CrossOver Support - Community Forums

So right now, i only have 2gb of ram in my 2008 imac. my specs are 10.6.2 nvidia geforce 8800 gs 512mb 2gb of 800 mhz ram and a 3.06 ghz intel core 2 duo processor. i like to play left 4 dead 2 im sure you guys no that by now lol. i was wondering if i should upgrade to 6gb of ram to get faster loading times and better fps but i need to know that crossover would regognize that ram and that it would run faster. help would be apperciated lol. thanks.

OS X might run faster, but it won't be all recognized under Crossover. See this thread:

http://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general/?t=25;forumcurPos=100;msg=68090

Note that this is a per-process limit. Apps running in CrossOver can use more than 2 GB, if you have multiple apps opened. Also this is a Win32 design limit, nothing we can fix in CrossOver.

Applications can also signal that they are capable of dealing with large address spaces and/or employ unmapping tricks to allocate more memory. So far the only game I know which does this is Eve Online.

To the original poster: Adding more Ram is unlikely to help your framerate because with 2 GB ram you are most likely not hitting the RAM limit. Instead you're either GPU or CPU limited. More RAM may improve loading times if you load a level the 2nd time because OSX can keep files cached in memory rather than reloading them from disk.

Stefan Dösinger wrote:

Note that this is a per-process limit. Apps running in CrossOver can
use more than 2 GB, if you have multiple apps opened. Also this is a
Win32 design limit, nothing we can fix in CrossOver.

Applications can also signal that they are capable of dealing with
large address spaces and/or employ unmapping tricks to allocate more
memory. So far the only game I know which does this is Eve Online.

Thanks for the clarification and a question on your second point. Applications that can signal they are capable of dealing with large address space like Eve Online...will they be able to use more than 2GB? ie, It isn't a Crossover limitation of some sort is it?

Thanks for the answers guys, but im still confused. i have horrible loading times and even with all other applications closed left 4 dead 2 takes up all of my ram so i thought 6gb of ram would help my bad loading times. will it all be recognized under crossover games?

So say I had a mac pro with 16gb of ram itd be pointless bcz crossover games would only recognize 2gb of that? i dont think thats how it goes lol

Let's say you have a MacPro with 16GB of RAM.

If you were running one application/game under Crossover, it would "only" use 2GB unless it was an application like Eve Online that informed Crossover it could use more and then it sounded like it work use more.

Now, lets say you still had 16GB of RAM. In theory, you could load up 8 different games or instances and each would have 2GB each (excluding what you needed for MAC OS X). Not really sure having 8 games running at the same time makes sense though, but I can see a number of different applications at the same time.

So theres no way to make my loading times faster, they are as fast as they get? the reason why im asking this is because my loading times are slow and when i wacthed a video on youtube of soldierknowsbest playing left 4 dead 2 with 8gb of ram his loading times were fast.

See Stefan's reply. He's the expert :). It may help loading a level second time because MAC OS X will cache memory. I'm not sure about loading times for L4D2 normally as I don't play it.

Are you sure it was the 8GB RAM in that video that made loading times fast? If you put the game on a SSD or a 15K RPM drive it'd load faster too even if you "only" had 2GB RAM. ie, Memory is a lot faster than hard disks if its cached, but if it isn't, it still has to transfer from the hard drive.

im almost sure that it was the ram that made it load faster. i think ram is good for loading times. i dont know what you mean by that it will cache it lol. are you saying that when i load onto a level it would be slow but when i had to load another level it would be fast?

Anthony Worcester wrote:

im almost sure that it was the ram that made it load faster. i think
ram is good for loading times. i dont know what you mean by that it
will cache it lol. are you saying that when i load onto a level it
would be slow but when i had to load another level it would be fast?

Hi,

Typically speaking, more ram will not improve your initial load times
(when the game resource files are read from the disk and into the ramfield).
Like Stefan says, if you have to reload the same level, you don't need to
read the data from the disk and load it into ram again -- you just return the
cache address pointer in ram (to the data already loaded into ram).

