RAM drive for XP possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ***** charles
  • Start date Start date
C

***** charles

Hi all,

I have a motherboard that supports up to 4G of ram.
I would like to segment half of that to a ram drive.
Can XP do this on its' own or is there any software
out there that can do this is either free/cheap?

thanks,
charles.....
 
***** charles said:
I have a motherboard that supports up to 4G of ram.
I would like to segment half of that to a ram drive.
Click to expand...


Why? What do you want to use that RAM drive for.

Except in very special cases, using RAM for a RAM drive is counterproductive
in a Windows environment.
 
Ken Blake said:
Why? What do you want to use that RAM drive for.

Except in very special cases, using RAM for a RAM drive is counterproductive
in a Windows environment.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the software (Poser) I am using to make
images is IO intensive during the rendering process. The
current computer has ata-100 drive and the rendering process
takes from 6 to 12 hours for one image. The tech support
people at e-frontier, the makers of Poser say that a faster
hard drive system will make a big difference. I looked into
other options like eSATA but they are a lot more money.
The Poser program only uses up to 2G of ram for execution.
It also does not take advantage of lots of the newer tech
such as multi core/multi cpu/advanced graphics accellerators.
So going up to 4G of ram is the cheapest solution and if the
e-frontier people or correct, it should make a big difference
in the processing times of the images. The image sizes I am
creating/using are anywhere from 10 to 100M.

In their defence, the Poser people do say that the next
version of Poser will support a lot more modern technlogies
but I would like to solve my time problem now.

thanks,
charles.....
 
***** charles said:
The problem is that the software (Poser) I am using to make
images is IO intensive during the rendering process. The
current computer has ata-100 drive and the rendering process
takes from 6 to 12 hours for one image. The tech support
people at e-frontier, the makers of Poser say that a faster
hard drive system will make a big difference. I looked into
other options like eSATA but they are a lot more money.
The Poser program only uses up to 2G of ram for execution.
It also does not take advantage of lots of the newer tech
such as multi core/multi cpu/advanced graphics accellerators.
So going up to 4G of ram is the cheapest solution and if the
e-frontier people or correct, it should make a big difference
in the processing times of the images. The image sizes I am
creating/using are anywhere from 10 to 100M.
Click to expand...


I'm not familiar with that program, but it sounds like your situation may be
one of those special cases.

I don't have any particular RAM drive program to recommend, but my guess is
that someone else here will have a recommendation for you.
 
Ken Blake said:
I'm not familiar with that program, but it sounds like your situation may be
one of those special cases.

I don't have any particular RAM drive program to recommend, but my guess is
that someone else here will have a recommendation for you.

Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup
Click to expand...

Special case, probably so. I have been looking through the
Internet and so far all the places that advertise "free ram drives"
and in fact not free. When you go to the webpage they want
a purchase fee. I am ok with that, everyone has to pay the
light bills but I am looking for a specific capability in that the
ram drive should take up the whole 2G above the first 2G and
be able to be mapped to R:. There are some other free
options that have to do with M$ loaded drivers at boot time
but I don't think that they will work all that well. But I will
still look into them.

In going through this process the term "bait and switch"
comes to mind. I guess we are all so used to it on the
Internet that it is just a small bother.

thanks,
charles......
 
'***** charles' wrote, in part:
| The problem is that the software (Poser) I am using to make
| images is IO intensive during the rendering process. The
| current computer has ata-100 drive and the rendering process
| takes from 6 to 12 hours for one image. The tech support
| people at e-frontier, the makers of Poser say that a faster
| hard drive system will make a big difference. I looked into
| other options like eSATA but they are a lot more money.
| The Poser program only uses up to 2G of ram for execution.
| It also does not take advantage of lots of the newer tech
| such as multi core/multi cpu/advanced graphics accellerators.
| So going up to 4G of ram is the cheapest solution and if the
| e-frontier people or correct, it should make a big difference
| in the processing times of the images. The image sizes I am
| creating/using are anywhere from 10 to 100M.

Is the application 'IO intensive' because it is reading and writing data
files, or because the system page file is very active?
If the latter is the case, adding 2 GBytes of RAM will greatly improve
performance regardless of whether the application can use more than 2 GBytes
of RAM. How much memory do you have installed at present?

Also, see the Microsoft articles KB895932 and KB189327.

