Poor XP caching behaviour

LocutusX

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,061
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OK, while copying a CD in Nero 5.5.something under WinXP, I'm getting some strange filesystem cache behaviour in WinXP. CD is a 700MB disc, filled to the brim, and it is being copied first to an image file and then written to a blank, at 4X speed since that's what the burner is. I've got 256MB of RAM and a decently fast P3. What appears to happen is that Windows XP tries to cache all of the image file. Halfway through the burn (10 minutes) if I try to do anything on the computer I run the risk of buffer underrun -- filesystem cache is at 150MB or so, and the amount of free physical RAM is 5MB to 10MB! WTF? Why is XP being such an ass and trying to cache the entire image? Whose fault is this, XP or Nero, and anyone know how I can fix it? I've tried lowering Nero's own cache as much as possible but it doesn't do any good. The stupid Windows cache just keeps getting more and more bloated.

On my other computer, I don't recall ever having this sort of problem burning CD's @ 12x.
 

Epyon9283

Senior member
Sep 6, 2001
201
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I never encountered that problem in XP using nero burning at 12x. The only time I got a buffer under run was when copying from my cd-rom to my cd-rw when I forgot to enable dma mode.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
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I noticed XP can be over zealous with the file caching too, when I would copy large files across my network from my laptop it would fill memory with the file and trying to do anything would make it swap everything back in. It's very frustrating, I'm starting to consider putting Win2K on it now.