Hi Gunnar,
Don't give up on using more than 2 GB of RAM with your present
dual processor PC. I believe that I can verify that my set IS using more
than 2 GB of RAM when I load my largest organ. The large organ is
a 25 stop instrument in Gonningen/Wurttemberg, Germany, see:
http://www.organartmedia.com/Goenn-Intro.html
The samples are by Prof. Helmut Maier, and are especially long, so per
my XP Pro system info read out, it stores 1.37 GB of data into the
RAM chips.
Now, my same screen reads out that only 3.17 GB of the 4 GB installed
is available to be used after XP Pro is up and operating;
or some 0.926 GB of the RAM are in use as "overhead" for the system:
XP, the SCSI drive and whatever else. I am surprised at such
a large amount going to overhead.
Anyway, after the Goenningen organ is loaded "only" 1.8 GB of RAM
remains unused.
So with the organ loaded, the total RAM being used seems to total
2.296 GB in use!
My next largest organ, at least in RAM sample space used is
the 3-manual Schantz organ by Jonathan Orwig; it consumes
"only" 1.26 GB when loaded; but these must be much shorter
samples than Prof. Maier's as the organ contains a total of 46
stops, but there is some "duplexing" (same stop playing on
more than one manual, maybe at a different pitch level, or
is that unifying?).
Charles Braund's 25 stop Romantic Organ, based upon pipe samples
from two or three Father Willis organs, uses only 400MB, but the
samples contain no reverb or other room acoutstics. The samples
are "dry" and the pipes were "miked" at very close range. Still, maybe
I am doing something incorrect here with the Willis samples, seems
to be a very low bit count in RAM for them.
Anyway, interesting to have learned this. Wonder what will pop out of
the woodwork next as we tinker with these virtual organs??
Best,