Phil Weldon

| "Ken Blake, MVP" <[email protected]>
| wrote in message | > ***** charles wrote:
| >
| > > I have a motherboard that supports up to 4G of ram.
| > > I would like to segment half of that to a ram drive.
| >
| > Why? What do you want to use that RAM drive for.
| >
| > Except in very special cases, using RAM for a RAM drive is
| counterproductive
| > in a Windows environment.
| > --
| > Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| > Please reply to the newsgroup
| >
| > > Can XP do this on its' own or is there any software
| > > out there that can do this is either free/cheap?
| > >
| > > thanks,
| > > charles.....
|
| The problem is that the software (Poser) I am using to make
| images is IO intensive during the rendering process. The
| current computer has ata-100 drive and the rendering process
| takes from 6 to 12 hours for one image. The tech support
| people at e-frontier, the makers of Poser say that a faster
| hard drive system will make a big difference. I looked into
| other options like eSATA but they are a lot more money.
| The Poser program only uses up to 2G of ram for execution.
| It also does not take advantage of lots of the newer tech
| such as multi core/multi cpu/advanced graphics accellerators.
| So going up to 4G of ram is the cheapest solution and if the
| e-frontier people or correct, it should make a big difference
| in the processing times of the images. The image sizes I am
| creating/using are anywhere from 10 to 100M.
|
| In their defence, the Poser people do say that the next
| version of Poser will support a lot more modern technlogies
| but I would like to solve my time problem now.
|
| thanks,
| charles.....
|
|
 
Phil Weldon said:
'***** charles' wrote, in part:
| The problem is that the software (Poser) I am using to make
| images is IO intensive during the rendering process. The
| current computer has ata-100 drive and the rendering process
| takes from 6 to 12 hours for one image. The tech support
| people at e-frontier, the makers of Poser say that a faster
| hard drive system will make a big difference. I looked into
| other options like eSATA but they are a lot more money.
| The Poser program only uses up to 2G of ram for execution.
| It also does not take advantage of lots of the newer tech
| such as multi core/multi cpu/advanced graphics accellerators.
| So going up to 4G of ram is the cheapest solution and if the
| e-frontier people or correct, it should make a big difference
| in the processing times of the images. The image sizes I am
| creating/using are anywhere from 10 to 100M.

Is the application 'IO intensive' because it is reading and writing data
files, or because the system page file is very active?
If the latter is the case, adding 2 GBytes of RAM will greatly improve
performance regardless of whether the application can use more than 2 GBytes
of RAM. How much memory do you have installed at present?
Click to expand...

There is 1.5G on the motherboard. I will have to run task
manager to tell if the swap file is being hit hard during a
render process. I thought I would set up an experiment
by setting up a ram drive on the computer as it is by making
it 1.4G for system and a 100M ram drive. In theory that
should make a lot of differnece if the software supplier is
correct, I think.

later.....
 
'*****charles' wrote:
| There is 1.5G on the motherboard. I will have to run task
| manager to tell if the swap file is being hit hard during a
| render process. I thought I would set up an experiment
| by setting up a ram drive on the computer as it is by making
| it 1.4G for system and a 100M ram drive. In theory that
| should make a lot of differnece if the software supplier is
| correct, I think.
_____

I think you should talk to someone else in support at the publisher of
'Poser'. Your system with 1.4 GBytes installed memory should already have
file cache space much larger than 100 MBytes.

Phil Weldon

| | > Is the application 'IO intensive' because it is reading and writing data
| > files, or because the system page file is very active?
| > If the latter is the case, adding 2 GBytes of RAM will greatly improve
| > performance regardless of whether the application can use more than 2
| GBytes
| > of RAM. How much memory do you have installed at present?
|
| There is 1.5G on the motherboard. I will have to run task
| manager to tell if the swap file is being hit hard during a
| render process. I thought I would set up an experiment
| by setting up a ram drive on the computer as it is by making
| it 1.4G for system and a 100M ram drive. In theory that
| should make a lot of differnece if the software supplier is
| correct, I think.
|
| later.....
|
| > Also, see the Microsoft articles KB895932 and KB189327.
| >
| > Phil Weldon
|
 
Hi,

1. You can find some poser users over at cnews.com newsgroup,
corel.paintshoppro_graphics group in particular. They seem to be pretty
knowledgeable folks but I'm not a poser user, so don't really know.
It's a moderated group, and does have some, shall we say, egotistical
people there; just in case you come across them<g>. Most of the moderation
is by bot, so it might take half an hour or so for your post to show up,
seldom any longer than that.

