[JohnR]

I bought a 16GB set of RAM for my iMac and decided to pinch half of it for the Mac mini music computer. Installation was easy enough, the only minor gripe being that it would be "nice" if the three screws were evenly spaced, to make it easer to get the bottom back on...

What I'm having some trouble with right now is actually using the RAM. With PM running in memory play mode, 3-way active crossover, 96 kHz sampling rate, I'm showing 5.5G unused. That is playing a 20 minute long track. I'm not finding the memory allocation control any more so I assume it's automatic now.

So... well, what memory usage are you guys seeing?

[JohnR]

 

Bump. Added poll. What does the "Used" field say if you go to Activity Monitor and click on System Memory?

Please add a note about what player/file type/configuration you are using. Thanks 

[jtwrace]

I'm pretty sure this is what you want.  Yes?  And this is while it's playing.

2009 Mac Mini with SSD, 8GB RAM using iTunes and Pure Music in HOG / Integer Mode and Memory Play.

[lokie]

Does this mean I don't need to up my ram from 4 to 8?

[JohnR]

Does this mean I don't need to up my ram from 4 to 8?

What is your usage number? If your system RAM usage is sitting under 4G I'm not seeing why there could be any benefit to increasing it.

The two who posted 5G of usage - what system configuration are you running?

[cody69]

When used for music, my mini runs fine with 2Gb, but when I start browsing and open up iPhoto or iMovie, I quickly consume all memory and start active paging. I'm thinking about upgrading the memory this summer to 8Gb.

[JohnR]

Yes, I meant for a dedicated music server.

For in-memory playback, suppose you loaded a whole hour of music into memory. At CD quality (16/44) you would need:

2 channels * 2 bytes * 44100 samples/sec * 3600 seconds = 635 Megabytes

Plus whatever the music player and OS uses, and some indexing overhead (which can't be much).

At 24/96:

2 channels * 3 bytes * 96000 samples/sec * 3600 seconds = 2 GB

24/192 would of course be double that.

Is my math right?

[srb]

Is my math right?

Close enough for government work.

Actually if you use 1024 bytes = 1KB and 1024KB = 1MB, then one hour of

16/44.1 stereo = 605MB
24/96 stereo = 1978MB
24/192 stereo = 3955MB

Steve

[JohnR]

So here's something interesting. Audirvana shows the time corresponding to the memory size. The 2 GB doesn't go as far as expected:



My government-issue calculator tells me that Audirvana is using 8 bytes to store each sample (whether from a 16 or 24 bit file).

[jtwrace]

For in-memory playback, suppose you loaded a whole hour of music into memory.

How do I do that?     Even if I play one of my playlists it only puts the track into memory as needed.

[JohnR]

it might be possible with gapless playback, I'm still experimenting with that (haven't had a lot of time). I just figured an hour would be a reasonable guess at "the most anyone could possibly want loaded into memory".

[JohnR]

OK, poll results say:

2 Gb or less: 50% (5 votes)
4 Gb or less (but more than 2 Gb): 20% (2 votes)
8 Gb or less (but more than 4 Gb): 30% (3 votes)
More than 8Gb: 0

[Crimson]

I don't use a Mini, but I have 8 gig of ram.

[cody69]

I decided to upgrade the 2Gb memory in my late 2009 mini to 8Gb. I have been putting off since I had heard the earlier models were more difficult to upgrade. I've watched a few of the internet videos on upgrading the memory, so I had good instructions on the process.

Piece of cake -- took 20 minutes max. Using a 1 1/2" paint scraper the case opened up easily, which had been my big concern. The antennas and disk came out easily, exposing the RAM. Putting back together was equally as easy -- a small magnetic screwdriver makes installation of the screws holding the disk drive much easier.

The mini booted up, recognized the 8Gb and couldn't be happier. Watching the Activity Monitor this weekend, the most memory I've used so far is 3Gb, which previously resulted in lots of paging activity hence performance degradation. The system now feels much more responsive -- this inexpensive upgrade was a good move.

Now I can start thinking about upgrading the machines from SL to ML.

[abernardi]

The two who posted 5G of usage - what system configuration are you running?

I have a 2011 with one 4GB and one 1GB module.  I bought it used and that's the way the previous owner had configured it.  I heard you might get a hit on speed with mismatched RAM, but this thing is pretty snappy.

[abernardi]

Now I can start thinking about upgrading the machines from SL to ML.

Why would you want to do that?  You can't use integer mode on 10.7, Apple dropped it when they went to ML.  Some say they hear a difference for the worse, but I haven't seen a clear consensus.  Mine already had ML installed, though I might do a dual boot with 10.6 and see if there is a difference.

[JohnR]

I have a 2011 with one 4GB and one 1GB module.  I bought it used and that's the way the previous owner had configured it.  I heard you might get a hit on speed with mismatched RAM, but this thing is pretty snappy.

Hi, thanks, I guess that wasn't very clear... I meant what music player, upsampling, etc. Just wondering where the memory is going - the question was how much memory is in use (not how much is installed)

[abernardi]

I meant what music player, upsampling, etc. Just wondering where the memory is going - the question was how much memory is in use (not how much is installed)

OK,  I'm using Audirvana Plus set to play at native sampling rate.  My DAC can only handle 24/96, so if I have something higher it downconverts.  Running 10.7, disabled some unnecessary functions, Maximum available RAM for preloading - it only lets me go to 4MB I believe, hog mode.  Playing redbook, i'm using just under 2GB RAM.  24/96 it goes up to about 2.5 and if I start playing DSD from an ISO it jumps to a little over 3GB.  I just did a short test here, so I didn't pay attention to much else.