windows 7 & ramdrives - advice please

crush · 7th November 2009, 9:49 AM

Hi all,

I have a new pc and was wanting to see if could improve the performance of windows (7 pro x64) using ram drives for my swap file. i use the pc for gaming (FPS/graphic adventures) and 3d animation (3ds max).

pc spec is:
i7 950 3ghz
gigabyte ex85-ud5
12gb corsair ddr3
2x wd black (1tb each) RAID0
...case/620w psu, sound card etc.

ive installed and tried Datarams RAMDisk. pretty easy to setup. allocated 4g to the ram disk (max). im trying to get windows 7 to prefer the ram drive over the hdd one. is there any way to do this? my fear is that if i completely disable the hdd based swap file it may mess up some settings or something. as i mentioned ive just got the machine, installed my software / apps and everything is going sweet. im wanting to see if i can squeeze some more speed (as we all are i guess...it is OCAU lol).

has anyone had experience with Datarams or anyother ram drive software?

any advice would be welcome.

Thanks

terrastrife · 7th November 2009, 10:50 AM

system, advanced, performance, anced, virtual memory, user set on whatever.

i use a ramdisk based pagefile for XP32 bit.. the ram that doesnt get addressed.

susperspeed ramdisk plus supports the page file.

rowan194 · 7th November 2009, 7:48 PM

Unless Windows is absolutely neanderthal with memory management (which I doubt is the case) why would you stick the *swap* file - which is used when the OS runs out of *memory* - on a ramdisk? If you reserve the memory for ramdisks then there will be less memory available, so it will start swapping sooner. Why would you want to swap rather than use "native" RAM?

Embercide · 7th November 2009, 8:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rowan194

Unless Windows is absolutely neanderthal with memory management (which I doubt is the case) why would you stick the *swap* file - which is used when the OS runs out of *memory* - on a ramdisk? If you reserve the memory for ramdisks then there will be less memory available, so it will start swapping sooner. Why would you want to swap rather than use "native" RAM?

I was thinking the same thing, unless you're maxing out the 12gb already, the swap wont get used

crush · 7th November 2009, 9:12 PM

thanks for the replies.

maybe swap file on ramdrive is not such a good idea as your comments would suggest. would temp/tmp folders be a better idea then? also what purpose/role would ramdrives really boost system performance? im guessing on a 32bit system any ram after 2/3gb (with xp 3gb switch) would be used for it but would it be safe to say with 12gb my system is not likley to use the swap file at all?

a weird thing happened when i tried to uninstall the previous version of speeddisk. my comp was locking up on reboot and not even getting to POST.

i had to powerdown, unplug the power cable for a minute or so and boot without the network cable plugged in until i finally got to the desktop. what was weird was that my bios told me that because of changes to cpu voltage / overclocking my system is now unstable.

i havent touched my bios since i got my pc let alone tried to OC it yet. theory being get it running smoothly for a while then start tweaking.

anyways im obviously up n running now. i will see how things go but im kinda nervous about rebooting if i have to go thru the rigmarole of the unplugging etc outlined above.

the process for uninstall went: stop ramdisk. set windows swap file back to c: and disable the ramdrive one. reboot..... and here is where my problem started.

anyways my pc is up n running for now.

thanks again for those that posted.

*** ADMIN: i noticed my post has been moved from newbie to hw/storage. its not really about SSDs but on board ram as a virtual drive. if this makes any difference.

terrastrife · 7th November 2009, 10:49 PM

you guys are getting the wrong idea.

windows will put pages of memory it isnt using to the page file.

if you had no page file, it would be reloading them every time if nto in system cache.

some programs will not run even if you have 500TB of RAM and no page file.

da_jimsta · 8th November 2009, 2:04 PM

terrastrife is on the money sucks balls if you have heaps of memory and think "oh sweet now i can turn off my page file cause I got heapsa GB's of mem" then you find out that some applications are built on ye olde systems that NEED to store their data in a page file to complete their specific functions.

proffesso · 8th November 2009, 2:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by terrastrife

you guys are getting the wrong idea.

windows will put pages of memory it isnt using to the page file.

if you had no page file, it would be reloading them every time if nto in system cache.

some programs will not run even if you have 500TB of RAM and no page file.

like what?

all apps I use run without a page file

issa2006 · 8th November 2009, 9:54 PM

i use a gig i-ram as a pagefile..4g..

proffesso · 8th November 2009, 9:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by issa2006

i use a gig i-ram as a pagefile..4g..