2. The PageFile actually IS a RAM drive of sorts and perhaps what you need
is a little management of the Page File (swap file in older windows
systems). You might read up on the Page File usage; I suspect it's what you
need since Poser is a Windows program; I think, and possibly more RAM along
with it.

3. It IS possible to make a RAM drive in XP without shelling out bucks, in
other words, free, but you might have to download a couple of programs to do
so. If you really want to make your own RAM drive, let me know and I'll go
see how it was done.
I thought I was going to just tell you how, but I now notice ramdrive.sys
isn't part of XP, so I'll need to research how it was done in the apps I
have.
If you have an old copy of DOS laying around, it's highly likely XP will
run the ramdrive.sys, making it easy on you. I've used many DOS6.22 files
in XP and had no problem with them. So far. I know, famous last words!

4. You might also ask the ram drive question over in alt.msdos.batch.nt.
That's mostly for batch files, but you'll find some very helpful and very
knowledgeable people there who will likely have a zillion ways to create the
ram file with XP<g>.

5. If you're increasing RAM in your machine, especially to 4 Gig, I'd wait
and see if that plus the new page file size to go with it doesn't solve your
issues. The normal rule of thumb for a page file is 1 1/2 times the amount
of RAM you have, but with 4 Gig, there's a different set of rules. If you
can't research those or don't already have the info, try Google, or come
back here and ask. I think people right here probably have the approximate
max recommended size although it's a little, uhh, "adjustable" depending on
the usage. Supply as much detail as you can if you come back for that.
It'll be needed.
IMO initially I'd think starting with letting Windows determine the page
file size would be the way to go; monitor that and see what it's doing.
There are both pros and cons to using large page files.

Hope I haven't talked down to you; couldn't tell what your expertise might
be from your post.

HTH
Pop`
 
Phil Weldon said:
'*****charles' wrote:
| There is 1.5G on the motherboard. I will have to run task
| manager to tell if the swap file is being hit hard during a
| render process. I thought I would set up an experiment
| by setting up a ram drive on the computer as it is by making
| it 1.4G for system and a 100M ram drive. In theory that
| should make a lot of differnece if the software supplier is
| correct, I think.
_____

I think you should talk to someone else in support at the publisher of
'Poser'. Your system with 1.4 GBytes installed memory should already have
file cache space much larger than 100 MBytes.
Click to expand...

See your idea. See my response to Pop.

later.....
 
Pop` said:
Hi,

1. You can find some poser users over at cnews.com newsgroup,
corel.paintshoppro_graphics group in particular. They seem to be pretty
knowledgeable folks but I'm not a poser user, so don't really know.
It's a moderated group, and does have some, shall we say, egotistical
people there; just in case you come across them<g>. Most of the moderation
is by bot, so it might take half an hour or so for your post to show up,
seldom any longer than that.

2. The PageFile actually IS a RAM drive of sorts and perhaps what you need
is a little management of the Page File (swap file in older windows
systems). You might read up on the Page File usage; I suspect it's what you
need since Poser is a Windows program; I think, and possibly more RAM along
with it.

3. It IS possible to make a RAM drive in XP without shelling out bucks, in
other words, free, but you might have to download a couple of programs to do
so. If you really want to make your own RAM drive, let me know and I'll go
see how it was done.
I thought I was going to just tell you how, but I now notice ramdrive.sys
isn't part of XP, so I'll need to research how it was done in the apps I
have.
If you have an old copy of DOS laying around, it's highly likely XP will
run the ramdrive.sys, making it easy on you. I've used many DOS6.22 files
in XP and had no problem with them. So far. I know, famous last words!

4. You might also ask the ram drive question over in alt.msdos.batch.nt.
That's mostly for batch files, but you'll find some very helpful and very
knowledgeable people there who will likely have a zillion ways to create the
ram file with XP<g>.

