Alexis:
PAL, widescreen - see my profile
Thanks,
Scott

See my September 9th posts...now a month-and-a-half later and we have discovered that while video editing hurtles with the 2x2.5ghz G5 with only 512mb of RAM, we run into memory problems when editing audio - !! Apparently Soundtrack makes more use of installed memory. So I'm plunking for another 2ghz of memory. Should have it in there in a few days and will report on results for both audio and video.

Sorry it has taken us so long to follow up on the report above -- we simply were not doing any heavy rendering in all these weeks...

Today we began working very intensively rendering widescreen PAL video in Final Cut Pro (shot in 25p, progressive) and discovered that the addition of 2gb of memory has made an enormous difference, speeding up the rendering significantly.

If you have been reading this thread you know that is NOT what I have been expecting to discover. Sigh!! I was wrong!!

More memory is definitely better for speedy rendering in even the heftiest 2x2.5ghz G5.

Exactly how much faster is difficult for us to say - we don't have bench-testing equipment and frankly we're too busy producing our products to really work through all that.

But let me state clearly: I was wrong to think that FCP rendering is 100% about processor and 0% about memory. That was my theory and I was thumping the drum for it here based on a dramatic improvement in render time that we experienced when we moved from two 1ghz G4 processors to two 2.5ghz G5 processors.

Our old G4 machine was stuffed with memory while the new machine had very little memory -- only the standard 512mb they put in at the factory. Despite this the new 2x2.5ghz G5 rendered video dramatically faster. "It's all about processor speed!" I said. And I did not bother to buy more than the preinstalled minimum memory (512mb).

Tonight we discovered that the 2x2.5ghz G5 processors can go EVEN FASTER with 2gb of memory in there to help them. Way, way faster. We are very much struck by the dramatic increase in speed we have realized through adding the memory. So I was wrong.

I hope I did not send anyone down a wrong path to purchasing (as I did) lots-of-processor and no-additional memory. It's clear to us now that the task of rendering in Final Cut Pro benefits enormously from an additional 1.5gb of memory. Now my question is: Would it go EVEN faster if we put in STILL MORE memory...??

Yes, the sweet spot is between 2Gb and 4Gb ram, as I referred to in my first post in this thread. I know some members have been making the claim that ram makes no difference in rendering. Ram may have little effect on a PC, but as you've seen Scott, ram has a huge effect in FPC. When OS 10.4 ships, ram will have an even larger role in performance. Hopefully the 1Gb chips will fall in price so that populating the slots with 1Gb sticks won't cost an arm and a leg.

Thanks Jeff - hey can you tell us more about this added memory use by OS-X 10.4?

Is more of our applications going to sit in installed memory than at present? -- that is, my understanding is that in UNIX 'disc-based virtual memory rules' and installed is used mainly for brief instantaneous bursts, only when needed...is that (a: true?...and b:) going to change?

Here's a link to a bit about memory in OS 10.4

10.4 aka Tiger won't be pushing more of a program into RAM, it is just that 10.4 will have more 64 bit optimized code in it so you will see speed increases when utilizing any program that puts a lot of code into RAM, or swaps in and out large data sets from Virtual Memory. How much RAM a program uses is mostly left up to the programmer of the application, but then system memory is controlled and handed out by the OS as it sees appropriate. You really can't go wrong with more RAM in the end as it is a factor of 10x faster (or more) than having to swap in and out from your Hard Drive.

A combination of the 64 bit code and their new Core Image libraries will utilize your graphics card even more, so that you should see a noticeable increase in speed simply by upgrading your OS (given you have a supported graphics card). For all of the trouble people are having with Motion, it looks like core image will be able to offload work to the GPU more efficiently.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/core.html