....and....does it work well? benchmarks over a normal system? *with plenty of ram

rowan194 · 8th November 2009, 11:10 PM

The advantage of using i-ram is that it's a fast RAM drive, but it's a separate system presented as a SATA drive rather than a software process that reserves a portion of mainboard RAM.

This is one way to get around 32 bit/4GB address space limitations, since the system can push into virtual at "faster than hard drive" speeds. 4GB (let's say 3.25GB useable) onboard + 4GB i-ram swap = 7.25GB overall RAM, on a 32 bit OS. There's a performance hit compared to native RAM because of the overheads and bandwidth limitations of SATA, but it should still be several orders of magnitude faster than a mechanical drive, and probably also SSD (unless it has a beefy RAM cache itself)

Consider that upgrading to a 64 bit OS and using 8GB (or more) of onboard RAM instead may end up cheaper and less kludgy... but that change could bring about its own set of issues.

terrastrife · 8th November 2009, 11:21 PM

or you can use a ramdisk that uses unaddressed ram

ie 8GB of ram XP32 with 1GB video card about 3GB of ram addressed and 5GB left for a ram drive. ddr2 800 ramdisk about 6GB/sec

proffesso · 8th November 2009, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by terrastrife

or you can use a ramdisk that uses unaddressed ram

ie 8GB of ram XP32 with 1GB video card about 3GB of ram addressed and 5GB left for a ram drive. ddr2 800 ramdisk about 6GB/sec

sounds like a better way than a i-ram, arent they limted to Sata1? so 150mb/s

but the other question would be, why run XP32 on an 8gb system?

terrastrife · 9th November 2009, 9:03 AM

dualboot unlikey event game or program doesnt work in vista/7

.

Luke212 · 9th November 2009, 9:28 AM

if you set it all up as 64bit, you can run 12+gb ram, an ssd and be done with it.

which programs are you running that need lots of memory and do not have a 64bit counterpart?

7th November 2009, 9:49 AM	#1
crush New Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 2	windows 7 & ramdrives - advice please Hi all, I have a new pc and was wanting to see if could improve the performance of windows (7 pro x64) using ram drives for my swap file. i use the pc for gaming (FPS/graphic adventures) and 3d animation (3ds max). pc spec is: i7 950 3ghz gigabyte ex85-ud5 12gb corsair ddr3 2x wd black (1tb each) RAID0 ...case/620w psu, sound card etc. ive installed and tried Datarams RAMDisk. pretty easy to setup. allocated 4g to the ram disk (max). im trying to get windows 7 to prefer the ram drive over the hdd one. is there any way to do this? my fear is that if i completely disable the hdd based swap file it may mess up some settings or something. as i mentioned ive just got the machine, installed my software / apps and everything is going sweet. im wanting to see if i can squeeze some more speed (as we all are i guess...it is OCAU lol). has anyone had experience with Datarams or anyother ram drive software? any advice would be welcome. Thanks

