Amount of RAM for Audio Server

[Steve_S]

I'm interested in opinions of how much RAM is useful in an audio server, either Mac or Windows. Will 2 gigs actually help the system perform better than 1 gig if all it's doing is playing music? I suspect not, especially in OSX, but perhaps I'm overlooking something?

 

[davidR]

2GB is fine for an audio server. More RAM never hurts though.

 

[PeterSt]

On a Windows machine one "thread" normally cannot occupy more than 2 GB. This can be tweaked by the developer, but I don't think this is a common thing to do. Note that this excludes the memory for the OS (some 200MB for XP and 400 for Vista).

 

Besides, any normal audio player hardly uses any memory except for the program itself (let that be a few MBs).

Careful here, because even a "normal" player will often have "buffer size" settings, and it often can be set to the size of the file if wanted (which would be 800MB for a 78 minute redbook track).

 

In the most rare occasion that you may meet a memory player (hehe), things are different, and the more memory available, the better it is. Don't be afraid of those ... I think only one exists ...

:-)

Peter