5. If you're increasing RAM in your machine, especially to 4 Gig, I'd wait
and see if that plus the new page file size to go with it doesn't solve your
issues. The normal rule of thumb for a page file is 1 1/2 times the amount
of RAM you have, but with 4 Gig, there's a different set of rules. If you
can't research those or don't already have the info, try Google, or come
back here and ask. I think people right here probably have the approximate
max recommended size although it's a little, uhh, "adjustable" depending on
the usage. Supply as much detail as you can if you come back for that.
It'll be needed.
IMO initially I'd think starting with letting Windows determine the page
file size would be the way to go; monitor that and see what it's doing.
There are both pros and cons to using large page files.

Hope I haven't talked down to you; couldn't tell what your expertise might
be from your post.

HTH
Pop`
Click to expand...

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.

ah, those old DOS days...

later,
charles.......
 
'***** charles' wrote, in part:
| 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.
_____

Rethink your approach. For one thing, you can set the swap file to any size
you wish. It still seems that the information provided you by the 'Poser'
publisher misses the point. As for a faster hard drive, ANY 300 GByte hard
drive will be MUCH faster than a 40 GByte hard drive, just because of data
density (bits per inch under the heads. You don't need SATA to gain the
benefit. And a 300 GByte ATA hard drive can be had for $60 US or less.
What matters is not what you learned about computing 30 years ago, but
rather how Windows XP operates, and what tools are available for
characterizing performance bottlenecks.

Use 'Task Manager' to check actual physical RAM and page file usage by the
various threads.
Or use tools that display and/or log more detailed performance information,
such as those in 'Administrative Tools' > 'Performance' in the Windows XP
'Control Panel'.

Phil Weldon

| | > Hi,
| >
| > 1. You can find some poser users over at cnews.com newsgroup,
| > corel.paintshoppro_graphics group in particular. They seem to be
| pretty
| > knowledgeable folks but I'm not a poser user, so don't really know.
| > It's a moderated group, and does have some, shall we say, egotistical
| > people there; just in case you come across them<g>. Most of the
| moderation
| > is by bot, so it might take half an hour or so for your post to show up,
| > seldom any longer than that.
| >
| > 2. The PageFile actually IS a RAM drive of sorts and perhaps what you
| need
| > is a little management of the Page File (swap file in older windows
| > systems). You might read up on the Page File usage; I suspect it's what
| you
| > need since Poser is a Windows program; I think, and possibly more RAM
| along
| > with it.
| >
| > 3. It IS possible to make a RAM drive in XP without shelling out bucks,
| in
| > other words, free, but you might have to download a couple of programs
to
| do
| > so. If you really want to make your own RAM drive, let me know and I'll
| go
| > see how it was done.
| > I thought I was going to just tell you how, but I now notice
| ramdrive.sys
| > isn't part of XP, so I'll need to research how it was done in the apps I
| > have.
| > If you have an old copy of DOS laying around, it's highly likely XP
| will
| > run the ramdrive.sys, making it easy on you. I've used many DOS6.22
files
| > in XP and had no problem with them. So far. I know, famous last words!
| >
| > 4. You might also ask the ram drive question over in
alt.msdos.batch.nt.
| > That's mostly for batch files, but you'll find some very helpful and
very
| > knowledgeable people there who will likely have a zillion ways to create
| the
| > ram file with XP<g>.
| >
| > 5. If you're increasing RAM in your machine, especially to 4 Gig, I'd
| wait
| > and see if that plus the new page file size to go with it doesn't solve
| your
| > issues. The normal rule of thumb for a page file is 1 1/2 times the
| amount
| > of RAM you have, but with 4 Gig, there's a different set of rules. If
you
| > can't research those or don't already have the info, try Google, or come
| > back here and ask. I think people right here probably have the
| approximate
| > max recommended size although it's a little, uhh, "adjustable" depending
| on
| > the usage. Supply as much detail as you can if you come back for that.
| > It'll be needed.
| > IMO initially I'd think starting with letting Windows determine the
| page
| > file size would be the way to go; monitor that and see what it's doing.
| > There are both pros and cons to using large page files.
| >
| > Hope I haven't talked down to you; couldn't tell what your expertise
might
| > be from your post.
| >
| > HTH
| > Pop`
|
| 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.
|
| ah, those old DOS days...
|
| later,
| charles.......
|
| > ***** charles wrote:
| > > Hi all,
| > >
| > > I have a motherboard that supports up to 4G of ram.
| > > I would like to segment half of that to a ram drive.
| > > Can XP do this on its' own or is there any software
| > > out there that can do this is either free/cheap?
| > >
| > > thanks,
| > > charles.....
| >
| >
| >
|
|
 
