Want Faster XP? Pagefile in top 3-4GB of RAM on a 8GB system

[BuzzBang]

One way to speed up XP is to put the pagefile and temp files on a RAM drive.

There may be other programs that will do this, but the one below works (for my hardware):

http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php

It will allow you to create a Ramdrive (I could allocate about 2.9GB) in memory that is above the 3.2GB limit of XP, i.e. you still have 3.2GB of memory for XP.

You can get it to save the contents to a file on shutdown and load on restart.

The documentation isn't great. You have to turn on the NUMA(?) memory first (File/Options(?) sorry at work) before you can create the drive in unmanaged memory. If warns you about something to do with XP embedded, just say YES. Your mileage may vary. The usual caveat: if in doubt back up first, and don't blame me if it goes pear shaped

This is on the frequently recommended Intel DP35 board. I haven't moved my scope rig into it yet, but don't foresee any issues.

My new E8400 + 8GB 'puter goes like a rocket, web pages snap onto the screen etc.

Hope that helps

BuzzBang

[dawman]

Indeed it does. And backing up is wise also.

Are you using an SSD or a Cenatek Rocket Drive that sits in a PCI 32bit slot and has 1-16GB's of ancient RAM?

Thanks For Sharing.

[BuzzBang]

Hi Jimmy et al,

Just to clarify, as Stardust mentioned yes I use some of my 8GB of RAM. No SSD drives, nice as they are (I want one, but will wait a bit until the price drops). I had previously looked into getting a PCI device that took DDR Ram, but when I realised that the majority hook up via SATA, and are therefore limited wrt bandwidth, I widened my search to ramdrives, but with the requirement that I could put the pagefile on them.

So my RAM Disk is sitting in my motherboard system RAM that is normally not used or seen by XP 32bit.

Transfer rate:

300Gb Velociraptor 130MB/s max read 6-7ms access time

Intels X25-M SSD 250MB/s sustained read <0.1ms access time $600

Ramdrive: 4GB DDR2 ~$80 and $50 for the software.

HD Tune: - 3288MB/s average read, 3342MB/s max, 2816MB/s min, and way way way less (I assume) than 0.1 ms access time.

Because it is only a RAMDrive and when the power goes the contents of that drive disappears, it's only really suitable for temporary files and such like. The pagefile is a prime candidate to move to the fasted drive that you have as XP will read and write to it quite frequently, even if you have lots of RAM. This particular software will save an image of it to a normal drive on shutdown, but on a power outage etc. you will have lost that sessions files. I assume (always dangerous) that on power up after a power outage that it should just read the last image of the drive and load that.

hope that helps

BuzzBang

[dawman]

Yes it does help.

Cenatek also had a software RAM drive before for Windows 98. I bet they sold it to M$.

[dawman]

I haven't installed the other 4GB's of DDRII-800 I have as I was waiting for 64bit maturity before I jeoapordize a stable / live rig.

But I will install the XITE-1 first, then experiment this.

This is an excellent tip, I hope I can find a use for it. I would love it if SC released a new STS5000 version that I could use this with, while still retasining my Romplers.


Thanks Again Buzz Bang.

You haven't posted for a while, you should stop by more often.........

[dawman]

I read about this years ago, might have evn been my first email I ever wrote too.

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www. ... m7UQhF-wVg


Am I to understand that this is included in XP Home?

[BuzzBang]

the STS5000 should fly with samples stored on the ramdrive, but I would be cautious for live use. Certainly only ever copies on the ramdrive.

The Cenatek software doesn't specifically mention the pagefile, or that it's memory is taken from above the 3.2GB cut off that XP 32bit can see.

They do make some good points about which applications would benefit most, i.e. compilers and database index files etc.

I'm afraid I'm a bit of a lurker on Z. I read lots of posts and hold the forums and the vast majority of it's members in high regard Most of the time when I'm tempted to post I'll see that someone has beaten me too it with the key bit of info! I must (and will) pull my finger and give John Cooper a donation, by way of thanks for his efforts.

[MD69]

Hi

Thanks, and for an ultimate optimization on that matter: you can disable system paging and defrag pagefile at shutdown (both registry keys setting).

cheers

[Neutron]

no pagefile can be a bit of a disaster though maybe not on a dedicated DAW that doent have to load a lot of samples.

also if you put your temp folder on one of those things..you wouldnt believe how fast some things you normally expect to take a while go.

[Neutron]

Indeed it does. And backing up is wise also.

Are you using an SSD or a Cenatek Rocket Drive that sits in a PCI 32bit slot and has 1-16GB's of ancient RAM?

Thanks For Sharing.

i have the gigabyte one with 4 GB on it. it sits in a PCI slot ["SATA drive"] and looks like my temp folder and photoshop scratch disk.
it actually retains its contents, so i am not using it to the fullest, but hey it was free (not on my scope machine though. crazy crap is for my everyday pc.)

[MD69]

Hi Neutron,

What you're thinking is not what I am speaking about. No pagefile (which mean removing the pagefile from the disk) is not a good option, but forcing the OS to reside in RAM is different ..
cheers

[Neutron]

anything that involves a temp file (which can be set to a specific location) such as unzipping, web browsing, viewing graphics in email, etc flies along because the "drive" uses all the bandwidth of the SATA and the access time is basically 0 compared to hard drives.

i think having it in RAM would be even better though it has much more bandwidth.

im thinking of loading this thing up with 8 GB and trying that for temp and the "drive" for swap.
on the other hand i have been thinking of changing it to XP64.

