AMD Radeon RAMDISK

[Olikan]

AMD has a RAM Disk feature(software utility) that will be part of the Trinity APUs.. as expected, it allow the user to create a RAM partition with a capacity of up to 64 GB(not sure if one can find such dense module kits easily)... The user can copy its game directory onto this partition or any other program that he uses frequently and will benefit greatly from the faster data transfer.

the slide below suggests they have some pretty significant performance claims to make for this

http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Radeon-RAMDisk-Will-Make-Games-525-Faster-295452.shtml

 

[Stoneburner]

Would be more interesting if this was also available with Piledriver. What's the point of loading crysis twice as fast when the game runs slow? If you're going to get a discrete card, then why get an APU?

 

[inf64]

You mean Vishera FX parts? Piledriver is a core inside Trinity and Vishera.
Who's to say this won't run on new FX platforms? It's just a software suit,it only needs AMD hardware and it will probably run on Phenom systems too.

 

[Stoneburner]

You mean Vishera FX parts? Piledriver is a core inside Trinity and Vishera.
Who's to say this won't run on new FX platforms? It's just a software suit,it only needs AMD hardware and it will probably run on Phenom systems too.

Thanks for the correction.

However, that's my point: I want it to work on the higher end platforms. It would justify the extra 16gb of ram I am going to impulsively purchase today

 

[mikeymikec]

Does anyone else think that AMD perhaps ought to spend its time bug-fixing its drivers and hardware rather than throwing in random new features into said drivers?

My latest pet peeve with my HD 5770 is how sometimes (possibly after standby) video playback (from DVD for example, though not limited to) will be jerky. The solution I use is to disable then re-enable desktop composition. I suppose I ought to try the latest drivers again (I would guess that I've upgraded drivers 5 or 6 times in less than 3 years as a response to annoying graphics problems).

 

[Mallibu]

AMD has a RAM Disk feature(software utility) that will be part of the Trinity APUs.. as expected, it allow the user to create a RAM partition with a capacity of up to 64 GB(not sure if one can find such dense module kits easily)... The user can copy its game directory onto this partition or any other program that he uses frequently and will benefit greatly from the faster data transfer.

the slide below suggests they have some pretty significant performance claims to make for this

http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/...jpg?1348837723

I have mixed feelings about this. I've been migrating recently my games from a slowpoke Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB to my Samsung 830. In some games is noticable (WoW,Diablo 3) but in most of them is like minus 1-2 seconds from loading and that's it. Shogun 2 campaign used to be irritating since you switch constantly between map mode / battle mode and it had 1 minute 30 second loading in that phase. When I installed it on the SSD I expected a 1/3 or 1/4 of the loading time but was pretty dissapointed to see that it was around 1 minute and ~ 10 second. Kinda like +20% gain, from a 5x-10x faster disk. So judging by that, that Shogun 2 graph is waaay out of realistic expectations.

 

[AdamK47]

At first I thought this thread was about allocating memory on a Radeon graphics card for use as a RAM Disk.

 

[inf64]

RAM memory is an order of magnitude faster than SSD drive. Whether this may have a noticeable impact on loading times (vs SSD drive as an alternative) is debatable though.
I guess for those who have money to buy 16GB of ram (or more),a ramdisk can be viable option (even if they already have SSD).

 

[kleinkinstein]

I guess for those who have money to buy 16GB of ram (or more),a ramdisk can be viable option (even if they already have SSD).

You do realize 16GB of 1600 is $60, 1333 is $50. Skip a few lunches next week and it's done and paid for. Step up or move aside!

 

[ShintaiDK]

First i thought it was a joke.

RAMDisks aint something new. Even my Amiga 500 had one. Rebranding an existing RAMDisk wont give magical results. Not to mention hiding the huge downsides of RAMDisks.

Entire article is here btw:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Radeon-RAMDisk-Will-Make-Games-525-Faster-295452.shtml

And that slide is so full of BS. They also forgot to test against an SSD. It would yield about the same results as a RAMDisk due to the compression and package techniques used in games and apps. You are CPU limited way before storage speed limited. And will be so as long as HDs are around.

 

[Mallibu]

Yeh, i was wondering the same. What difference does this one have from the normal Ramdisk used by people all this time?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Yeh, i was wondering the same. What difference does this one have from the normal Ramdisk used by people all this time?

AMD name on? Something that suddenly made it into the best thing evah!

Abit like this slide from AMD as well with thr Trinity launch.

Higher number must be bettah!

Or the overclocking slide:

Little note about LN2...

The company obviously didnt learn from all its marketing mistakes yet that they did the last 7-8 years in row.

 

[Mallibu]

AMD name on? Something that suddenly made it into the best thing evah!

Abit like this slide from AMD as well with thr Trinity launch.

Higher number must be bettah!

Or the overclocking slide:

Little note about LN2...

The company obviously didnt learn from all its marketing mistakes yet that they did the last 7-8 years in row.

Oh my god, these slides are priceless D:

 

[thilanliyan]

Higher number must be bettah!