Actually, I think Phil W was right when he mentioned you might be better to
modify your approach to the problem. I've never seen a brand name 300Gig
drive for $60 but it's possible, I suppose. Either way, drives aren't that
expensive.
While I'm on drives, SATA drives, in particular the 150MB/S kind, really
aren't that much of an improvement over EIDE (PATA) drives. The 300's and
600's I've heard, don't know, would allow some speed increases depending on
other bottlenecks in the system (front side bus speed, etc. etc.). IMO a
SATA is better, but without going into more detail, it's not going to help
your problem much.

Did you check out the Corel newsgroup I mentioned? Your'e quite apt to get
some good advice there; most know what's up with your program.

Your idea to use a 2 Gig RAM disk, IMO, is not the right method. I also
think I know why you think that, so forgive me if this sounds derogatory: I
do NOT mean it that way:
In the old DOS world, any flavor of it, that would have been the right
idea. But in XP, using a separate RAM disk would only serve to unnecessary
time to the process because it would actually take MORE machine cycles to
get the data to/from RAM than it would to allow XP to use its own RAM Disk,
called the Page File.

You should research the Page File operations.
XP maximizes RAM use at all times, so even if you install 4 Gig or RAM, XP
is going to try to use every single nibble of it. IF XP can manage it, you
will never see much vacant RAM in XP. If RAM gets filled, or nearly filled,
then, using a priority basis, XP begins to farm out to the Page File any
data or instructions it doesn't have room for to disk to the Page File.
Data in the Page File and RAM are constantly changing, based on what XP
thinks you might do next, and they're in constant motion depending on what
you're doing.
Trying to use a 2 Gig RAM drive would simply be adding more machine
cycles to the mix because now I think the OS would need to keep track of,
and use, the Page File AND the RAM disk, each living in different places on
the hard drive and the RAM disk having fragmentation issues, which the Page
File does not have. The Page File always lives at the same addresses on the
hard drive; a RAM drive would not. So now you get more head movements and
possibly thrashing of the drive heads as it has to switch between the two
depending on what's going on.
For program execution, 4 Gig of RAM is almost surely going to be able to
hold all executable code you need.
For rendering (I edit Video, BTW, a very RAM instensive process), RAM is
liable to fill and you'll still end up using the Page File, but a LOT less
of it since in theory it'll only hold data that isn't being used at any
particular instant in time. Here it gets into prefetching et al, and I'm
not up on going that deep into things.
So, a 4 Gig RAM with a 300 MB SATA drive would definitly provide
noticeable, likely accaptable, operation with the Page File at work.

IMO you don't need 4 Gig. of RAM. 2 Gig, IMO would be the very most an XP
machine would need to make the most efficient use, and in your case,
probably a use-dependent Page File size. When I render video I get Page
Files in the order of about 3 Gig, once maxing out at 6, where the Page File
was so large it took a minute or more for it to bring itself back down to
size. So, you can also make the Page File too large. That's why, to start,
one should always first allow windows to manage the size of the Page File,
and use measurements later to change it if needed.

Also, I'm not sure what your reference is since you haven't described your
system, but rendering is a very intensive process. Even on my 3 GHz clodk,
800 MHz bus, dual drive, dual cpu, 1 Gig RAM, an 80 Gig IDE and 160 Gig
150MB/S SATA, one hour of compressed video can take several hours to render,
depending on the complexity of the render, number of fades, transitions,
etc.. The bottleneck for me is the RAM on my video card; it's a couple
years old and just not fast enough for the rest of hte system now. It's
next on my upgrade list<g>.

Another thing that CAN, not WILL, speed up operations is more than one
physical hard drive. That way the program operating system is being read
from one while the Page File is being kept on the other drive. That allows
almost, not quite, parallel disk i/o which can speed things up, too, since
you now have twice the number of disk heads at work. That will help a lot
with program speed when the Pafe File is in use. Howver, it may not make
much difference to the rendering process dependign on how & where it's done.
Once you get data i/o to your video card maximized, that's as fast as your'e
going to go. Period. Usually the video card turns out to be a bottlenect
on many systems and most people don't realize it.

