Speaking of RAM, I have a Windows novice question: how and where in XP do you monitor/determine how much RAM the OS is using and how much Giga has available?

just right-click somewhere in an empty area of the taskbar and select taskmanager - there are several informative tabs
christian

Thank you! (I've been using a Mac mouse [1-button - or really the whole thing is a button] via a KVM switch most of the time.)

Am I right that MSG32.exe is the one showing how much Giga is using? It seems to max out at just under 538,000K on my 1 GB machine with Giga fully loaded - which would mean that the 1-1/2 GB Herb recommends is a must.

Interestingly, lowering the monitor color depth to 16 bits makes no difference (this motherboard uses shared video memory).

isn't there a patent for the zero-button mouse? [;)]
you can launch the taskmanager also pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del (all three together) or create a shortcut to C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskmgr.exe (WINDOWS might be named WINNT on some machines)

shared vga-memory is configured in the bios of the motherboard, so reducing the color-depth or resolution in windows will not affect the memory

hth, christian

Your response on this board is really great, Christian. Thanks so much once again.

Going way off-topic, the reason I'm not crazy about 2-button mice is that clicking the main button forces you to rotate your forearm to the left slightly (if you're right-handed). Over time that places stress on my arm, which isn't a good thing if you work on computers all day long. But I do like the scroll wheel and the second button. Maybe if I were to reverse the functions of the two buttons...

Once more Herb, thank you for your insights.

I seem to understand your product more and more. For one, it seems to me that in light of ram limitation, if you are serious about having your stuff stay in the midi world as long as possible, you need say three giga stations with one dedicated only to strings, another for ww and brass and the other for perc and miscellaneous. That solves ram and disk access for the sounds. The sampling rate and bit depth still poses a problem to me though. We'll have to wait a little more to see how manufacturers solve this in a decent and easy-to-use way.

Marc.

Okay, now I'm confused. To test the memory use, I just loaded up this 1GB machine to 99% and added up all the instruments. Using the figures in the manuals, comes to 1152MB.

What's going on?

128 Strings_all
32 PO3-Basic_all
32 HO4- basic_all
32 PO3_dyn3_all
64 VA10_stac_1.5
128 KB_po-rep9_8-105-dim
128 HA-normal+RS-mute-sh+lo
128 FA_po-rep1_8-128-cre
128 TU_perf-leg-F
128 VC-8_mV-perf-lleg_F-porta
64 FL2-basic-all
32 OB_basic-all
128 OB_perf-leg-F
128 VL-14-basic-all comp-velocity

Am I right that the Basic instruments access the same samples with different programs, so they don't have to load everything in? Sorry to be so slow - I'm new to Giga!

In Gigaeditor you get the information, how much Ram an instrument would need. It's always rounded. For an instrument between 0 - 32 MB size you need 32 MB. 33 - 64 MB size you need 64 MB, 65 - 128 MB you need 128 MB. This rounded sizes are listed in the manual.

If you want to have 100% precise calculations you have to count each individual sample.
One stereo sample needs 128 kB.
The sample count of all BASIC INSTRUMENTS is also listed in the manuals.

Equal samples loaded from different gigfiles are loaded twice.
Only equal samples out of one gigfile (used for different instrument programmings) are loaded one time.

best wishes
Herb

Hm. Well, the rounded sizes from the manual are what I've listed, and I have that list open in 1GB of RAM running XP! It doesn't look like there are very many instruments from the same gig file, but even if there are a couple, I'm confused about why that setup is possible.

I'm certainly not interested in precise calculations, just trying to understand how this works. And of course I'm not complaining that it's holding too many instruments.

Jumping into Windows, Giga, and VSL all at once makes for an exciting adventure!

Thanks yet again for your speedy replies.

a *fuzzy* calculation according to herb's figures - rounded size of 128 would give an average *real* size of 112 (meanvalue of 96 and 12[H]. leaving aside the 32 MB-files the needed space for your list would be 10 x 16 MB lower than the rounded numbers = 160 MB. subtracting this from the 1152 MB you mentioned gives 992 MB, which correlates to 99% of 1 GB. makes sense?
finally this would mean to me, XP isn't as bad as supposed for running gigastudio ...
christian

@cm said:

a *fuzzy* calculation according to herb's figures - rounded size of 128 would give an average *real* size of 112 (meanvalue of 96 and 12[H]. leaving aside the 32 MB-files the needed space for your list would be 10 x 16 MB lower than the rounded numbers = 160 MB. subtracting this from the 1152 MB you mentioned gives 992 MB, which correlates to 99% of 1 GB. makes sense?
finally this would mean to me, XP isn't as bad as supposed for running gigastudio ...
christian

Uhhh...where did I put my slide rule? [[:|]]

@Another User said:

Uhhh...where did I put my slide rule?

if i get some time left, i'll program a kind of *samples-in-ram-calculator* [;)]
christian

Thanks Christian.

The maths make sense, except that XP has to take some RAM as well! Maybe the swapfile doing the work.

Meanwhile, I've ordered the RAM to bring the memory up to 1-1/2 gigs. That makes more sense to me than downgrading to Windows 98.

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Meanwhile, I've ordered the RAM to bring the memory up to 1-1/2 gigs. That makes more sense to me than downgrading to Windows 98.

Nick, I really noticed a big difference when I went from 1 to 1 .5 Gig RAM. XP was obviously hogging quite a bit of the available RAM as some instruments would take literally minutes to load. Now loading times are back to normal.

Good to know, thanks. (Although I could be wrong, but I have a sense that the slow loading - literally minutes, as you say - is just the first time you load a .gig.)

But the extra RAM makes sense anyway. Too bad there are only two slots, because 512 MB sticks are about 1/4 the price of 1 GB ones right now! On the other hand, we're spoiled. I remember spending $350 to bring my Mac Plus up to 4 megs.

I'm running windows 2000, and I am doing very well with my set-up. When I get my next computer, I plan to conintue to use win 2k.

Okay, I loaded that same list after installing an extra 33% of RAM (1GB-> 1.5GB). Surprise: it took up 66% instead of 99%.

So the ancient Egyptions, Bablylonians, and so on were right after all!

Good news from me, too...

I just installed another 512, raising my system RAM to 1.5Gb, and all is well - can't say much about load times, as I only did it last night, but my 99% list dropped to 66% as well.
who knew that Maths would come in handy when got older? [:)]

BTW, I had to 're-activate' XP - apparently a cheap 512Mb upgrade is significant enough to warrant calling the MS tech line... cos the online method got confused.
[6]


Peter

Now I'm running my basic set in HALion2 on the Mac and my perf tool instruments (leg and rep etc) in Giga. Can't wait to get some time off to do some real writing!