[mythtv-users] Is 4GB RAM overkill for mythtv?

[John Drescher]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Captain Krypto <captainkrypto at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am setting up a new FE/BE myth box and accidentally ordered two 2GB pairs
> of RAM.  I was going to send one of the pairs back, but though I might get
> better performance if I put all 4GB of RAM into the box.  It is a dual-core
> 64-bit system so addressing the RAM won't be a problem.  Besides the usual
> mythtv functions, I plan to use the box for the following tasks:
>
> -archiving (re-encoding) recorded programs in both SD and HD
> -viewing HD recording
> -serving a diskless frontend
> -suspend to RAM
>
> Would mythtv use all of the RAM?  Would more RAM speed up re-encoding of
> programs?  Would more RAM be beneficial to commercial flagging?
>
> From a quick search of the forums, it looks like most people have less than
> 2GB RAM.  Any feedback is appreciated.
>

I have had 4GB of ram in my mythtv box since 2006. Back then I paid
$300 for the memory and this was very cheap at the time...

I would agree it is an overkill (if I only used the machine for myth)
but it does help a lot with mytharchive and transcoding because I have
a lot of free ram available for cache.

Now that 4GB of DDR2 can be had for less than $100US I would still
consider it if I built a myth only box though.

John