Memory Type

[PeterSt]

The Memory Type is an important parameter for a good Sound Quality. It consists of the settings Mixed, Mixed Contiguous and Straight Contiguous.

Its working is the most indirect, but of most importance in the mean time. You will have to assume that Straight Contiguous is the best setting, but also the more difficult to accomplish;
Mixed Contiguous is better than Mixed, and while Mixed always can be "allocated" to the sound engine, Mixed Contiguous may not be so easily.

Sequence of the Memory Types in terms of SQ from good to best :

1. Mixed
2. Mixed Contiguous
3. Straight Contiguous.

The ease of using it is the other way round.

All is related to the mounted physical internal memory and the Split File Setting (SFS) and this rule applies :

The fewer memory, the higher the SFS, the higher the Memory Type (1, 2, 3) the more difficult to it it going. Examples :

With 4GB of internal memory, the theoretical maximum of an SFS of 500 can never be reached with Straight Contiguous. Most probably with Mixed Contiguous it can't be reached either, and possible with Mixed it can work but instable (may work today, may not work later).

With 12 GB of internal memory, an SFS of 370 with Straight Contiguous will always play. But, do not wait 30 minutes for a first Playback attempt for the current boot session, or otherwise the "contiguous memory" will be gone.

With 8GB of internal memory the same can be achieved as with 12GB, but a first playback attempt must be fairly quick after booting, or otherwise no memory for Straight Contiguous will be available anymore. Fairly quick means : preferrably start a first track in Attended Mode for a few seconds, and take care that the album concerned already was Normalized for its Volume, when Normalize Volume is active; otherwise switch it off for this first attempt.
After this few seconds of playback (which is only to allocate the memory), you can get yourself a coffee. There is noi need  to keep XXHighEnd running; the memory stays allocated until a reboot, or explicit shut off of the Audio Engine (which would be XXEngine3.exe).

Besides the SQ influence the different memory types have, you will notice that the better type of memory you use, the faster your PC will be as a whole. So, Straight Contiguous makes all faster, especially within XXHighEnd or things like changing the volume during playback.

Most probably, with the SFS you will work against the limit you can find, meaning that with any amount of memory available, you will try and use the maximum. This is NOT a good idea; always set your SFS a 30-50 lower than what you found to be the maximum for two reasons : SQ will undoubtedly be better and you will be killing the OS when not done.
This "killing" is literal, because the way the memory is allocated - at least for the Contiguous types - overrules what the Operating System can control, and where you *will* keep on having the memory allocated, the OS *will* run short at some stage. If not now, then in 2 hours of time. So, the OS does not anticipate this means of memory usage, while still this is applied; give the OS some air and don't let it run into troubles. When this is applied in well fashion, your audio PC will run forever without a single glitch during playback.