Ramdisk and ReadyBoost

[symbul]

Hi,

Let's say I have a system with Vista x64 and 8GB of memory. I create a 3 GB Ramdisk and put the Windows page file, the temp internet files folder, the Windows temp folder on the Ramdisk and set it up as my ReadyBoost drive too. Does anybody know (i.e. tried it) if this setup will actually speed up the computer (in general for games, DVD encoding, etc.)?

I'm in the process of building my new computer and debating between buying only 4GB or buying 8GB and using 3GB of those as a Ramdisk.

Thanks.

 

[vj8usa]

Converting RAM to ReadyBoost would be somewhat counterproductive, since ReadyBoost is designed to augment your RAM. Vista prefetches stuff onto your ReadyBoost volume when there isn't enough room in RAM, IIRC. Due to this, it'd be pointless to use the RAM itself as ReadyBoost.

I'm not sure if putting the page file or the temporary internet files folder in a RAM disk would increase performance much, but it would reduce hard drive activity. At any rate, there's no real harm in buying 8GB RAM, since it's so cheap nowadays (assuming you're using DDR2).

 

[Denithor]

I probably wouldn't dedicate 3GB to the RAMdisk under Vista64. Vista is designed to take advantage of your available memory by preloading frequently used programs (Superfetch) into the system memory. Now, putting your pagefile onto a ramdisk makes a lot of sense because that'll speed up all programs that cache onto the hdd (which is most these days). Even with plenty of memory available Vista still makes constant use of the pagefile so if you trick it into using the RAM in this case you should see improvements in general use.

 

[Nothinman]

I create a 3 GB Ramdisk and put the Windows page file, the temp internet files folder, the Windows temp folder on the Ramdisk and set it up as my ReadyBoost drive too. Does anybody know (i.e. tried it) if this setup will actually speed up the computer (in general for games, DVD encoding, etc.)?

No and you're completely defeating the purpose of owning that extra 3G of memory.

Now, putting your pagefile onto a ramdisk makes a lot of sense because that'll speed up all programs that cache onto the hdd (which is most these days).

Only if you have no idea how Windows handles the pagefile or how VM works at all.

Even with plenty of memory available Vista still makes constant use of the pagefile so if you trick it into using the RAM in this case you should see improvements in general use.

Do you actually have any proof that Vista touches the pagefile when you've got a lot of memory?

 

[symbul]

You guys bring several good points; it seems the basic question is "Does Vista x64 really make use of all the memory to prevent using the pagefile and speed up the system". I read conflicting stories/articles about that. Some say that no matter how much memory you have Windows will use the pagefile (i.e. removing it completely will cause problems). So if that is the case then allocating some part of the of the memory to a ramdisk would make sense (then the question is how much?). I haven't seen any statistics on how much memory Superfetch actually uses to preload data, but if there's still a good chunk of RAM not being utilized, then a ramdisk wouldn't hurt it.

 

[Nothinman]

"Does Vista x64 really make use of all the memory to prevent using the pagefile and speed up the system".

Using the pagefile isn't always a bad thing and it's only 1 place where paging happens.

Some say that no matter how much memory you have Windows will use the pagefile (i.e. removing it completely will cause problems).

They are very few and far between and there's still conflicting reports about whether it's still true in Vista anyway. And I'd be willing to bet that those APIs reserve space in the pagefile but don't actually use it unless there's memory pressure.

So if that is the case then allocating some part of the of the memory to a ramdisk would make sense (then the question is how much?).

No, putting the pagefile on a ramdisk never makes sense. The whole point of the pagefile is to give the system a place to store data when there's high memory pressure and by creating a ramdisk you're removing a chunk of memory from the system and thus making memory pressure that much more likely.

I haven't seen any statistics on how much memory Superfetch actually uses to preload data, but if there's still a good chunk of RAM not being utilized, then a ramdisk wouldn't hurt it.

It uses as much as is available.

 

[Denithor]

Ok, how about the Photoshop scratch disk? Would it make sense to put that onto a ramdisk instead of physical hdd?

