Re: RAM drive for XP possible?
- From: Ron Martell <ron.martell@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:44:36 GMT
"***** charles" <someone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The tech guys at e-frontier were a little encouraging. It
seems the rendering engine (Firefly) is not very fast in and
of itself. I asked them about both an external eSATA
raid array and a ram drive. It seems that the best bang
for the buck is the ram drive idea. It will take several
days just for the shipping of the ram and I haven't yet
ordered it. What I would like to do is put 4G in the
motherboard and then set the upper 2G as a ram drive.
Then put the swap file and the images in the ram drive.
Problem is the swap file size tends to be 1.5 times as
big as ram. That would make the swap file 3G and it
wouldn't fit on the ram drive. Then I am stuck putting
the swap file on the C: drive, in this case an ata-100
40G Western Digital, not too fast. Maybe I can
manually adjust the swap file down to a small enough size
to fit on the ram drive along with the pictures being
manipulated. We'll see. Anything on the ram drive
process would be appreciated. I have been googling
the problem too.
With over 30 years experience and a Ph.D. in Computers
Don't worry about talking down to me, or over my head.
I appreciate any and all help.
Do not repeat do not put the swap file into a RAM drive. Windows uses
the swap file to compensate for the *lack* of sufficient RAM to
satisfy the total memory load being placed on the system. By taking
RAM away from Windows to create the RAM drive you will only increase
the need to use the swap file, which in turn will require an even
larger RAM drive. So you take more RAM away from Windows to make the
RAM drive larger, resulting in an even greater need to use the swap
file.........
You should be able to see where that sequence leads to.
Leave the swap file on the hard drive. Set the minimum very low (say
100 megabytes or so) but make the maximum quite large, 2 gigabytes if
you want. You can check occasionally on the actual size of
pagefile.sys but I seriously doubt if it will ever exceed the minimum
(e.g. 100 megabytes). Now Windows Task Manager will possibly report a
very much larger figure for PF Usage, but that is largely due to
"phantom" usage mainly resulting from the unused portions of memory
allocation requests.
By design, Windows must allocate memory address space to satisfy the
full amount of all memory allocation requests that are issued. And
almost everything - Windows components, applications, device drivers,
etc - will ask for memory allocations that are larger than what is
usually needed under normal circumstances. So what Windows does is to
allocate addresses in RAM only to those portions of the requests that
are actually used, and the unused portions are mapped to locations in
the page file. In fact, Windows XP can map these unused portions to
*potential* locations in the page file provided these mappings do not
result in a possible page file larger than the configured maximum.
For example, here is some current data from my own system, with 1 gb
of RAM and 6 open applications on the task bar plus antivirus &
antispyware.
Actual physical size of pagefile.sys = 80 mb (= minimum size
configured)
PF Usage per Windows Task Manager = 499 mb
Actual valid RAM content currently in the pagefile = 53 mb (per
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm)
In my opinion it may be of some use to put files that are frequently
loaded and unloaded by your application into the RAM drive, but that
would also be in essence a duplication of the disk cache process used
by Windows itself. But it is possible that at least some of the
application files have been coded so they will not be retained in the
Windows disk cache, in which case the RAM disk would be the solution.
Good luck
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair
"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
.
- References:
- RAM drive for XP possible?
- From: ***** charles
- Re: RAM drive for XP possible?
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- Re: RAM drive for XP possible?
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