Will a RAM drive help performance of Video Pro X3 -- and HOW ?

hulland wrote on 11/11/2011, 6:36 AM

I have 8 gb of DDR3 RAM, and am contemplating creating a RAM drive. Can a RAM drive benefit me when using Pro X3, and exactly how should it be configured for maximum performance?

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 11/11/2011, 4:53 PM

By strict definition of RAM drive the answer is no, because you would be reducing the amount of RAM available for Windows and your programs to use.

What do you mean by RAM drive as there are several different meanings?

Also which operating system are you using and is it 32 or 64 bit?

John

hulland wrote on 11/11/2011, 11:21 PM

Hi John,

By RAM drive I mean a product similar to " Ram Disc Plus" that creates a very fast drive, inside unused RAM, that can be configured to be saved or dissapear with a re-start - they are commonly used to significantly increase the speed of browsing, database access etc - ( The most important difference between a RAM disk and a hard disk is access speed. The time taken for a hard disk to move its magnetic heads over the spinning disks (much like the arm moving over old vinyl record player) is typically measured in milliseconds (thousandths of a second). Whereas a RAM disk does not have mechanical parts and its access speed is typically measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second). Access to a RAM disk may be 50 times faster or more than to a hard drive.).

Reports and reviews say that when used to store ( e.g) cache, or temporary files, large incrfeases of speed are found. I take your point about " stealing" from the available RAM from Windows, but the software is supposed to utilise UNused RAM.

They say " RamDisk Plus 11 has a most unique feature. Our patent pending technology can access memory beyond the limitation imposed by a Windows 32-bit operating system! In other words, RamDisk Plus 11 can use "unmanaged" Windows' memory e.g. above 4GB. It can also use the stubbornly inaccessable memory between 3.2GB and 4GB."

Obviously, running 8 GB RAM means I have to be on 64 Bit Windows 7 Pro.

To save space here, here is the Wikipedia link about RAM drives;- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk.

Surely SOMEONE using MVP has tried this ?

johnebaker wrote on 11/12/2011, 2:12 AM

That is what I thought you meant.

The answer is still no, mainly because 8Gb of RAM is not enough to give you a usable sized RAM drive. In general you should only create a RAM drive when you have 16Gb of RAM.

John

hulland wrote on 11/12/2011, 3:01 AM

So, John,

Thanks for those pearls of wisdom, but same question really, If I go out and grab myself 16 gb of DDR 3, will a RAM drive still be of any benefit to MVP X 3??

Thanks,

Ian.

johnebaker wrote on 11/12/2011, 5:02 PM

Hi Ian

Unfortunately there is no clear cut answer on whether it will improve VPX, in theory it should but there are so many other factors involved which have to be taken into account eg computer spec/components, some 'high resources' Antivirus programs and other software running at the same time as VPX.

It would be a case of try it and see, with no guarantee of improved performance as VPX may well perform better with 16Gb of RAM with no RAM drive - here I am assuming you are talking about upping your 8Gb to 16Gb.

John

hulland wrote on 11/17/2011, 9:39 PM

Ok thanks John - I am now the proud owner of 16 Gbytes of DDR3 RAM, and I have recived strong recommendations from the writers of an excellent panorama-building application that the use of a RAM drive when utilising 16Gig can enhace the speed of the program by a factor of four! Based on this I shall do as you say and carry out some tests with VPX. I believe that ( in theory at least) when VPX is moving any data into RAM ( example when rendering).