memory limitations of logic 5 + 6? / using more then 1gb of ram in mac os 9

[supernova777]

we all know from posts on this board that logic 4.x definately has a problem seeing more then 1gb of ram in mac os 9

i noticed that mactron consistantly uses more then 1gb of ram by looking closely at his screenshots..

it just ocurred to me that it may have just been logic 4.x that had this problem of not working properly with more then 1gb of ram

i forget what other apps had a serious problem with more then 1gb of ram... diehard reccommends not using more then 1gb of ram

i was thinking of testing with logic 5.x + 6.x to see if this problem was corrected in either version..

im guessing that it became more common place to have more then 1gb ram around the time of logic 5.0?
and im guesing that this version and versions aftwards up to 6.4.3 should be ok with using more ram?

multiprocessor support was added in v6? or v5? i forget..

[Knezzen]

This is a very strange problem, since applications inside Mac OS only sees the amount of RAM that has been allocated to it.
For this reason I see absolutley no sensible reason why applications should have any "problems" with alot of RAM in the system, since it only sees whats allocated to it.

I have heard that there is a "problem" when using more than 1.5gb of RAM with Mac OS 9. This is a classic myth.
I have allways had 2gb (or 1.5gb in the "Gigabit Ethernet" I have owned since new) in my machines without any problems, and have been running Logic 4, 5, 6, Nuendo, Cubase and Pro Tools with that amount for many years without any issues at all.

From Wikipedia:

The situation worsened with the advent of Switcher, which was a way for the Mac to run multiple applications at once.[7] This was a necessary step forward for users, who found the one-app-at-a-time approach very limiting. However, because Apple was now committed to its memory management model, as well as compatibility with existing applications, it was forced to adopt a scheme where each application was allocated its own heap from the available RAM.[8] The amount of actual RAM allocated to each heap was set by a value coded into each application, set by the programmer. Invariably this value wasn't enough for particular kinds of work, so the value setting had to be exposed to the user to allow them to tweak the heap size to suit their own requirements.

This amount is what the application sees, and nothing else. So I don't see how more RAM makes this a problem.
Perhaps the problem is that Mac OS allocates RAM from a bad memory addess to the application when the system memory is larger than 1gb, and that makes it behave irrationally.
If this is the case though, all applications that run under Mac OS should be affected, and not just Logic.

I think this was an issue of broken RAM modules that got mistaken for an issue with system RAM size.
"I removed the last module, and it works now with just 1gb of RAM". Probably something like that.

So, I think all of this just is some mythical thing that has been getting bigger and bigger over time.
Like I said, I have never even had any trouble EVER with more than 1gb RAM in a Mac OS 9 machine.

[supernova777]

well its not entirely a myth bekause the version we have of logik 4 wont work properly with more then 1gb installed!

[Knezzen]

well its not entirely a myth bekause the version we have of logik 4 wont work properly with more then 1gb installed!

I'll have to test this. I'll try it tonight.
Are you sure it's Logic and not something ugly the dongle emulator does that make things behave strangely with more than 1gb of RAM? Has anyone had the same problems with and without the dongle emulator (with a hardware dongle attached of course).

Can you specify what "wont work properly" means more precisely? Makes it easier to investigate, since I haven't had any problems with it

[supernova777]

the specific problem is that logic will not play audio from the main arrange window
editing a specific audio part in the editor will output sound but the main arrange window
when u press, no levels appear, and no audio plays...

i just double checked beause i was testing ram in this machine and had 1.5gb installed and this was the scenario exactly..

 

[Knezzen]

the specific problem is that logic will not play audio from the main arrange window
editing a specific audio part in the editor will output sound but the main arrange window
when u press, no levels appear, and no audio plays...

Allright. With a real dongle or with a dongle emulator? If it's with the emu, have you tried different versions of it?
ASIO driver, or which kind are you using?

[supernova777]

that was with the dongle emulator yes..

id love to hear any more further testing results in different scenarios

[supernova777]

i have a real dongle i can try to test with
i think i would have to install that special driver to use my 5/6 dongle with 4.0

[Protools5LEGuy]

i have a real dongle i can try to test with
i think i would have to install that special driver to use my 5/6 dongle with 4.0

My 5/6/7 blue dongle opens 4.x too

we all know from posts on this board that logic 4.x definately has a problem seeing more then 1gb of ram in mac os 9

i noticed that mactron consistantly uses more then 1gb of ram by looking closely at his screenshots..

it just ocurred to me that it may have just been logic 4.x that had this problem of not working properly with more then 1gb of ram

i forget what other apps had a serious problem with more then 1gb of ram... diehard reccommends not using more then 1gb of ram

i was thinking of testing with logic 5.x + 6.x to see if this problem was corrected in either version..



multiprocessor support was added in v6? or v5? i forget..

I will make the test on my DA Dual GHz with 1Gig of Ram and my MDD with 2 gigs of RAM.

Please Chris, share the project that was "blocked" to make the same scenario

Multiprocessor support is present on v.4, but it is 1 proc for audio and 1 proc for the midi+logic+macos. Not really well implemented, said full time users of Logic with software dongle on QS dual 800 on that age to me. They ended up buying v5 and v6 and v7 and even dual G5s for it (in the subsequent years). I guess every new version has new features...