Your initial load times are determined by diskdrive speed, bus speed, CPU clock,
and other parameters relating to the actual throughput from disk=>ram. The only
time adding ram would improve this situation, is if you have too little ram to
begin with (or you've got too many process in ram), and if then you have to
swapout any ram pages to make room for the new data, this disk I/O can slow
things down...horribly...

FWIW, a geforce8 graphics card lasted a week here on this linux box - it simply
wasn't performant enough with a 2.11GHz dualcore CPU for graphics intensive titles.
Moving to a geforce 9 card (9400gt/512mb) improved matters 4 fold (with the same
amount of system ram)...but even then, I'm reckoning the 9400gt/512mb card is
somewhere near 'entry level' for such graphics intensive games - 9600/9800 cards
will fair better again I suspect (and the newer gtx-2xx models are probably better
again)....

Cheers!

Okay so if ram won't help what will? I dont get it because when i watch videos on youtube when there on bootcamp with the same computer as me, there loading times are fast and mine are slow. is there any fix to this? if i bought bootcamp and downloaded windows 7 wiht 6gb of ram how much would my performance with left 4 dead 2 increase? Thanks.

I replied with my advice on another thread, but a point to consider: maybe the posters of those YouTube videos edit out the boring level loading, because nobody cares to see that part.

Anthony Worcester wrote:

Okay so if ram won't help what will? I dont get it because when i
watch videos on youtube when there on bootcamp with the same
computer as me, there loading times are fast and mine are slow. is
there any fix to this? if i bought bootcamp and downloaded windows 7
wiht 6gb of ram how much would my performance with left 4 dead 2
increase? Thanks.

Hi,

You're drawing comparative parallels without actually following any lines,
that is to say...if you have the same computer as someone else, with the same
software (bootcamp+windows7) and then (on both machines) watch the same youtube
video, only then will the relative machine performance be a clear and indicative
comparison. Likewise, if the other person and yourself both had crossover + l4d2
and then compared results, that too would be meaningful.

All I am saying here is that for all I (or anybody else knows), your computer may
have a hardware problem...(ie; insufficient/old heat transfer paste on a chip heatsink
is causing the chip to overheat/slowdown)...simply put, there are far too many variables
to consider here beyond "someone has the same computer as me" -- you would have to do
some direct comparative testing (same machine, same software, same usage) before
anything can really be said about any performance difference between the two machines.

Cheers!

Ken Thomases wrote:

I replied with my advice on another thread, but a point to consider:
maybe the posters of those YouTube videos edit out the boring level
loading, because nobody cares to see that part.

Hey Ken,

Astute observation...I suppose if we actually had the youtube link to
look at, that could be easily ascertained...

@Anthony -- do you have the youtube link so we can take a look?

Cheers!

Aside from Ken's comment about editing the video and Don's comments about an invalid parallel....how do you KNOW you have the same computer?

All of the old titanium MacBook Pros LOOK the same but had different specs, the original aluminum MacBook Pros ALL look the same but had different specs, the newer MacBook Pros with the black keys ALL look alike.

Case in point, MY MacBook Pro is slower than my co-worker's MacBook Pro. He has a faster CPU (2.4GHz vs 3.0GHz) AND he has as a SSD drive compared to my "measly" 5400RPM hard drive. The SSD drives are magnitudes faster when reading from drive to RAM.

Both of our machines look IDENTICAL.

Anthony Worcester wrote:

Okay so if ram won't help what will? I don't get it because when i
watch videos on youtube when there on bootcamp with the same
computer as me, there loading times are fast and mine are slow. is
there any fix to this? if i bought bootcamp and downloaded windows 7
with 6gb of ram how much would my performance with left 4 dead 2
increase? Thanks.

This is clearly the major "difference" between CrossOver and what you are seeing on YouTube.

In addition to agreeing with all of the other comments about "comparable," this is one major difference ---

When you are running CrossOver Games, you are running an "EMULATOR" -- namely WINE. When you are running Bootcamp,
you are running "NATIVE." This means that with Crossover, there is a program that is running between windows and OSX.
This "emulation" adds some amount of "time" to the execution of anything happening... ESPECIALLY anything that is not CPU related -- that is to say ... ANY I/O. Disk I/O being dramatic in the handoffs, starting with the game, calling windows, calling wine, calling OSX -- all asking the next entity in the line to do the actual work.

