TEST: Putting Swap file on a RAMDisk

[Myg]

Can some of you people who read this, test this technique out and post back results positive/Negative? Thanks.
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The original idea was to try and get more performance from disabling the swap file in windows totaly, but that did not work, as most games + windows are built to utilise the swapfile for storing different types of data. So the consequenses to run a game without the page file in multiplayer games (bf2 especially) will cause you to timeout every minute or so or have a huge lag spike.

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THIS IS SUGGESTED FOR PEOPLE WITH 1GB OR GREATER.

1) Download a RAMDisk Program.

2) use atleast a setting of 128MB or more.

3) Turn off the pagefile for your hard-disks.

4) Place Pagefile in RAMdisk drive.

5) Reboot and try out some Memory intensive games.


NOTE:

- There are some problems with certain settings and configurations with RAMDisks which will cause the game to crash once it overflows the Free RAM and overlaps with the RAM reserved for the RAMDisk.

- If you have the choice to edit the type of memory, and you do crash in-game, test out as many settings as you can and respond to this thread with settings which work for you.

- If there is any noticeable performance improvement, please write back ASAP.

Thank you for your time.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

This is pretty much pointless. If you have enough RAM your system will rarely resort to using the swap file. Also 128Mb RAM Disk is nowhere near adequate for a swap file.

People have been screwing around with swap files since time immemorial in order to improve performance and it's a waste of time. The only thinkthat will improve performance in BF2 is having adequate RAM (it's a RAM hog - 1Gb is the minimum, but it really want 2Gb) and having a decent CPU and vid card.

Leave your swap file settings on default.

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
This is pretty much pointless. If you have enough RAM your system will rarely resort to using the swap file. Also 128Mb RAM Disk is nowhere near adequate for a swap file.

People have been screwing around with swap files since time immemorial in order to improve performance and it's a waste of time. The only thinkthat will improve performance in BF2 is having adequate RAM (it's a RAM hog - 1Gb is the minimum, but it really want 2Gb) and having a decent CPU and vid card.

Leave your swap file settings on default.

:thumbsup:

 

[MobiusPizza]

Swap files are useful as a backup submemory system
You might have never video edited nor used Photoshop
The swap file usage was astronomical
I dedicted 4GB worth of HDD space as swap file just in case I won't run out of memory

 

[ronach]

While on this subject, if you want a faster swapfile, put it on a seperate , fast, hard drive, not on another partition of your main drive. I know this info is not new, it just has to be repeated for those that don't know.

 

[Cerb]

This is not for people w/ > 1GB of RAM, this for people with an iRAM card.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Swap file on the HD is only used when there is no memory left to use. It is pointless to put it on a Ramdrive. You will only slow things down. Jim

 

[ixelion]

Where do you get this iRAM thing? is it on new egg?

 

[Fresh Daemon]

I have read that the iRAM doesn't actually improve performance massively because it's bottlenecked by the SATA bus. SATA2 may help, but I don't think it will be night and day. There's no replacement for actual, physical RAM. If you are hitting the swapfile enough to wonder about tuning it, then that's a signal that you need to buy some more RAM.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Fresh Daemon
I have read that the iRAM doesn't actually improve performance massively because it's bottlenecked by the SATA bus. SATA2 may help, but I don't think it will be night and day. There's no replacement for actual, physical RAM. If you are hitting the swapfile enough to wonder about tuning it, then that's a signal that you need to buy some more RAM.

Yes, but Windows likes to swap things that are idle, even if you have the RAM, so you will see a speed increase using a swap file in RAM. While the iRAM is bottlenecked by SATA, it still beats the living sh!t out of any drive out there, though it's usefullness is limited, especially given the cost.

 

[Myg]

This thread is about using A RAM DRIVE not the IRAM, the IRAM is still way too slow to even compare to using RAM as a drive to store the pagefile.

Those who assume that just because they have alot of RAM, windows wont use it that much, it does, and always will use the pagefile and ive seen large differences in games which are very friendly with page files.

Test it out, if theres any difference, any pros/cons, please reply, otherwise, dont waste your time posting.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Myg
This thread is about using A RAM DRIVE not the IRAM, the IRAM is still way too slow to even compare to using RAM as a drive to store the pagefile.

Those who assume that just because they have alot of RAM, windows wont use it that much, it does, and always will use the pagefile and ive seen large differences in games which are very friendly with page files.

Test it out, if theres any difference, any pros/cons, please reply, otherwise, dont waste your time posting.

Yes, but using RAM as a page file defeats the point of a page file, unless there's some way to have multiple, tiered, swap spaces.

 

[Myg]

The point is not wether a page file is valid or not, or its purpose. I didnt design windows, but because of that design, which depends on a page file for playing games properly, this is a work-around to possibly improving performance.

Windows will use a page file no matter how much RAM you have, and your HD will chug, this is to try and reduce that as much as possible. Thats all, its nothing magic or really special, I am just hoping that people can test it out and post their opinions on the technique.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: Myg
Windows will use a page file no matter how much RAM you have, and your HD will chug,

(atleast you finally stopped calling it a "swap file" -- that's 16-bit Windows terminology when the OS would _swap_ an entire process to the _swap file_. Windows NT OTOH deals with 4k memory pages)

Have you actually tested this? I.e. used Perfmon and watched the "Page reads/sec" counter?

