Will using a RAMDisk improve performance?

[wingnut1186 10]

Sorry if this has been addressed but I could not locate a thread regarding it.

I have 12GB of RAM and heard setting up ArmA on a RAMDisk might help improve some sluggish performance. I'm trying to familiarize myself with RAMDisks and how to configure them but I'm still not 100% sure. Can I just copy my ArmA files from their original directory to the ramdisk and run it from there? Or do I need to install Arma to the Ramdisk.

(if there are a few links anyone can suggest I'd appreciate it)

I know when I reboot the ram flushes all the data. Is there a way to have it copy your saved files to the harddisk before shutdown?

[johncage 30]

all it does is pretty much make things load faster. it won't really change your fps if your specs are already high end like that.

[wingnut1186 10]

all it does is pretty much make things load faster. it won't really change your fps if your specs are already high end like that.

I've seen more than one person report this helps with texture loading and stuttering. On my HDD I constantly see the light flickering while playing. For what my specs are I expected the game to run like a champ but I find myself setting everything to Low or normal settings with low view distance and no antilising, anistrophic or PP. The only thing I have left up is my screen and 3D res( both of which are set to my native 1920x1080). I'm using Win 7 64-bit. I heard Arma2 doesn't play nice with 64-bit?

Right now I want to try other options to get it running smoothly...

[jagheterjan 10]

ArmA2 works fine with a 64bit OS.

You might want to see this thread for much more info on running A2 off a RAMdisk: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=88388

[Leon86 13]

this will answer it in great detail

[wingnut1186 10]

@ Leon86

I've been looking at your link but I still am not sure how to configure ArmA into the RAMDisk. I don't know if I have enough RAM to do this or how to set it up so that when the comp shuts down I don't lose progress. Not sure if you have another link up your sleeve?

Thanks

[breeze 0]

I am running a 64 bit os and it runs well but there's a lot that still goes wrong for the specs I have I would expect no glitches and I still get some.

SSD drives help an awful lot

[wingnut1186 10]

I am running a 64 bit os and it runs well but there's a lot that still goes wrong for the specs I have I would expect no glitches and I still get some.

SSD drives help an awful lot

Are you using any SSD...i wonder if 2 solids in RAID 0 would be a better solution.

[jagheterjan 10]

Again, there's already a thread on this forum that holds most relevant information: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=81161

[teaboy 11]

I dont know about Ramdisk as i've never tried it or needed to. What i do know is that my system is very much similar to yours (see spolier) the only real difference being the amount of RAM.

Intel i7-860 quad core 2.8ghz

4GB Ram

Ati HD5770 1GB Ram

1Tb Serial ATA 3-GB/s Hard drive.

ASUS® P7H55-M SI: MICRO ATX VALUE MAINBOARD,USB 2.0 & SATA 3.0Gb/s

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

I dont have any performance issues (other then the odd ingame bug) and i am able to run the game on very high settings with AA and AF set to normal and PP disabled, along with view distance set 3000m but 4000m is ok aswell and 3d set at 100% with native screen resolution (1440 x 900). with those setting at 3000m view distance my FPS at is usual a minimum of around 50 in towns.

I dont know if that info will help you but i hope it proves useful to you.

Edited January 13, 2011 by teaboy
spelling correction

[bangtail 0]

This is the second thread you have started without first using the search function (and if you did use it, you certainly didn't try hard enough ;) )

[Leon86 13]

@ Leon86

I've been looking at your link but I still am not sure how to configure ArmA into the RAMDisk. I don't know if I have enough RAM to do this or how to set it up so that when the comp shuts down I don't lose progress. Not sure if you have another link up your sleeve?

Thanks

It's really easy.

1 make a ramdisk. (usually R like with dataram, with Qsoft B), if you have 12GB ram I wouln't go over 8GB.

2 Make a folder called AddOns on the ramdisk, now you have R:\AddOns

3 COPY all the .pbo files you want fast acces to to the newly created AddOns folder

4 Add -mod=R:\ to your arma 2 shortcut (rmb on the shortcut, properties, add it to the line where it says where the arma .exe file is located)

If you restart your pc these files will indeed be gone so you may want to copy your selection to another directory on your harddrive. Make sure the appropriate signature files are in the new folder as well (the bikey thiny's).

[enad 11]

For what my specs are I expected the game to run like a champ but I find myself setting everything to Low or normal settings with low view distance and no antilising, anistrophic or PP. The only thing I have left up is my screen and 3D res( both of which are set to my native 1920x1080). I'm using Win 7 64-bit. I heard Arma2 doesn't play nice with 64-bit?

Regarding the comment about your specs, ArmA 2 doesn't seem to discriminate, even if you got a $3500 computer, A2 can still run like shit for you, I have a GTX 580 i5 750 @4.0Ghz, 8GB 2000Mhz DDR3 RAM running the game mainly maxed out besides pp effects and 3D Res, and I still find my self playing with 35 FPS..or even less. I think the problem is more ArmA 2 not using the hardware to its fullest potential...Though I notice it used 100% of my GPU, still seems like I should run the game flawlessly with 'The best GPU on the market'. Bugs me sometimes but you just have to get over it and find your perfect settings.

[liquidpinky 11]

Having championed the use of RAMdisk for ARMA2 I would comment that in the current build of the game there is very little benefit of using a RAMdisk now. You may alleviate some stutters or the occasional slow texture load but BIS have improved the streaming a lot since the original topic.

The link below my sig will give you an idea how to make it work if you are still interested in trying it out.

[cjph 0]

Having championed the use of RAMdisk for ARMA2 I would comment that in the current build of the game there is very little benefit of using a RAMdisk now. You may alleviate some stutters or the occasional slow texture load but BIS have improved the streaming a lot since the original topic.

The link below my sig will give you an idea how to make it work if you are still interested in trying it out.

+1

I have less RAM but been using a 5Gb RAMDisk (and I-RAMs) under XP for some time and with the current game build, fellow players with decent systems report fewer stutters and loading issues, some of which I still get (and the game files, ACE and Islands I load exceed the 5Gb). My conclusion was to replace the RAMDisk and I-RAMs with an SSD when I rebuild in the near future, as there is a much better performance/cost compared to filling a system with 4/8Gb RAM sticks, though you have the memory already so might not be an issue.

One other point is that some of the RAMDisk programs (I forget which ones) have options to save an image of the RAMdisk to HDD on shutdown, and automatically load on startup.