And again the unanswered question -- What do you mean by "load times" -- you probably cannot even tell when something is being loaded from Disk vs being accessed from someplace in RAM. Its just the nature of the programs. Such differences are hidden from the user with the only "visible" difference being in "load times."

For what it's worth, Apple, like Digital Equipment Corp in the old days, specializes in building and selling "optimized" "systems." That is to say, all of the components are matched to provide an optimum "user experience" -- NOT a maximized performance for any given situation. One of the major considerations in the design of an "optimized" system is price. Different performance components cost different dollars.

All of that said, the answer to your original question, will increasing your ram beyond 2 gig help -- the answer is a qualified "yes." 2 gig will allow Crossover to max out, but will not have any memory left over for OSX. That means I/O will cause swapping to take place -- which is DEADLY to performance. Increasing your ram to say 3 gig, will make a big difference in overall game performance. If that will make a difference in your "load times" is problematic.

I run Lord of the Rings On Line, and have now since the pre-beta (back in Crossover 7.0 as I recall). On my iMac ( iMac6,1 Core 2 Duo [2.16GHz - 3 GB 667] OS X 10.6.2) when I first started I had whatever the shipping memory was - 1 GB I believe. Performance was particularly bad (i.e. massive lag) in certain areas where, as it turns out there was heavy graphics activity. Increasing my memory to 3GB made all the difference in the world -- lag vanished.

So, go ahead, add memory, it cannot hurt, and it is a "cheap" fix.

"Next week," the recommended fix will probably be to get an iPad... :) No more "rotating" disks... all solid state!

Valamar
OTG, Gladden

I almost forgot, My MacBook Pro (MacBook Pro4.1 Core 2 Duo [2.5GHz - 4GB 667] OS X 10.6.2) has much faster "load times" and better overall performance than my iMac.

Hi,

WINE -- Wine Is Not an Emulator!!

Cheers!

There's a big difference in not having enough memory and adding memory when you have enough. ie, 1GB -> 3GB you can arguably say 1GB isn't generally enough for MAC OSX to cache apps and do other things whereas 2GB going to 6GB is something else.

Hey guys, thanks for all of the replys. The video i found on youtube wasnt a big video and i cant find it again. im almost sure that the specs were the same. the video said the imac had 500gb hard drive 2gb of 800 mhz ram same graphics card nd the same processor. i apperciate all of the help, like i said before this community is great and the help is awesome. when i get the money, im going to try to upgrade my ram to 6gb. i would need a 4gb and a 2gb ram module. any reccomendations for where to buy it and for the best price? Thanks.

I don't know if this place has the cheapest prices, but everyone I've talked to has recommended this place for mac stuff www.macsales.com for their service and help. I've purchase memory and hard drives from them personally and didn't have any problems.

Hi,

Just 2 cents here, not sure if it applies to the Mac case -- if you're
running x86(_64) PC mainboards, the general advice is to stack your ramslots
evenly...ie; 1gb + 1gb , 2gb + 2gb, 4gb + 4gb ...etc, up to whatever the
mainboard can address. Although, in theory at least, if both ram sticks
are exactly the same spec, 'mixing-and-matching' odd sized pairs...ie;
obtaining 3gb with a 1gb stick + a 2gb stick...or what you propose here,
6gb with a 2gb + 4gb ... should in theory be okay, over many years (and
2 children with windows gaming boxes), odd ramfields tended to negatively
impact system stability/performance in practice, and most all hardcore
gamers and overclockers all agree - evenly stacked slots of matched pair
ram sticks are the way to go...

Like I say, dunno if this applies to Mac hardware...anyone know?

Cheers!

The MacBook Pro will do Dual Channel if you match the memory and technically the one that can only "max" out to 6GB isn't a supported Apple configuration but people do it anyway.

Your are right about matching the ram modules. Iv'e read though that there is a big increase in speed in doing this, and i think the only difference is that they won't run in dual channel lol. thanks for the website btw nd its like $200 lol.

Yep, Dual Channel works on all of the new Apple products including the iMac.

Wait awhile, memory prices always drops :).