[dawman]

Well I have learned a new trick from investigating this. I always wanted to use STS as a source of easily accessible samples for SFX and short loops, but because it uses RAM I thought I would shine it, and use Giga only. My Scope/Giga/Video Bro' in Vegas says I could create an area from unused memory for STS samples, which would be smaller old Akai/Giga libraries, and chain them w/ presets like I do with my synths. I would just add the extra 4GB's of DDRII 800 I bought for XP64. I would only need 2.6 GB's of the extra 4GB's.

I wish he would join here as he has used Scope from day one, but is swapmped w/ his video contracts.

He also is the guy who had the best Giga/Scope DAW based on a DFI/ Pentium M780 OC'd to whoop my P4 3.4EE. It even ran a fast Netcell RAID 3 card on the PCI-X slot. Core 2 Duo caused him to upgrade his PC, and now he has 2 MacTel's and a small Giga 160 DAW.

I will find out more Sunday after I fly back to LV again.

This is exciting as I can run this on a single MIDI channel where a synth chain will reside, and leave the other 10 MIDI channels for ASIO / Giga alone. COOL. ...

He gigs about 4 or 5 weekends a year and his litlle DAW sounds great. But only uses the B2003 and Giga, strictly old school Blues and R & B.

[vien]

how stable is it run this ramdisk app with 8gig on a 32bit xp box?

I've downloaded the trial software and it's labelled with warnings at the unmanaged memory option - 'risky' and 'may cause the system to crash'

I've got 4gig on my xp32bit box and i'm thinking about getting another 4gig for a ramdisk. Ram is faily cheap here - $110 australian dollars for 4gig kingston hyperx ram.

[dawman]

Yes DDRII especially, even the 2GB sticks.
If you don't like the way this tweak works, no biggie.
You'll have your 8GB's ready for 64bit, whenever that day comes.

[ARCADIOS]

i have 8gb of ram with xp, and i would like to know jow to take advantage of it.
what should i do?
which program is the best for working with the extra 4 gb that xp do not see?
what should i do with virtual memory, windows or other programs temporary folders?
i am asking for step by step guidance because i tryied to use the 4 spare gb as a ramdisk and i had blue screens after changing the pagefile position and temp windows potition, because i must have done something wrong.

please a little help with this......

[BuzzBang]

Sorry for the delay in replying. I've found it to be very stable. One minor niggle. XP says that there's not enough room to expand the registry, not sure if this is due to the ram drive or not. This doesn't seem to have caused any problems.

My 'puter now runs as fast as Windoze 3.11 on a DX2 66 Seriously though, it is a great speed boost.

For configuration, if you are getting blue screens, are you sure that it is allocating from the ram above 4GB? If you are allocating a large ram disk from normal memory and putting the page file and windows temp on it XP will get pissy due to lack of memory and blue screen on you

The main thing to make sure of is that in Ramdisk Plus, you go into File > Memory > Unmanaged memory > Configure > tick box enable use of unmanaged memory > Direct Address drop down choose enabled. At some point it will warn about only being suitable for Windows XP embedded and ask if your are sure. Choose yes. Now when you create the Ram disk you should be able to tell it to use unmanaged memory.

If your motherboard supports 8Gb and Ramdisk Plus is showing the 8Gb and successful allocation of unmanaged NUMA memory you should be good to go.

Hope that helps.

[ARCADIOS]

thanks, but i have already installed in 4gb unallocated from xp. my gigabyte dq6p965 sees 8,...gigs of ram in bios and also in ramdisk.
the thing that makes me doubt the efficiency is that 1: i do not see any improvement in speed having xp and internet temp files set to ramdisk and also, the hd tune speed test shows only 45 mb/sec write, read and burst spead, much lower than any conventional hd on the market!!! and only if i create a ramdisk set from the memory that xp uses the hd speed testy gives me the results that are many times faster than any hard disk.

so. waht is this? ramdisk from xp memory ram, is faster than ramdisk from unallocated memory?

[ARCADIOS]

i have made a test.

don't know if it is enough though to make a conclusion.

BUT!!!

i have created with superspeed ramdisk plus 1gb of ramdisk from xp ram and 1 gb ramdsik from unallocated ram.

so there appear in "my computer" 2 more disks, made from ram. v: and h:

i made transfers of files, bigger and smaller ones , folders containing many files and files singles like reason refills.

i have noticed that the time of copying from a disk to another or from a disk to a ramdisk and vice versa was THE SAME!

why should i use a ram disk then?????

by first moving a folder the first transfer time was more than when i the same folder was moved for a second time and from then the move was the same faster the than the first move. this was a beheaviour similar for hard disks and for ramdisks as well. there was not difference, obvious or slight.


conclusion: the transfering was like using normal hard disks.

what is the point?
i think it is not worth it. it just complicates the system.
more instability i believe and also more time to make this backup of the image file on shutdown and the loading of it during boot.


is it just CRAP???
i do not understand how this hd tool gives these extreme results like this fake for a real world result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XQaxIw5y40

[ARCADIOS]

which case would that be?