now using a small ramdisk

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umwhat

Farstones ram disk.
I am curious, I have put the temp folder in a ram disk and I think it is
rendering that is now taking place much faster and the screensaver seems
remarkably improved following a farstone tech's advice...thank the lord for
him or her...anh...
What else can I do with the Ram Disk. It seems I can make some more ram
disks so what can I do with them to improve performance.
Farstones software lets the settings be saved after a reboot.
oh, I almost forgot. What is the maximum size for a Ram Disk in Windows XP
Home Editin. I tried 1GB but no, Windows complained. 256MBs is going ok. How
big would I want the ram disks I use anyway....?
I do play some computer games, the biggest size of the largest game
application is about 3.5GBs.
 
While I am not familiar with the RAM disk program (Farstones) you are using
unless it can use RAM above 4 GB that may be installed, for Windows XP Home
Ed. I would think any RAM disk would be counterproductive. Using a RAM disk
takes away from the normal (base) RAM that the OS and any running programs
can use and then causes the computer to place extra data or program code in
the computer's swap drive if the RAM is totally occupied. Considering that
XP Home can use a maximum of about 3 - 3.5 GB of installed RAM (depending on
hardware installed) you would be taking memory away from your computer games
or other memory intensive programs you may run.

Another issue that you may encounter with transferring a temp folder to a
RAM disk is that it can only use the maximum size of that RAM set aside for
it. If it is on the hard disk it will expand out to the full size of the
drive which is probably many times the size available for any RAM disk. It
the maximum file size hits the RAM disk size "wall" the program is going to
crash and probably without any errors.

After writing the above, I actually went to the web site of the program,
http://www.farstone.com/software/virtual-hard-drive.htm, and while it is
fantastic reading as most advertising is, I really liked the part about
putting a data base on the RAM disk "Databases, Custom applications with
high input and output, high bandwidth, or high security requirements." Man
I can see having a power outage and having my database on a RAM disk. All
would be instantly lost. I saw nothing in their literature about using
extra RAM so what you are using is the RAM that the OS and programs could
use.

Sounds like SPAM to me!
 
LVTravel said:
While I am not familiar with the RAM disk program (Farstones) you are using
unless it can use RAM above 4 GB that may be installed,
Click to expand...

RAM Disk utilities can only use the RAM that the operating system can
recognize and make available, these utilities cannot enable 32-bit
Windows client operating systems to see or use more RAM than the
operating system can, they (RAMDisks) still rely on the Windows Memory
Manager to obtain memory allocations.

John
 
While I am not familiar with the RAM disk program (Farstones) you are using
unless it can use RAM above 4 GB that may be installed, for Windows XP Home
Ed. I would think any RAM disk would be counterproductive. Using a RAM disk
takes away from the normal (base) RAM that the OS and any running programs
can use and then causes the computer to place extra data or program code in
the computer's swap drive if the RAM is totally occupied. Considering that
XP Home can use a maximum of about 3 - 3.5 GB of installed RAM (depending on
hardware installed) you would be taking memory away from your computer games
or other memory intensive programs you may run.
Click to expand...


The RAM disk is like any other application, and can only use the RAM
that's available to Windows. So if you have 4GB and 3GB Of it is
available, part of that is all that's available to the RAM Disk.

In general, using a RAM disk under Windows has been a poor idea, and
not good for performance, since it removes RAM from being available to
Windows and what it's normally doing. However if someone clearly has
more RAM than he can make use of (most people running XP with 4GB are
in that category) that's not a problem.

Another issue that you may encounter with transferring a temp
folder to a RAM disk is that it can only use the maximum size
of that RAM set aside for it. If it is on the hard disk it will
expand out to the full size of the drive which is probably many
times the size available for any RAM disk.
Click to expand...


Correct, and a good example of a bad use of a RAM disk
 
Ken Blake said:
The RAM disk is like any other application, and can only use the RAM
that's available to Windows. So if you have 4GB and 3GB Of it is
available, part of that is all that's available to the RAM Disk.

In general, using a RAM disk under Windows has been a poor idea, and
not good for performance, since it removes RAM from being available to
Windows and what it's normally doing. However if someone clearly has
more RAM than he can make use of (most people running XP with 4GB are
in that category) that's not a problem.




Correct, and a good example of a bad use of a RAM disk
Click to expand...

To Ken & John John, that is why I stated "unless it can" in my response. I
know of no way for a program to "reach over" what is available in XP 32 or
Vista 32 bit systems and did not think this RAM disk program could do so.
The only reason I stated that "unless it can" was back in the old DOS days
DOS could only see 640 MB RAM and everything else was considered Extended
Memory that a RAM disk could access with the correct memory managers in
place.

You both generally just validated exactly what I said. Thanks.
 
To Ken & John John, that is why I stated "unless it can" in my response. I
know of no way for a program to "reach over" what is available in XP 32 or
Vista 32 bit systems and did not think this RAM disk program could do so.
The only reason I stated that "unless it can" was back in the old DOS days
DOS could only see 640 MB RAM and everything else was considered Extended
Memory that a RAM disk could access with the correct memory managers in
place.

You both generally just validated exactly what I said. Thanks.
Click to expand...


You're welcome. I didn't mean to disagree with you, just to clarify a
point or two.
 
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