anything like the equivalent of adding mainboard RAM.

Did you try with USB memory? Faster reads using USB than SD I'm told.
I have no experience, as I don't own a computer with little enough RAM
to even theoretically use RB. I'm not shifting my music machines to
64-bit yet, and spending the cost of a round of drinks to install 4GB
is rather a no-brainer :-)

Did you find any benefit on a low-RAM machine? Or is this just
Google-knowledge?

Sound cards.
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article ,
bcoombes
bcoombes@orangedotnet wrote:
Brian Gaff wrote:
As an adjunct to this thread. I noticed a strange thing today. The
machine with this noisy supply makes less noise, at least on the
soundcard if you take out the two ramsticks attached to its usb
ports.


Can't be, ram only goes in dedicated mobo slots. (or occasionally for
ramdrives on a pci card) AFAIK there's absolutely no way to attach ram
via USB.. for starters usb access is waaay too slow for that.. did you
mean something else?

Maybe Brian just means ram in the standard sense. i.e. they are random
access memory which you can read and write as you wish.

I read his post as referrring to mainboard RAM but I assume now [see my second
post] that he was referring to chips on the card


Although in principle of course, with *nix systems you can map out physical
devices however you chose, although it might be mad to treat an ordinary
USB stick as part of the main running memory in most cases. No idea if
Windows allows such things as I don't use it.


Yeah, ReadyBoost Microsoft call it, and it does indeed have the function of
mapping RAM to a flash drive. It's hideously ineffective being as slow(ish) as
hard drive based 'virtual ram' so that your 'mad' comment is quite correct.
Microsoft's marketing spin on it could however lead you to believe you were
getting the equivalent of actual mainboard [volatile high speed] RAM.
Notwithstanding that my original comment was wrong since strictly speaking flash
[non-volatile low speed] RAM is RAM nevertheless [and can be attached via USB].
It's just so poor that I'd mentally discounted it.
However what I'm really interested in is that the removal of two chips [of
whatever variety] from the card had the effect of quietening the machine.

--
Bill Coombes

Sound cards.
 

On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:28:31 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

I read his post as referrring to mainboard RAM but I assume now [see my second
post] that he was referring to chips on the card

The machine
with this noisy supply makes less noise, at least on the soundcard if you
take out the two ramsticks attached to its usb ports.

I think you're assuming too much. The sentence above is certainly
sloppily written. But you can assume bad grammar plus confusion over
the liable "RAM", or you can assume he thinks there are USB ports for
memory sticks on his sound card.

I'd assume the one with the lesser errors.

Sound cards.
 

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:16:57 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

Ah yeah, M$'s wonderful 'ReadyBoost'. can make matters worse see
http://www.mpieters.com/2007/01/read...benchmark.html
It ain't equal to 'real' RAM but if you are trying to run Vista on very low RAM
(512k) it's just about better than nothing sometimes.
It is not however anything like the equivalent of adding mainboard RAM.

Did you try with USB memory? Faster reads using USB than SD I'm told.

It's still non-volatile flash RAM which is just plain slow compared with
volatile DDR2/DDR3 RAM.


I have no experience, as I don't own a computer with little enough RAM
to even theoretically use RB.

Good.

I'm not shifting my music machines to 64-bit yet,


Yeah, it wasn't long ago the 32 bit's 4 gig limit seemed like it would *never*
matter, at this actual moment in time it still doesn't for me but the I tend not
to use programs that keep huge data in memory. [at home]. Not being a music
making person I have no idea whether the popular 'music making' programs are
running up against the 32 bit memory limit.

Did you find any benefit on a low-RAM machine?

Yeah in Vista with 1 gig ram fitted ReadyBoost did improve the load time of Halo
2. [a bit]

--
Bill Coombes

Sound cards.
 

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:28:31 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

I read his post as referrring to mainboard RAM but I assume now [see my second
post] that he was referring to chips on the card

The machine
with this noisy supply makes less noise, at least on the soundcard if you
take out the two ramsticks attached to its usb ports.

I think you're assuming too much. The sentence above is certainly
sloppily written. But you can assume bad grammar plus confusion over
the liable "RAM", or you can assume he thinks there are USB ports for
memory sticks on his sound card.

I'd assume the one with the lesser errors.

Yeah, I think we are going to have to wait for another [clarifying] post on that
one.

--
Bill Coombes

Sound cards.
 

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:23:25 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

As an adjunct to this thread. I noticed a strange thing today. The
machine with this noisy supply makes less noise, at least on the
soundcard if you take out the two ramsticks attached to its usb ports.

Can't be, ram only goes in dedicated mobo slots. (or occasionally for
ramdrives on a pci card) AFAIK there's absolutely no way to attach ram
via USB.. for starters usb access is waaay too slow for that.. did you
mean something else?

Sorry, I've read your post properly again [with brain engaged]. You removed two
chips *on the sound card* and that quietened it from a 'radio-active' point of
view? Hmm, interesting I've got a couple of cheap soundblaster cards lying
around, I'll have a look. I doubt if the chips you removed were 'ram' as such,
more likely to be the rom chips that are used to permanently hold a whole bunch
of stuff. [I'm not splitting hairs here, just replying to my own po

You're being too clever AGAIN.