If you waste memory on a RAM drive, the OS will have less memory left to spend on the cache manager and the number of pages fetched from the drive (vs the cache) will increase (as someone already pointed out). You're effectively secondguessing the OS, and in this case it isn't a hot strategy.

 

[Myg]

Yes, I have tested this, and im hoping people who have some time on their hands will too.

As to wasting RAM; I recommend that people with 1GB or greater to do it only, as anyless might cause problems.

 

[lxskllr]

What Myg's saying sort of makes sense. My peak memory usage is always under 1gb, but Windows still puts data in the pagefile. I really don't know much about it, but I assumed it was data Windows was taking a guess that you may need later, but not at the moment.

I'm not sure that a ram disk would give better performance because the paged data may never be needed. If one were to try, it would be best on a 2gb+ system. Maybe 1gb as real memory, then 1gb as a ram disk, and place the pagefile there. I'd be interested to see some benchmarks with that kind of setup. I'm betting though that it doesn't make much of a difference.

 

[her34]

Originally posted by: Myg
Yes, I have tested this, and im hoping people who have some time on their hands will too.

As to wasting RAM; I recommend that people with 1GB or greater to do it only, as anyless might cause problems.

if you've tested it, what were your results?
what program did you use?

 

[imported_Kensai]

4GB+ DDR400 > iRAM.

 

[Pariah]

This is actually a really dumb thing to do. With the way Windows handles memory, this will only negatively affect performance at best, and cause system instability at worst. Windows uses all the memory it can, not because it has to, but because unused memory is worthless to a user. Windows caches to RAM first then to the pagefile, when physical runs out. Just because there is data in the pagefile does not mean Windows is actively using it, it's likely present in RAM as well. By putting your pagefile in RAM, all you're doing is reducing both the physical and virtual amounts of memory available to your system, which will never increase peformance.

 

[Hacp]

I'm still waiting for Raid 0 Iram!

 

[reallyscrued]

Ugh, when are the solid state hard drives comming out again?

 

[her34]

Originally posted by: Pariah
This is actually a really dumb thing to do. With the way Windows handles memory, this will only negatively affect performance at best, and cause system instability at worst. Windows uses all the memory it can, not because it has to, but because unused memory is worthless to a user. Windows caches to RAM first then to the pagefile, when physical runs out. Just because there is data in the pagefile does not mean Windows is actively using it, it's likely present in RAM as well. By putting your pagefile in RAM, all you're doing is reducing both the physical and virtual amounts of memory available to your system, which will never increase peformance.

if an app is left open for a long time, it'll cache it to page file even though you still have physical ram left to use.

my peak memory usage never reaches my total physical memory amount, yet after leaving an app open for a while it becomes unresponsive when i bring the window into focus because it's reading off my hdd. i would rather windows cache to page file only when physical memory is maxed out, but that's not what happens.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Kensai
4GB+ DDR400 > iRAM.

Ah yes, but 4GB DDR400 + iRAM = win. If you have the money

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: her34

Originally posted by: Pariah
This is actually a really dumb thing to do. With the way Windows handles memory, this will only negatively affect performance at best, and cause system instability at worst. Windows uses all the memory it can, not because it has to, but because unused memory is worthless to a user. Windows caches to RAM first then to the pagefile, when physical runs out. Just because there is data in the pagefile does not mean Windows is actively using it, it's likely present in RAM as well. By putting your pagefile in RAM, all you're doing is reducing both the physical and virtual amounts of memory available to your system, which will never increase peformance.

if an app is left open for a long time, it'll cache it to page file even though you still have physical ram left to use.

my peak memory usage never reaches my total physical memory amount, yet after leaving an app open for a while it becomes unresponsive when i bring the window into focus because it's reading off my hdd. i would rather windows cache to page file only when physical memory is maxed out, but that's not what happens.

Left alone long enough, Windows will eventually dump everything into your pagefile, that does not mean it is removed from physical memory. Duplicating older cached data during periods of system inactivity means that if the space is ever needed the system doesn't have to wait for the data in physical RAM to be written to the hard drive before being useable, it can just overwrite it.

 

[her34]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: her34

Originally posted by: Pariah
This is actually a really dumb thing to do. With the way Windows handles memory, this will only negatively affect performance at best, and cause system instability at worst. Windows uses all the memory it can, not because it has to, but because unused memory is worthless to a user. Windows caches to RAM first then to the pagefile, when physical runs out. Just because there is data in the pagefile does not mean Windows is actively using it, it's likely present in RAM as well. By putting your pagefile in RAM, all you're doing is reducing both the physical and virtual amounts of memory available to your system, which will never increase peformance.

if an app is left open for a long time, it'll cache it to page file even though you still have physical ram left to use.

my peak memory usage never reaches my total physical memory amount, yet after leaving an app open for a while it becomes unresponsive when i bring the window into focus because it's reading off my hdd. i would rather windows cache to page file only when physical memory is maxed out, but that's not what happens.

Left alone long enough, Windows will eventually dump everything into your pagefile, that does not mean it is removed from physical memory. Duplicating older cached data during periods of system inactivity means that if the space is ever needed the system doesn't have to wait for the data in physical RAM to be written to the hard drive before being useable, it can just overwrite it.

the system isn't slow during inactivity. the system is slow when i restore an app that's been minimized for a while.

so during first boot i could minimize/restore the app and it's snappy. but i come back later and restore the app it's slow, reading the hdd.