Isn't that how marketing works?

And the general public would probably fall for it.

 

[inf64]

GPU can really OC to 1Ghz on air . LN2 result is obviously a marketing stunt .

 

[veri745]

Isn't that how marketing works?

And the general public would probably fall for it.

Sadly, for every person that knows and recognized the tricks for what they are and call them out on it, there are dozens of people that are are swayed in a positive way, which means the same old marketing tricks are played out over and over again.

Intel does the same thing, so does nVidia. As long as it gets positive results, companies will continue to prey on stupid consumers.

 

[beginner99]

AMD name on? Something that suddenly made it into the best thing evah!

Abit like this slide from AMD as well with thr Trinity launch.

Higher number must be bettah!

Or the overclocking slide:

Little note about LN2...

The company obviously didnt learn from all its marketing mistakes yet that they did the last 7-8 years in row.

From Kiddies for Kiddies. that wouldbe a good slogan from AMD.

BTW for the lols a classic:

Moar Cores! Moar Ghz!

Does anyone else think that AMD perhaps ought to spend its time bug-fixing its drivers and hardware rather than throwing in random new features into said drivers.

Agree 100%. But that would take actual innovation compared to buying a 3rd party software that has absolutely no relation to the products you ship.

 

[Olikan]

First i thought it was a joke.

RAMDisks aint something new. Even my Amiga 500 had one. Rebranding an existing RAMDisk wont give magical results. Not to mention hiding the huge downsides of RAMDisks.

Entire article is here btw:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Radeon-RAMDisk-Will-Make-Games-525-Faster-295452.shtml

And that slide is so full of BS. They also forgot to test against an SSD. It would yield about the same results as a RAMDisk due to the compression and package techniques used in games and apps. You are CPU limited way before storage speed limited. And will be so as long as HDs are around.

lol, i linked the image instead of the article...

...i never have heard about RAMdisks before

....so much fail :'(

 

[Cerb]

Yeh, i was wondering the same. What difference does this one have from the normal Ramdisk used by people all this time?

Most people don't even use RAM disks.

A RAM disk has some conditional usefulness, but only if you take the time and effort, and then the benefits they advertise will mostly only affect people with 'green' type HDDs, and disk-heavy games.

What I want to see is somebody do something like Superfetch right, such that starting an application will automatically load files it uses (a) on start, and (b) most often, into cache, each time it is run, and (c) locating those files which change minimally on extents (reduce seeks for HDDs, reduce needed IOPs for SSDs). RAM disks are OK sometimes, but the general solution would be executable-based profiled speculative caching and layout.

 

[ShintaiDK]

lol, i linked the image instead of the article...

...i never have heard about RAMdisks before

....so much fail :'(

Anno 1987

 

[podspi]

Superfetch actually works really well. I went from my main OS on an SSD and 4gb of RAM to a laptop hard drive and 8gb of RAM (put the SSD in the laptop) and after I let the machine sit for a while I can't tell the difference.

Now, starting it up and that first ~ 15 minutes, ugh huge difference. But after superfetch does its magic, everything loads near instantly because it caches everything.


As an aside, unless you keep your computer on all the time, this will be more or less useless. Reboot and your RAMDISK is gone. Even if it has magic to automatically rebuild it you have to wait for it to load back up. There is a piece of software that does this that I used to use for my Minecraft server back in the day.

 

[ShintaiDK]

As an aside, unless you keep your computer on all the time, this will be more or less useless. Reboot and your RAMDISK is gone. Even if it has magic to automatically rebuild it you have to wait for it to load back up. There is a piece of software that does this that I used to use for my Minecraft server back in the day.

Exactly, there is a reason that the RAMDisk after 25years+ havent moved anywhere outside its tiny niche. And you described it very well. In the old days it was used basicly to unpack files.

 

[wlee15]

Does anyone else think that AMD perhaps ought to spend its time bug-fixing its drivers and hardware rather than throwing in random new features into said drivers?

My latest pet peeve with my HD 5770 is how sometimes (possibly after standby) video playback (from DVD for example, though not limited to) will be jerky. The solution I use is to disable then re-enable desktop composition. I suppose I ought to try the latest drivers again (I would guess that I've upgraded drivers 5 or 6 times in less than 3 years as a response to annoying graphics problems).

Have you submitted a bug report, also have you tried a different media player?

http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3EB8

 

[zebrax2]

Unless it is automatic similar to intel srt i don't see much use for the said feature.

 

[mikeymikec]

Have you submitted a bug report, also have you tried a different media player?

http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3EB8

Last time I tried to submit a bug report, their system was broken (over a number of weeks), so no. As it affects browser + Flash as well as VLC playing DVDs, I can safely say "yes"

Anno 1987

And its mouse pointer movement was fluid-smooth back then! Go AmigaOS!

I wonder if Commodore had done well whether I would have turned out to be a fanboy. I suspect Commodore's story and demise is what cured me of fanboyitis permanently.