Speeding Up My DAW Using More RAM?

Teksaur

Teksaur

New member
Hello guys. I have Fl Studio version 11. I've learned to work around fl slowing down (clipping) and stuttering, and what not. By converting my live synths and effects into audio clips. So that the computer doens't have to have the vst loaded, and running. Having 8 or so instances of some power hungry synths like fl Harmor open, just really slows things down. And I'm getting tired of having to go in and isolate each track and converting it to an audio sample, and just tired in general of my computer's power to process fl. So. And yes I have asio4all installed. And know how to switch between buffer lengths if I'm using midi equipment or just playing the track. So Yes I know about buffering, and switching smart disable for all plugins to on, and deleting unused channels. But anyways.
Will adding more RAM make these vst's that are running run faster? Thus making fl perform better, and not stutter and glitch when in song mode? I've got 6 gigs total of ram. (one chip is 4 gig, and other is 2). I was thinking of buying an 8 gb, for a total of 12 gigs. I'm not sure about all this technical stuff, so I thought I'd post here for an answer. Thank you! I have a 64 bit OS. So I know I can have more than 4 gigs.
 
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ram is a part of the problem,
cpu speed is another,
buss speed is another still,

running 32 bit vsts in a 64 bit host requires additional software "bridges" and causes bottlenecks that cannot be overcome simply by increasing any of the above
 
Ahh k. Well I know CPU is defenitely the biggest thing that speed things up, but an i7 goes for like. What? 1,000 bucks now? and an i6 is still pretty expensive. So happy with my 5. But I do. At least hope that getting more ram will make things run smoother. Even if it's a small change. Anything helps. I'm getting another ram module today, and I'll post back and tell ya if adding more gigs helped.
 
Converting active VST instruments and effects into audio tracks to conserve RAM is exactly what the freeze function common to many DAWs does, another RAM saving technique is Direct From Disk sample streaming where only the very first part of a sample is loaded into RAM and the rest streams in from the hard drive...Ideally any computer used for music production should have a second hard drive just for streaming audio.
 
Ok. I got an 8gb ram module (ddr3), but I tried and tried and my laptop wasn't compatible with it, and had to bring it back. I'm just gunna stick with what I have. Looks like I'll have to convert everything to audio from now on, and focus on utilizing my sources more wisely. As far as freeze function I'm gunna have to look into that.
It's not so much that my laptop is slow, it's that I have soo much stuff going at once. Like I have at least 30 or 40 automation clips (in fl these are the parameters you use to modulate knobs and stuff) that aren't even being used, and then a bunch of patterns that I end up taking out and forget to delete. Then when it comes to effects I don't even think about how much cpu a compressor or even a simple reverb take up. Might not be a lot at first, but things start adding up quickly I think. So yea. Thanks for the help anyways guys :) Just means gotta work harder!
 
I bought some Gskill RipjawX series 8gb (2x4) if you need a recommendation of good places to start and they are awesome!
 
always check what your laptop will take first before buying, as some vendors do not allow returns for customer error (if they made the error then they need to "eat" the result)

a simple google search for the manual or specifications of the laptop mobo will give you more than enough info to buy the right ram
 
I'd also recommend buying multi-kits/matching RAM so you can use your RAM in dual-channel (or quad-channel) mode.
 
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