gimp 0 Posted January 7, 2001 I have 768mb of ram on my Win2k system, is there a way to make a ramdisk? I'd like to set my swap to a ramdisk or run applications off a ramdrive for fun.... thanks, gimp Share this post Link to post
Ge0ph 0 Posted January 7, 2001 Yes you can do it in W2k. I'm doing it right now. I use RamDiskNT from http://www.jlajoie.com/ramdskNT/ and it has done wonders for my system. It will let you set up a drive formated as NTFS and then set you page file on that ramdisk. Share this post Link to post
EddiE314 0 Posted January 9, 2001 why would you use a RAMdisk for a pagefile, we had this discussion on the boards here about a year ago and came to the conclusion that its pointless, try using the search feature cause i don't feel like explaining it again. Share this post Link to post
EddiE314 0 Posted January 9, 2001 you'll have to get Philipp to check the archives because the Search cannot locate it. Share this post Link to post
EddiE314 0 Posted January 9, 2001 here's how it works. i'll try to explain it in as few words as possible. your swap file is there incase you run out of physical memory, then the computer uses the swap file as virtual memory, if you put your swap file on a ramdisk, it will cause you to run out of physical memory even faster with no virtual memory on the hard disk to turn to, you end up crashing the computer or something. see where i'm getting at? go ahead and try it, i'm willing to bet you get no improvement in speed if not a system crash. if you still don't understand then i'll try to explain in greater detail. Share this post Link to post
Ge0ph 0 Posted January 9, 2001 EddiE314, I think you are right and wrong. Windows of any flavor will use a swap file long before it runs out of physical memory. If your system runs great with 256 megs of ram why not use the other 256 for a swap file (which is BTW a lot faster). If you have less then 384 megs of ram then it is worthless. But no, my system does not crash and it is faster (a lot faster). BTW are you still using a dynamic swap file? Windows will always swap so it will improve performance if it swaps to a faster ramdisk but only if you have a lot of memorey. If you have less then 384 then don't even try it. If you have somewhere in the 1gig range it will make a 500 feel like a 800. I always start my page file at 32 megs. This forces Windows to use more memory then page file. If after running it for a while I run out of vurtual memory I will up the size 16 meg at a time. If I run out of vurtual memory Windows tells me but it has never crashed because of it. Memory is cheap, take advantage of it. Share this post Link to post
EddiE314 0 Posted January 9, 2001 trust me man, if doing what you are doing was the best thing then it would be a tweak on every website and every message board. I have 640MB sdram pc133, i've never ran out of physical memory, windows doesn't even use my swap file, it just allocates it incase i HAVE to use it. no i am not using a dynamic swap, its static at 1gb. Share this post Link to post
Ge0ph 0 Posted January 9, 2001 It's not on every tweak site but it is on some. You can find some good reading on the subject at http://arstechnica.com/tweak/nt/pagefile-1.html And yes, it does not matter how much memory you have, Windows will use the page file. Windows does not wait until it runs out of physical memory before it uses the page file. It will use the page file all the time, so the trick is to make that page file as fast as possable. Most put it on a seperate and faster hard disk. A ramdisk is doing just that. There is no hard disk faster then a ramdisk. This just forces Windows to use your memory instead of your hard drive. And that is faster. Really it is. Share this post Link to post
clutch 1 Posted January 10, 2001 Wow! A 1GB pagefile eh? I would have just dropped it to 12MB (just to have it so it stops *****ing) and lived off of RAM. The pagefile will always be used unless it is forced not to (i.e. canning the pagefile or making it so small that it is worthless). Of the versions of Windows I have used (9x, NT 3.51/4.0/5.0) I have never seen any of them NOT use the pagefile in favor of RAM without being forced to. Even with the ConservativeSwapUsage entry, it will still go to the pagefile for certain components. In addition, I would say that unless you are loading some major database caching app, that much RAM and a 1GB swap file is a bit of an overkill. I setup stations for use with ACAD and Solidworks, and I don't go over a 1:1 ratio at 384MB or beyond. For less intensive systems, I don't raise the pagefile over 200MB regardless of RAM quantity. ------------------ Regards, clutch Share this post Link to post
EddiE314 0 Posted January 10, 2001 i saw no improvement last year when i put my pagefile on a ramdisk (had 512mb pc100 then). ok, here's a question. if I make a 16mb ramdisk and put a 12mb pagefile on it, will it work correctly and not use the hard disk? i really would like to free up a gig of space on the HD. Share this post Link to post
Ge0ph 0 Posted January 10, 2001 RamDiskNT at www.jlajoie.com/ramdskNT has some specail fetures just for doing this. I'm not sure about other ramdisk's. I think W2k and NT forces you to have at least a 2mb page file on the root drive (?) but other then that, yes it will work. I've been running mine without a single crash or problem. Share this post Link to post
clutch 1 Posted January 10, 2001 NT does complain if you don't have at least 2MB on the root disk, but I can't remember what Win2K does (I dig NTFS 5; I just format the whole 30GB as one partition so I haven't tried another partition ). ------------------ Regards, clutch Share this post Link to post
EddiE314 0 Posted January 10, 2001 thats gay, isn't there some way in the registry to tell it not to b1tch about the swap not being in the root dir? Share this post Link to post
Guest Posted January 12, 2001 EddiE314 is right, but then again so is Clutch. Both of you guys are basically saying the same thing, but in different ways. I will explain.. but first lemme say that making a RAMdrive for a Pagefile is counterproductive.. and defeats the purpose of a Pagefile. If you wanted to make a big ole RAMdrive for your pagefile.. why not just shrink your pagefile (on physical disk) down to 12mb? This will force Windows to use RAM instead. (I would suggest having at least 256mb to do this). No RAM is wasted in this scenario... whereas if you created a pagefile in a RAMdrive... there would be space on the RAM allocated to a Pagefile that is not full.. hence wasted memory. get it? To sum up.... shrinking your disk pagefile down to the Windows minimum ( i think it's 12mb... anything lower and you get an error).. will basically do the exact same thing as creating a RAMdisk for a pagefile; and at the same time will not waste valuable RAM space! I shrunk my pagefile to 12mb and I have 256megs of physical RAM... woah... what a difference!!! My RAM is always about 50% utilized though.. thats why I would suggest having AT LEAST 256meg much to do this. If you have 128 that will be BARELY cutting it. Cheers! ------------------ ********************************************** ---Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.--- ********************************************** Pentium II 450@504 4.5X112 256MB PC100 SDRAM Diamond Viper V770 Ultra Sound Blaster Live! Value Seagate 13.6 Gig 7200RPM ATA/66 Western Digital 13.4 Gig 7200RPM ATA/66 Quantum 8.3 Gig 36X Acer CD Rom Viewsonic PS790 19" Sweet as Heck Monitor 3Com NIC Lexmark 5700 Printer http://sandoval.dynip.com ********************************************** Share this post Link to post