 

[Nothinman]

Ok, how about the Photoshop scratch disk? Would it make sense to put that onto a ramdisk instead of physical hdd?

That might make sense. Photoshop is a special case though because that whole scratch disk thing is crap. It was added back when Photoshop's main platform was Mac pre-OS X where there was virtually no memory management so they did it all on their own. I really wish they'd just remove that and let the OS do it's thing like everyone else.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
No, putting the pagefile on a ramdisk never makes sense. The whole point of the pagefile is to give the system a place to store data when there's high memory pressure and by creating a ramdisk you're removing a chunk of memory from the system and thus making memory pressure that much more likely.

For general usage, I agree completely. Some games, the ones that don't load levels or maps, write data on a continual basis to the pagefile. That's the reason they don't need to have levels/maps. A few examples of this are any Microsoft flight simulator, X-Plane, and and Oblivion. Now, it isn't possible to move fast enough in Oblivion to get any performance benefit, but in M$'s FSX, I used to get a slight pause as the textures loaded, when flying low and fast. The lower or faster I flew, the more frequent the pauses. With a RAM disk, that no longer happens, even while flying lower and faster than before. Admittedly, that benefit doesn't apply to very many people, but it does exist.

Photoshop is a special case though because that whole scratch disk thing is crap. It was added back when Photoshop's main platform was Mac pre-OS X where there was virtually no memory management so they did it all on their own. I really wish they'd just remove that and let the OS do it's thing like everyone else.

This I disagree with completely. Having Photoshop be able to have it's own scratch disk is a huge performance benefit, even today. It allows being able to use a disk (whether a physical drive or RAM drive) that's completely separate from the Windows pagefile. Just adding a third disk with the first partion used as the Photoshop scratch disk makes for a noticeable increase in speed, assuming you're working with large pics in RAW format.

If both Windows & Photoshop were having to fight over/share the pagefile, it would bring things to a crawl, especially for the vast majority of people, who still have only 2GB of system RAM. When you add the fact that Photoshop makes changing from using the Windows pagefile to any other drive as simple as selecting the drive from a drop-down box and the average Photoshop user knows shitloads about cameras, but nothing about computers or OS's, it won't be changed anytime soon, and most likely ever.

 

[Nothinman]

Some games, the ones that don't load levels or maps, write data on a continual basis to the pagefile.

No, they don't. No app can directly write to the pagefile. They may modify a lot of pages in memory that have no backing on disk which would cause the OS to put them in the pagefile if there's memory pressure but that's it.

in M$'s FSX, I used to get a slight pause as the textures loaded, when flying low and fast. The lower or faster I flew, the more frequent the pauses. With a RAM disk, that no longer happens, even while flying lower and faster than before. Admittedly, that benefit doesn't apply to very many people, but it does exist.

Which sounds like a bug in FSX then if it's not preloading textures early enough to not cause any slowdowns. You could work around it by preloading all of the data into the page cache as well with something like SuperFetch.

This I disagree with completely. Having Photoshop be able to have it's own scratch disk is a huge performance benefit, even today. It allows being able to use a disk (whether a physical drive or RAM drive) that's completely separate from the Windows pagefile. Just adding a third disk with the first partion used as the Photoshop scratch disk makes for a noticeable increase in speed, assuming you're working with large pics in RAW format.

So add that third disk and put another pagefile on there, Windows will automatically use the one that's being used the least at the time.

If both Windows & Photoshop were having to fight over/share the pagefile, it would bring things to a crawl, especially for the vast majority of people, who still have only 2GB of system RAM. When you add the fact that Photoshop makes changing from using the Windows pagefile to any other drive as simple as selecting the drive from a drop-down box and the average Photoshop user knows shitloads about cameras, but nothing about computers or OS's, it won't be changed anytime soon, and most likely ever.

There's no fighting over the pagefile, the OS is the only thing that can access it. The fact that Photoshop users don't know how to use their systems isn't an excuse for a poorly designed app on top of that system.

