RAM doesn't make computers faster. RAM is temporary storage space for programs to use to access data very quickly (much quicker than accessing it from the hard drive).
If you are doing many things, or things that require a lot of temporary storage space (such as high end gaming, photoshop work, or video editing), you will use up your ram very quickly and then the programs will need to use the hard drive for temporary storage (this is referred to as swap space, or paging file).. As you can imagine, this is where the computer gets clunky. When you've used up your ram, and you are using swap space, the computer can slow to a crawl. Adding more ram alleviates the problem, and allows the computer to work its best.
The question becomes: Does your computer work well with 512? or does it slow to a crawl when you have too many programs open? If it does, it's time for a gig of ram.
It could be due to many things .. the reality is video editing software requires:
1) Reasonable-Large amounts of memory
2) High memory bandwidth
3) Fast / high bandwidth hard-drive access
4) CPU power
Your integrated video will hurt you as it probably sucks up some of your ram, memory bandwidth and processing power, but even with a dedicated card it could still be slow. What are your specs?
Is it just slow rendering? I'm a big fan of After Effects, but if rendering time is slow then that's just your processor. Though memory will help with working with the file, and possibly speed up render time compairably as well. Of course as you should know, the more you have in your AE file to do the longer it takes to render it, such as having multiple effects, especially if it's a procedural effect like clouds, lightning, or others.
Moving from 512MB to 1GB on my Athlon XP system made a very noticable improvement in some of the latest games (HL2, Doom3 etc). Loading times were cut in half, and overall gameplay smoothed out.
Ram is an important component in you system, however it can only help so much. I would definatly look for a dedicated graphics card as well, as you don't want to be 'sharing' your main memory with other components. Does not need to be anything fancy, even a Radeon 9200 would be an improvement.
Since RAM is so inexpensive now and upgrading from 512 MB to 1024 MB has such a dramatic improvement on overall system operation, I second Mr. Lime's recommendation. I upgraded my son's desktop to a Gig of RAM for $90 and it gave the machine new life. Now, if you are only doing web surfing, word procssing, and email, then the effect will not be nearly as dramatic.
If you're using 128 MB for your integrated graphics (you can probably set it lower and see the same graphics performance) then you definitely need another 512 MB stick just for medium level multitasking (lots of small memory footprint programs open).
I would try setting your video memory to 32 or 64 MB and see if that frees up enough for your general work. If not then I say go for the 1 GB. I've had a GB on my laptop for over 2 years and I can't stand working on anything less than ~700 MB of ram now. I'm looking at upgrading to 1.5 GB as well :/
alright I will please check my SVT thread there is a weird problem going on with my computer maybe that is why the 512 doesnt fill like 512 its the One about reload and everything changed one.
Also check how many slots your motherboard has i.e. if you have 3 slots then you have 6 banks, if you use single sided ram as in the memory chips are on one side then that uses 1 bank, each memory slot is 2 banks if you use for example double sided ram that takes up 2 banks so in fact you could have double sided 512mb modules times 3 slots but in most cases you should be fine lol
Another thing to keep in mind as well: Many platforms utilize 'dual channel' memory, so you need to pair up identical sticks to have this capability. A64 939 systems are a good example.
You dont need a 64 type board older boards use Dual Channel as well I have an Abit AN7 board and wont be upgrading for a while especially as AMD will be releasing Dual Core 64bit CPU's soon.
Also check how many slots your motherboard has i.e. if you have 3 slots then you have 6 banks, if you use single sided ram as in the memory chips are on one side then that uses 1 bank, each memory slot is 2 banks if you use for example double sided ram that takes up 2 banks so in fact you could have double sided 512mb modules times 3 slots but in most cases you should be fine lol
Comments
RAM doesn't make computers faster. RAM is temporary storage space for programs to use to access data very quickly (much quicker than accessing it from the hard drive).
If you are doing many things, or things that require a lot of temporary storage space (such as high end gaming, photoshop work, or video editing), you will use up your ram very quickly and then the programs will need to use the hard drive for temporary storage (this is referred to as swap space, or paging file).. As you can imagine, this is where the computer gets clunky. When you've used up your ram, and you are using swap space, the computer can slow to a crawl. Adding more ram alleviates the problem, and allows the computer to work its best.
The question becomes: Does your computer work well with 512? or does it slow to a crawl when you have too many programs open? If it does, it's time for a gig of ram.
1) Reasonable-Large amounts of memory
2) High memory bandwidth
3) Fast / high bandwidth hard-drive access
4) CPU power
Your integrated video will hurt you as it probably sucks up some of your ram, memory bandwidth and processing power, but even with a dedicated card it could still be slow. What are your specs?
Upgrading my RAM on both machines did make a performance difference to setup but your results may vary depending on what you do with your machine
Ram is an important component in you system, however it can only help so much. I would definatly look for a dedicated graphics card as well, as you don't want to be 'sharing' your main memory with other components. Does not need to be anything fancy, even a Radeon 9200 would be an improvement.
512 ddr2 RAM
128 mb Integrated Graphics Card
40 gb Western digital HDD
160 gb Seagate Drive
3port Firewire Card
10/100/1000 Gigabyte ethernet card
Mad dog USB 2.0 16x DVD -+R/RW ddrive
I would try setting your video memory to 32 or 64 MB and see if that frees up enough for your general work. If not then I say go for the 1 GB. I've had a GB on my laptop for over 2 years and I can't stand working on anything less than ~700 MB of ram now. I'm looking at upgrading to 1.5 GB as well :/
???
Flint