7th November 2009, 9:12 PM	#5
crush New Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 2	thanks for the replies. maybe swap file on ramdrive is not such a good idea as your comments would suggest. would temp/tmp folders be a better idea then? also what purpose/role would ramdrives really boost system performance? im guessing on a 32bit system any ram after 2/3gb (with xp 3gb switch) would be used for it but would it be safe to say with 12gb my system is not likley to use the swap file at all? a weird thing happened when i tried to uninstall the previous version of speeddisk. my comp was locking up on reboot and not even getting to POST. i had to powerdown, unplug the power cable for a minute or so and boot without the network cable plugged in until i finally got to the desktop. what was weird was that my bios told me that because of changes to cpu voltage / overclocking my system is now unstable. i havent touched my bios since i got my pc let alone tried to OC it yet. theory being get it running smoothly for a while then start tweaking. anyways im obviously up n running now. i will see how things go but im kinda nervous about rebooting if i have to go thru the rigmarole of the unplugging etc outlined above. the process for uninstall went: stop ramdisk. set windows swap file back to c: and disable the ramdrive one. reboot..... and here is where my problem started. anyways my pc is up n running for now. thanks again for those that posted. *** ADMIN: i noticed my post has been moved from newbie to hw/storage. its not really about SSDs but on board ram as a virtual drive. if this makes any difference. Last edited by crush; 7th November 2009 at 9:17 PM.

8th November 2009, 9:54 PM	#9
issa2006 Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: AUSTRALIA (ADL) Posts: 1,100	i use a gig i-ram as a pagefile..4g.. __________________ 9650 4g +iram 4xvr300 in raid0/5,28" viewsonic 17tb/ 8dvd burn+blueray etc...259 v2

9th November 2009, 9:28 AM	#15
Luke212 Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: NSW Posts: 3,286	if you set it all up as 64bit, you can run 12+gb ram, an ssd and be done with it. which programs are you running that need lots of memory and do not have a 64bit counterpart? __________________ Democracy's greatest trick was convincing man he was informed.

7th November 2009, 10:50 AM	#2
terrastrife Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: ADL/SA The Monopoly State Posts: 9,802	system, advanced, performance, anced, virtual memory, user set on whatever. i use a ramdisk based pagefile for XP32 bit.. the ram that doesnt get addressed. susperspeed ramdisk plus supports the page file.

7th November 2009, 7:48 PM	#3
rowan194 Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 611	Unless Windows is absolutely neanderthal with memory management (which I doubt is the case) why would you stick the swap file - which is used when the OS runs out of memory - on a ramdisk? If you reserve the memory for ramdisks then there will be less memory available, so it will start swapping sooner. Why would you want to swap rather than use "native" RAM?

7th November 2009, 10:49 PM	#6
terrastrife Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: ADL/SA The Monopoly State Posts: 9,802	you guys are getting the wrong idea. windows will put pages of memory it isnt using to the page file. if you had no page file, it would be reloading them every time if nto in system cache. some programs will not run even if you have 500TB of RAM and no page file.

8th November 2009, 2:04 PM	#7
da_jimsta Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Brisbaneos Posts: 8	terrastrife is on the money sucks balls if you have heaps of memory and think "oh sweet now i can turn off my page file cause I got heapsa GB's of mem" then you find out that some applications are built on ye olde systems that NEED to store their data in a page file to complete their specific functions.

8th November 2009, 11:10 PM	#11
rowan194 Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 611	The advantage of using i-ram is that it's a fast RAM drive, but it's a separate system presented as a SATA drive rather than a software process that reserves a portion of mainboard RAM. This is one way to get around 32 bit/4GB address space limitations, since the system can push into virtual at "faster than hard drive" speeds. 4GB (let's say 3.25GB useable) onboard + 4GB i-ram swap = 7.25GB overall RAM, on a 32 bit OS. There's a performance hit compared to native RAM because of the overheads and bandwidth limitations of SATA, but it should still be several orders of magnitude faster than a mechanical drive, and probably also SSD (unless it has a beefy RAM cache itself) Consider that upgrading to a 64 bit OS and using 8GB (or more) of onboard RAM instead may end up cheaper and less kludgy... but that change could bring about its own set of issues.

8th November 2009, 11:21 PM	#12
terrastrife Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: ADL/SA The Monopoly State Posts: 9,802	or you can use a ramdisk that uses unaddressed ram ie 8GB of ram XP32 with 1GB video card about 3GB of ram addressed and 5GB left for a ram drive. ddr2 800 ramdisk about 6GB/sec

9th November 2009, 9:03 AM	#14
terrastrife Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: ADL/SA The Monopoly State Posts: 9,802	dualboot unlikey event game or program doesnt work in vista/7 .