Quote:
If you're already running off an SSD, a Ramdrive isn't going to give you a monstrous performance increase at all.|
Originally Posted by MadHobbit
Hi
built a new system, it has 24 gigs of ram. any one have any experience setting up ram drive under Win 7 pro 64 bit? would I get much of a boost? I7 3.4 ghz 24 gig ram,gt480 120 gig ssd |
The big thing with SSDs is that the disk-centric portions of a map load run faster. A Ramdrive might shave a second or two off something that already only really takes a few seconds. And, due to latency in how the client communicates back to the server for synchronization, it may result in no boost in load speeds at all.
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Without regards to performance gains or not...
http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk
The freeware version supposedly works under Win7 64 bit. I have not used it myself.
Oh yes. One other thing. Remember, RAM disks aren't persistent. So they don't survive reboots. Meaning that the system needs to write the contents of the RAM disk back to a storage device before shutdown.
This can be a fairly sizable write, and can severely shorten the life of an SSD if such is used as the storage device. And pushing the storage files for a RAM disk to a hard drive just has you slowing down your OS as you wait for a multi-gig drive to be initialized from slow mechanical media.
For things like browser caches, scratch disks, etc, RAM disks excel. For larger loads like games...not so much.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
I run CoH from a RAMdisk (on Linux, so the OS supports them directly rather than needing third-party software).|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Oh yes. One other thing. Remember, RAM disks aren't persistent. So they don't survive reboots. Meaning that the system needs to write the contents of the RAM disk back to a storage device before shutdown.
This can be a fairly sizable write, and can severely shorten the life of an SSD if such is used as the storage device. And pushing the storage files for a RAM disk to a hard drive just has you slowing down your OS as you wait for a multi-gig drive to be initialized from slow mechanical media. For things like browser caches, scratch disks, etc, RAM disks excel. For larger loads like games...not so much. |
The basic technique is to use the launcher to do updates to the SSD copy of the CoH directory, then copy that to the RAMdisk and bypass the launcher to start the RAMdisk copy of CoH. Nothing in the CoH directory *needs* to be written back to the SSD after a gaming session, but there are some things you probably *want* to copy back: the "logs" and <your global name> directories for chat logs, the "CustomVillainGroup", "Custom_Critter", and "Missions" directories if you've been creating things for AE, and the "screenshots" directory if you've made screenshots. On Linux, I can use symbolic links to leave these directories on fixed storage while copying everything else to RAM; I don't know if Windows has a similar ability.
I'm not sure how much of a boost a RAMdisk will give you: you've got enough RAM that Windows can cache all of CoH; I don't know if it's smart enough to do so, though.
Compared to running the game off of a fast SSD, I don't think a ramdrive is going to make that big of a difference. It will only speed up loading local files, and only by a little. The delays you see in things like zoning are due to the time it takes to load the zone files, and the time it takes for the game servers to download to you all the initial zone information. You can speed up the first half theoretically all the way to zero, but you can't speed up the other half at all: there's a diminishing returns to trying to speed up zoning by accelerating the disk performance of your computer.
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One thing to remember about RAM Drives, they were thought up during a period in time when read/write speeds of the storage device were pitiful compared to that of the memory chips. With the advent of SSDs, this (should have) essentially signaled the retirement of what was a wonderful concept for a system that could support it. From what everyone has said this past year about SSDs in other threads, the more you write, the faster you use up the lifeblood of the device. Hopefully this part was obvious, but just reitterating.
Just curious, but besides "because I could" what lead you to purchasing such a large amount of ram?
I wonder what would happen if a VHD was run from a RAM disk?
Quote:
My current system has 16 gb. My next will have at least 32 gb. There's no such thing as too much RAM.
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Originally Posted by WanderingAries
Just curious, but besides "because I could" what lead you to purchasing such a large amount of ram?
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Quote:
Tell that to the schmoes who spend another complete system's worth on a board and maxi-memory, then never utilize it all.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
My current system has 16 gb. My next will have at least 32 gb. There's no such thing as too much RAM.
|
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
There is where the OS writers have assumed you will never have that much and then you try writing to physical RAM where the OS expects to find a hardware page you can get all sorts of wonderful side effects.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
There's no such thing as too much RAM.
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Quote:
The question is Why though...what are you doing that's going to be using That much RAM? Is this computer going to control your entire smarthouse?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
My current system has 16 gb. My next will have at least 32 gb. There's no such thing as too much RAM.
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No computer will ever need more than 64K 
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Quote:
For one thing I run virtual machines. For another thing I sometimes multibox task forces. I also run scripts that process very large data sets. My big problem is that I'm sometimes doing all three simultaneously.
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Originally Posted by WanderingAries
The question is Why though...what are you doing that's going to be using That much RAM? Is this computer going to control your entire smarthouse?
|
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Quote:
I think it's worth a total try. Unfortunately I don't have enough ram to test for results. Here is an excellent video on the above question though. Good luck. |
Originally Posted by MadHobbit
Hi
built a new system, it has 24 gigs of ram. any one have any experience setting up ram drive under Win 7 pro 64 bit? would I get much of a boost? I7 3.4 ghz 24 gig ram,gt480 120 gig ssd |
Btw, this RAMDISK software (superspeed) does keep it per reboot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAdRsQJBEBE
Don't be a mindless farm toon, we may need you on a non-soft SF someday. =)
Quote:
Some softwares for creating Ram Disks are persistent. Check out Superspeed.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Oh yes. One other thing. Remember, RAM disks aren't persistent. So they don't survive reboots. Meaning that the system needs to write the contents of the RAM disk back to a storage device before shutdown.
This can be a fairly sizable write, and can severely shorten the life of an SSD if such is used as the storage device. And pushing the storage files for a RAM disk to a hard drive just has you slowing down your OS as you wait for a multi-gig drive to be initialized from slow mechanical media. For things like browser caches, scratch disks, etc, RAM disks excel. For larger loads like games...not so much. |
Don't be a mindless farm toon, we may need you on a non-soft SF someday. =)
Quote:
My point stands. :-p
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
For one thing I run virtual machines. For another thing I sometimes multibox task forces. I also run scripts that process very large data sets. My big problem is that I'm sometimes doing all three simultaneously.
|
Hi
built a new system, it has 24 gigs of ram. any one have any experience setting up ram drive under Win 7 pro 64 bit? would I get much of a boost? I7 3.4 ghz 24 gig ram,gt480 120 gig ssd
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