Upgrading to 8gb ram in x86 windows, any use?

[gulagurk]

I want more ram, since I keep getting low on memory on pro tools 8 & Vista 32 bit, I currently have 4gb. But I was wondering since I am using 32 bit windows, will upgrading to 8gb ram have any signifigance at all since apparently 32 bit only supports max 4gb of ram?

[albee1952]

With a 32 bit OS, you would be wasting your money. Windows will only see and use around 3.4GB. If the motherboard supports more, why not back everything up and make the move to Windows 7 64 bit? Its a much better OS than Vista, and even though Pro Tools is a 32 bit app, I noticed a solid improvement in performance when I moved from 32 bit XP to 64 bit Win7 on my machine(see signature0 with no other change. When I say solid improvement, I mean my Dverb2 test went from 320 to 500

[gulagurk]

I've been thinking of it, but all the work, I have to renistall everything... that's a few days of work. But yes it would make sense to move to a 64bit OS.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by gulagurk

I've been thinking of it, but all the work, I have to renistall everything... that's a few days of work. But yes it would make sense to move to a 64bit OS.

If you take the plunge, just remove the old system drive and set it aside. Do all your new OS and software install on a fresh drive. If anything goes bad, you can slap the old drive in and get work done. And after a month of smooth sailing, I would think about cloning over the old drive so you have a backup of the new setup.

[gulagurk]

Good Idea, What software do you use for making such backups? I need 2 options. One is if the hdd fails or if Windows get's messed up beyond repair and I can't boot it up. In that case I would need a indentical copy of hdd, and then just switch them.

Less serious problems i guess i can just use the backup function windows offers, where you make a backup point?

[albee1952]

I've been using Acronis True Image for years now. Version 9 on XP worked fine for images and direct drive cloning. 11 works dandy on XP and Windows 7. Acronis 10 had some "issues". I have a clone of my system drive and the old XP system drive, plus images of every computer I won(6 of them) on a 2TB USB drive. You can't have too much drive space or too many backups