[IIO]

i cant read chris posts bc he is on igno, but i want to comment one point which knez brought up:

while it is right that OS9 should operate normal when more than 1.5 gb are installed, it is not true that you can assign more than 1 gb to one application.

one application in MacOS classic can always only use 1 gb of RAM. (which is why i dont understand how people want to use close to 1.5 gb of RAM for a VST sampler ... theoretically this should not work at all. in case i am wrong i´d like to learn more about it asap.)
 
offtopic:
 
btw., since there are hardrives with 6 and 8 terabytes since a while (and with 10 soon as released today by samsung), we should also introduce ourselves to the limit a harddrive may have for OS9: you can not use harddrives bigger than 6 TB with macos! just in case!

disk limit: 6000
volume limit: 500
bootable volume limit: 192
RAM limit: 1.5
RAM per executable limit: 1.0
filesize limit: 2000 (but of course available only in 10.3+, in OS9 it is limited by the max volume size of 500)
maximum number of adresses per (HFS+) volume: 2.1 billion

what i dont know is the limit for number of volumes (per disk as well as in total.) in OSX it is officially "unlimited", though something tells me that we can not control it anyway. but in OS9?

[supernova777]

u guys are both going off topic
the point of the thread.. can logic be run with more then 1gb of ram on os9..
?

[Knezzen]

Im running Logic 6 on my MDD with 2gb of RAM every day without issues.
Recording audio, using VSTi's etc, so I at least I'm not experiencing this kind of behavior

Same with 4.8.1 before (using the dongle emulator). Recording audio and running big projects in general has never been an issue, even with 2gb RAM installed.

[MacTron]

No problems here...

[supernova777]

Im running Logic 6 on my MDD with 2gb of RAM every day without issues.
Recording audio, using VSTi's etc, so I at least I'm not experiencing this kind of behavior

Same with 4.8.1 before (using the dongle emulator). Recording audio and running big projects in general has never been an issue, even with 2gb RAM installed.

u know .. i never tried it on the mdd, where i saw this behaviour of not working with over 1gb of ram was on my SAWTOOTH
maybe it was related to it not running the right specific version of mac os .. during my installs of 8.6 on both the B&W  + the Sawtooth i remember seeing
a firmware update or patch that specifically made reference to correcting a problem to do with ram above 1gb from certain 3rd party manufacturers.. i think i wrote
about this just this morning on a different thread.. trying to remember. i think its the firmware updater 2.4 for sawtooth agp... maybe this included some type of correction
to the memory controller that was later omitted in the later 4.2.8f1 firmware because that firmwares purpose was entirey for mac os x compatibility..
so it may be that this was a problem only on the sawtooth... i will retest this now that i have the machine specific os to see if i can replicate the problem
to further dedeuce if it is caused by firmware or os or both or neither... interesting..

BtW cool splash hack mactron;) im surprised it doesnt say MARL *restricted area* "well-tempered" lol

u guys are sure that you could play audio from the main edit window and it plays audio just fine?
maybe also it was to do with my audio card.. I was using the Delta 410 m-audio ASIO at the time,
but the strangest thing is that the sample edit window played audio just fine.

knez: did u ever install the 4.81 version we have here + try with emulator?
u said u were going to test it..

Same with 4.8.1 before (using the dongle emulator). Recording audio and running big projects in general has never been an issue, even with 2gb RAM installed.

i guess this means u *did* test. looks like we must change some text in the post then

[Knezzen]

If something isn't clear Chris, I'll try to make it clear.

Logic 3 & 4 on the "Gigabit Ethernet" with 1.5gb RAM and OS 9.2.2 worked fine, same with the "MDD" and 2gb RAM.
Playing audio from the main arrange window, using VSTi's etc. Not one single issue.
Logic 6 is working very stable and reliable with 2gb RAM with the MDD.
Same with Pro Tools 5.1.3cs11, which should have "issues" according to some less reliable sources.

So I think if it's not working for you there might be a driver problem, or something might not be configured correctly.

[supernova777]

i will do a new test today.. on the same machine, now that i have this 'original version' of the os for the sawtooth, and see if i can replicate the problem!

[MacTron]

There is something weird into how Logic eats RAM. The picture is self explanatory:



BTW, Cubase always take the same amount of memory, so if you increase the memory partition more memory is left available to audio tracks and sampled instruments...

[Protools5LEGuy]

There is something weird into how Logic eats RAM. The picture is self explanatory:

1st photo Logic started (no project)

What plugs did you load for pic 2 and 3?

[MacTron]

1st photo Logic started (no project), memory assigned 100MB and Logic uses less than 52MB

2st photo Logic started (no project), memory assigned 500MB and Logic uses around 52MB X3 ie 150 MB!

3st photo Logic started (no project), memory assigned 1450 MB and Logic uses around 52MB X4 ie 200 MB!



... so, as we assign more memory to Logic, the app itself eats more RAM ... and leave less memory free for user projects (audio tracks and sampled instruments) and so on ...

[IIO]

picture 3 looks like far more than 200 mb, it is almost 25% of 1440 ... weird.

hey, where do i have that wrong info about the 1 gb limit from? was that with OS8?