RAM required for DVD conversion

[KETAN]

What would be the ideal RAM required for DVD conversion ?
I have RDRAM which is 128MB / 800MZ.
Should I upgrade to 256 or 512?
I welcome someone's experience who has benefited by doing this especially in term of
- time of processing and
- hogging up of CPU making unusable for any parallel work.
Thanks

[khp]

128MB will be enough for the DVD->divx conversion. But if you want to work at the pc, while the conversion takes place, it would probably be a good idear to upgrade to at least 256 MB, unless you like doing lots of swapping.

[KETAN]

I will be a bit specific.
I have P4 1.7. I use DVD2SVCD to backup my DVD to SVCDs.
Especially at the time of encoding (thru CCE or Tmpg) it takes lot os time (24 hrs min) and loads the cpu not allowing you to surf.
Will increase in RAM help in reducing the encoding time and free up CPU ? My good friend @Head Hunter strongly has advised me to go for 384. I need a second opinion backed by experience.
Thansk

[Enchanter]

Adding more memory will certainly help, though not by as much as you probably will expect. More memory simply means that you can run the system with better efficiency (Read: Less likely for the system to hit Virtual memory, which is just too slow). While you are encoding, having more memory means that you can do other tasks on the system without affecting the encoding badly. CPU utilisation will still remain at 100% or around there, because video encoding will require much processing power though.

[KETAN]

Other than enabling one to work on other applications while the processing is going on, will it also reduce the encoding time, 25 hours to 15 hours - if I increase 128 RDRAM to 512 ?

[UncasMS]

cce for example will run MUCH FASTER with 256+ mb compared to the existing 128 mb, thus its NOT true, that you'll only take advantage of more ram, when you intend to work with your pc while transcoding.

128 mb is hardly enough especially in case you were running xp.

cant you borrow some additional 256mb and see for yourself??

[mrbass]

I have two 256MB ddr crucial sticks. I took one out and tested then put both in and tested. 512MB was a whopping 0.01 Realtime increase. In other words anything over 256MB isn't going to help speed only the cpu will. However, 128MB is way too slow since it's swapping virtual memory which is already being taxed by having to frameserve it to CCE.

[KETAN]

The RAM that my motherboard accepts is RDRAM. It does not accept SDRAM or DRRAM, which are normally 133 Mz. Whereas RDRAM is 800Mz and at the same MB capacity is considered much faster.
Unfortunitely I am not able to find two sticks of 256 MB. Should I take then 4 sticks of 128 ?
ketan

[Enchanter]

Unfortunitely I am not able to find two sticks of 256 MB. Should I take then 4 sticks of 128 ?

You can find as many RAM sticks as your motherboard can accomodate (Usually only three slots are available).

[KETAN]

I have 4 slots of RAM. I can afford 4 of 128 or 2 of 256. All will cost the same. But I hear that 2x 256 will perform better than 4x 128. Is that true?

[Enchanter]

I doubt it. The difference will be negligible. You should look at it in this way. Using 2 x 256MB will leave you with 2 available slots left, which means you can add more RAM sticks to it in the future, thus increasing your memory capacity further.

[UncasMS]

instead of worrying about 4x X or 2x X you should rather go for quality ram, that is fast!

ram isnt just ram.

[Enchanter]

RDRAM is fast as it is. I don't know though if he can use the new PC-1066 RDRAM modules.

[UncasMS]

ok

i wasnt aware of the fact that there were no differences with rdram!