 

[hanspeter]

Hello.

Photoshop uses its scratch file to move (idle) data from ram to another storage media. This way it can manipulate very large amounts of data, even if the virtual address space is limited.

If it had to rely only on the paging file, the amount of image data would be (very) limited - in a 32bit OS.

 

[imran hossain]

Hi,

I want to create a ReadyBoost on a RAMDisk (manually), for this I did the following things
- Set the registry value for this device at the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\EMDMgmt\"Corresponding device Name" as
-- CacheSizeInMB = 0x0000010e (270)
-- CacheStatus = 0x00000001 (1)
-- DeviceStatus = 0x00000002 (2)
-- DoRetestDevice = 0x00000000 (0)
-- HasSlowRegions = 0x00000000 (0)
-- LastTestedTime = 0x00000000 (0)
-- PhysicalDeviceSizeMB = 0x0000017f (383)
-- ReadSpeedKBs = 0x3b9aca00 ( 1000000000 )
-- RecommendedCacheSizeMB = 0x0000010e (270)
-- USBVersion = 0x00020000 (131072)
-- WriteSpeedKBs = 0x3b9aca00 ( 1000000000 )

- Restart the "ReadyBoost" service

The RAMDrive has not configured as ReadyBoost and the "readyboost.sfcache" has not created on the RAMDrive; If I right click on the RAMDrive and configure it as ReadyBoost from properties then it works properly; the "readyboost.sfcache" file has been created on the drive also and the registry value has been set as above. One more thing, The same procedure I have followed for a USB Flash drive and it can be configured as ReadyBoost by both way.

NB: To make a ReadyBoost on RAMDisk, the RAMDisk type must be USBDrive Type.

Could anybody please tell me how can I solve the problem?

Thanks in advance,
Imran

 

[VulcanX]

Yes as far as i have read yes, and the performance increase isnt major with ReadyBoost is it? Bcoz i mean the max transfer speed of 480Kb/s which gives 60MB/s which i strongly doubt firstly, and secondly the ReadyBoost has nothing to do with pagefile(just to clarify things), the ReadyBoost works with the SuperFetch and cache only, the pagefile is used when the physical RAM is full and need to store temp files still. Just to clarify for some people.

With regards to the problem at hand, i havent ever run a RAMdisk and havent seen anyone do it either, i wouldnt even know where to start to do that, but i think it could be beneficial, but would much rather have the RAM available for other purposes than running apps etc from it directly. (plus the speed increase cant be THAT much more than the current HDD speeds we seeing isnt it?)

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: imran hossain
Hi,

I want to create a ReadyBoost on a RAMDisk (manually), for this I did the following things
..snip...

I like how this guy comes in and craps up a thread that advises specifically not to do this. And then creates two more identical threads.

 

[taltamir]

while some specific programs insist on using the drive, like photoshop, having more ram is better for those as well, than converting ram to ramdrive for scratch. Just delete your ramdrive and let windows have 8GB of ram.
oh, and readyboost is never, EVER, a better use for ram than real ram.

 

[shiznit]

If you are running Vista 32bit on a PC with 4gb of ram but without a 64bit CPU like my dad's laptop, Windows will only be able to use 3-3.5gb of your ram. So what I did was make a ramdisk for 1gb to use what Vista can't for a ReadyBoost drive, and I left 3gb for the OS. I know it sounds crazy but it works, ramdisk programs can allocate the ram that is not addressable in 32 windows to a disk so you can make full use of it, you can even go over 4gb. ReadyBoost caches files that Superfetch for some reason skips but would take a conventional hard drive much longer to access especially the 5400rpm POS in the laptop and really cuts down on random io. Browsing through Windows Explorer and doing the little things I don't see nearly as much HD access and battery life improved. Typing something into Start-Search used to thrash the HD and now it's near instant, I think Vista caches the index in ReadyBoost as well. I also used some of the space on the ramdisk and set it as Firefox's cache folder and that cut down on HD access when browsing.