Sorry for being so verbose; hope I"ve made at least a little sense. I don't
guarantee my accuracy and reserve the right to have made mistakes<g>.
40 Gig single hard drive is way too small. You really need a second hard
drive, 80 Gig or more, 7200 or 10k rpm or SATA 300 min, and up to 2 Gig of
RAM on the motherboard. Optimally you'd replace the 40 Gig with an 80
minimum too.

Now, here are the questions that should have been asked first and right
away:
-- Describe the task at hand, AND why you think you are using the correct
tool for the task.
-- Have you done disk cleanup? Start | Programs | Accessories | System
Tools | Disk Cleanup
-- Followed by Defrag? Same as above but Disk Defragmenter
-- Cleared internet cache?
-- Have you checked Event Viewer for errors and warnings?
-- Do you have any scanners, such as anti-virus heuristics and/or scanning
every file you create/modify/move?
-- Have you attempted to use MSConfig to stop background tasks and other
programs that load at startup to see if it helps the speed? Always be
disconnected from the 'net when doing power operations.
-- MSConfig is a TOOL; NOT an answer to the problem. It's how to find
the problem, verify it, but not to fix it.
-- Do you make sure all other programs are shut down on the desktop?
The above will give you more processor attention and much more effieicnt use
of current RAM plus might make the rendering tiem acceptable.
I just have a problem imagining "rendering" time beign unacceptable for a
"picture". But that might be because I don't know what "rendering" means,
to you or "picture" for that matter<g>.

You really should describe your system here to get more meaningful input.
Brand, Clock speed, front bus speed, RAM, Drive, video card & RAM, current
rendering times, times you hope to achieve, file sizes, total and by layer
if applicable, etc.. There may well be better groups to post this query to
than this one and such info might result in a referral.

Oh, the tech guys at e-frontier? I don't think they're up on your
question - e.g. they're guessing, just as I have done.

Back to your origianl question: Yes, it can be done, but IMO It's not the
solution you need. So, this is probably the time for you to either bypass
the advice so far and go try your original idea, or proceed with the various
advice provided here. You're in control either way.

Pop`
 
'Pop`' wrote, in part:
| I've never seen a brand name 300Gig drive for $60 but it's possible,
| I suppose. Either way, drives aren't that expensive.
_____

CompUSA, middle of the summer, 300 GByte Seagate ATA hard drive, $59.95 US
after rebate; got one for MPEG 2 recording. What with 750 GByte SATA hard
drives now available, they gotta move those little dogies.

Phil Weldon

| Actually, I think Phil W was right when he mentioned you might be better
to
| modify your approach to the problem. I've never seen a brand name 300Gig
| drive for $60 but it's possible, I suppose. Either way, drives aren't
that
| expensive.
|
..
..
 
Did you check out the Corel newsgroup I mentioned? Your'e quite apt to
get
some good advice there; most know what's up with your program.
Click to expand...

My newsfeed doesn't carry that group.
Now, here are the questions that should have been asked first and right
away:
-- Describe the task at hand, AND why you think you are using the correct
tool for the task.
-- Have you done disk cleanup? Start | Programs | Accessories | System
Tools | Disk Cleanup
-- Followed by Defrag? Same as above but Disk Defragmenter
-- Cleared internet cache?
-- Have you checked Event Viewer for errors and warnings?
-- Do you have any scanners, such as anti-virus heuristics and/or scanning
every file you create/modify/move?
-- Have you attempted to use MSConfig to stop background tasks and other
programs that load at startup to see if it helps the speed? Always be
disconnected from the 'net when doing power operations.
-- MSConfig is a TOOL; NOT an answer to the problem. It's how to find
the problem, verify it, but not to fix it.
-- Do you make sure all other programs are shut down on the desktop?
The above will give you more processor attention and much more effieicnt use
of current RAM plus might make the rendering tiem acceptable.
I just have a problem imagining "rendering" time beign unacceptable for a
"picture". But that might be because I don't know what "rendering" means,
to you or "picture" for that matter<g>.
Click to expand...

Did all that. I will just end up experimenting.

thanks,
charles.....
 
***** charles said:
My newsfeed doesn't carry that group.
Click to expand...


Corel's newsgroups are on a private server, and general purpose servers
don't carry it. It's cnews.corel.com. I see that you use Outlook Express,
which handles multiple news servers with ease.
 
***** charles said:
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.
Click to expand...

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."
 
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