Yeah I get it now [having read the following posts. :) ]

--
Bill Coombes

Sound cards.
 

On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:40:21 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

Did you find any benefit on a low-RAM machine?

Yeah in Vista with 1 gig ram fitted ReadyBoost did improve the load time of Halo
2. [a bit]

Right, now at last we're getting somewhere. You quoted a web page
that reported no improvement, possible even worse with SD media. A
good USB stick apparently writes about the same speed as SD but reads
rather faster. What were you using? How much is "a bit"?

My reading of Microsoft's information was that it could benefit a
computer with 512MB, make a small difference with 1GB but above that
wasn't worth doing.
Though quite why anyone would be running Vista or W7 on 512MB escapes
me.

I've been called to one laptop with 256MB installed, a motherboard
limit of 384MB. On it was a "XP ready" sticker. I wonder if it's too
late to sue?

Sound cards.
 

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:40:21 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

Did you find any benefit on a low-RAM machine?
Yeah in Vista with 1 gig ram fitted ReadyBoost did improve the load time of Halo
2. [a bit]

Right, now at last we're getting somewhere. You quoted a web page
that reported no improvement, possible even worse with SD media. A
good USB stick apparently writes about the same speed as SD but reads
rather faster. What were you using?

Hard to say it was long long ago.. I tend to use Kingston SD cards so I'd guess
it might have been a 1 gig one..I could dig out the twenty or so old cards I
have lying around but I think I won't bother. In any case a 'good' USB stick is
still **PITIFULLY** slow compared to volatile RAM.

How much is "a bit"?

AIR just noticeable, but I didn't time it. By then I'd already realised that all
the disk thrashing I could hear meant that another 1 gig stick of *real* memory
was the only solution. It was clear to me that the extra 'RAM' on the card
wasn't preventing disk paging whereas actually [theoretically] it should have done.


My reading of Microsoft's information was that it could benefit a
computer with 512MB, make a small difference with 1GB but above that
wasn't worth doing.

Yes, seems about right.

Though quite why anyone would be running Vista or W7 on 512MB escapes
me.

Yeah, me too although when Vista first came out those lying toerags at M$
assured everyone that Vista would run comfortably with 1 gig.


I've been called to one laptop with 256MB installed, a motherboard
limit of 384MB. On it was a "XP ready" sticker. I wonder if it's too
late to sue?

XP does run in 256 meg, Vista does run in 1 gig..in the same way that treacle
'runs' across a floor.


--
Bill Coombes

Sound cards.
 

On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:17:28 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

AIR just noticeable, but I didn't time it. By then I'd already realised that all
the disk thrashing I could hear meant that another 1 gig stick of *real* memory
was the only solution. It was clear to me that the extra 'RAM' on the card
wasn't preventing disk paging whereas actually [theoretically] it should have done.

You were actually paging on a system new enough to run Vista? I've
managed to make that happen in a test, just to show people what it is.
But never known it in real-life usage, not since RAM started being
measured in hundreds of MB, not tens!

Sound cards.
 

bcoombes wrote:
Laurence Payne wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:40:21 +0000, bcoombes bcoombes@orangedotnet
wrote:

Did you find any benefit on a low-RAM machine?
Yeah in Vista with 1 gig ram fitted ReadyBoost did improve the load
time of Halo 2. [a bit]

Right, now at last we're getting somewhere. You quoted a web page
that reported no improvement, possible even worse with SD media. A
good USB stick apparently writes about the same speed as SD but reads
rather faster. What were you using?

Hard to say it was long long ago.. I tend to use Kingston SD cards so
I'd guess it might have been a 1 gig one..I could dig out the twenty or
so old cards I have lying around but I think I won't bother. In any case
a 'good' USB stick is still **PITIFULLY** slow compared to volatile RAM.

How much is "a bit"?

AIR just noticeable, but I didn't time it. By then I'd already realised
that all the disk thrashing I could hear meant that another 1 gig stick
of *real* memory was the only solution. It was clear to me that the
extra 'RAM' on the card wasn't preventing disk paging whereas actually
[theoretically] it should have done.


My reading of Microsoft's information was that it could benefit a
computer with 512MB, make a small difference with 1GB but above that
wasn't worth doing.

Yes, seems about right.

Though quite why anyone would be running Vista or W7 on 512MB escapes
me.

Yeah, me too although when Vista first came out those lying toerags at
M$ assured everyone that Vista would run comfortably with 1 gig.


I've been called to one laptop with 256MB installed, a motherboard
limit of 384MB. On it was a "XP ready" sticker. I wonder if it's too
late to sue?

XP does run in 256 meg, Vista does run in 1 gig..in the same way that
treacle 'runs' across a floor.




Yes, Vista needs 2 Gig and then it can still be a slug. I've got a 2 Gig
Vista machine doing nothing since I moved to a Mac Mini with 4 Gig of
RAM a few days ago!