RAMDisk size with 8GB of RAM

[steven breen 0]

Hey!

I'm running the game from a HDD and I'm looking at setting up a RAMDisk to try and avoid some of the stuttering. My question: What would be the biggest sized RAMDisk I could safely make with a total of 8GB of RAM?

Thanks, Steven.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Hi steve, i have 12gb ram, and measuring system ram usage, when playing arma 3. It gets up to 8GB, so your performance may degrade, because you will have less ram for the system. I did try ramdisc for arma 2 once, this didn't help me anyway, rather i had much worse performance The best solution, would be to buy an SSD, and install windows + arma on it This really helps a lot.

[spanishsurfer 58]

The best solution, would be to buy an SSD, and install windows + arma on it This really helps a lot.

+1 on the SSD, however not all SSDs are equal so make sure you read the read/write speeds and then ensure it's compatible with your MOBO.

[steven breen 0]

Thanks for the replies!

I shall look into a SSD and thanks for the tips about read/write speeds and compatibility.

[NeuroFunker 11]

no problem, As for start, i have samsung ssd 830, 128gb. There is already 840 out, has some improvements over 830. 128gb are enough for sytem and arma 3. I do even have arma 2 with tons of mods installed along arma 3.

[steven breen 0]

Thanks, Neuro.

Funnily enough it was the Samsung 840 I've just been looking at! :)

[starky396 1]

I wish they made 1TB SSds. Right now Arma 2 takes up 101 GB (109,461,381,663 bytes to be exact), and that isn't the highest game size I have on disk.

[ric 1]

I wish they made 1TB SSds. Right now Arma 2 takes up 101 GB (109,461,381,663 bytes to be exact), and that isn't the highest game size I have on disk.

break that piggy bank sunshine :) $635

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379459108&sr=8-2&keywords=ssd+1tb

---------- Post added at 23:08 ---------- Previous post was at 23:07 ----------

Hi steve, i have 12gb ram, and measuring system ram usage, when playing arma 3. It gets up to 8GB, so your performance may degrade, because you will have less ram for the system. I did try ramdisc for arma 2 once, this didn't help me anyway, rather i had much worse performance The best solution, would be to buy an SSD, and install windows + arma on it This really helps a lot.

what else are you doing while playing A3? i have 8GB ram and it nevers uses more than 1.7GB of ram.

[RuecanOnRails 10]

I wish they made 1TB SSds. Right now Arma 2 takes up 101 GB (109,461,381,663 bytes to be exact), and that isn't the highest game size I have on disk.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU

Consumer grade SSD's now at sizes of 1TB for under $700. give it some time and the price will lower.

For the best performance you can use both an SSD and a Ramdisk. Using symbolic links you can move files anywhere and have them appear in a different location. Such as moving high I/O Arma files to a ramdisk and linking them back to the install directory. Allowing you to utilize the speed of your SSD for the game, but some .pbo's which are heavy in reads can be placed on a ramdisk for extra performance. There's no need to have a massive ramdisk, as you can pick and choose individual files which need the speed most. A Ramdisk of only 1 or 2 GB can provide decent room for a few PBO's.

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

[starky396 1]

Holy hell on ice skates... $600 for a hard drive?

[ric 1]

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU

Consumer grade SSD's now at sizes of 1TB for under $700. give it some time and the price will lower.

For the best performance you can use both an SSD and a Ramdisk. Using symbolic links you can move files anywhere and have them appear in a different location. Such as moving high I/O Arma files to a ramdisk and linking them back to the install directory. Allowing you to utilize the speed of your SSD for the game, but some .pbo's which are heavy in reads can be placed on a ramdisk for extra performance. There's no need to have a massive ramdisk, as you can pick and choose individual files which need the speed most. A Ramdisk of only 1 or 2 GB can provide decent room for a few PBO's.

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

I just went through that with symbolic links for my server and it wont let you create them except on the same drive i.e i was trying to make one from C: to D: and it does not work .

[ramius86 13]

101gb ArmA 2? With all the mods released in all those years and many trash I think...

See someone talking about worse performance with ramdisk... What?!?

I got one of the faster ssd (pcie not the slow sata ) with a seq read of 1500MB/s ... And I use ramdisk either!! Have you ever tried to run some bench and see how big are the differences?? I think no ;-)

[ramius86 13]

I just went through that with symbolic links for my server and it wont let you create them except on the same drive i.e i was trying to make one from C: to D: and it does not work .

You do something wrong, for me works

[RuecanOnRails 10]

That's strange, is it giving any errors?

I've currently got my install spread across a few locations. It's installed on a storage array, but actually sitting on an SSD with my main OS along with several files which I cycle onto ramdisk.

Once you've got the link shell installed, make a backup your original install (incase something goes wrong it's easier to just use the backup) cut and paste some files to your SSD, ramdisk or wherever you wanted to move them. Now highlight the newly moved files, right click and select "pick link source" Go back to your install directly, right click and select "drop as" and try symbolic link. If that doesn't work, try dropping it in as a junction.

A junction should work better in a server set up. While they perform generally the same, junctions are processed at the server, while a symbolic links are processed on the client. Remote access into a computer will see junctions, but not symbolic links.

[ric 1]

You do something wrong, for me works

Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable is what i am using and it will let create links on same drive but not other drives, perhaps i missed some thing.

---------- Post added at 23:32 ---------- Previous post was at 23:31 ----------

That's strange, is it giving any errors?

I've currently got my install spread across a few locations. It's installed on a storage array, but actually sitting on an SSD with my main OS along with several files which I cycle onto ramdisk.

Once you've got the link shell installed, make a backup your original install (incase something goes wrong it's easier to just use the backup) cut and paste some files to your SSD, ramdisk or wherever you wanted to move them. Now highlight the newly moved files, right click and select "pick link source" Go back to your install directly, right click and select "drop as" and try symbolic link. If that doesn't work, try dropping it in as a junction.

A junction should work better in a server set up. While they perform generally the same, junctions are processed at the server, while a symbolic links are processed on the client. Remote access into a computer will see junctions, but not symbolic links.

thnk you will try.

[RuecanOnRails 10]

Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable is what i am using and it will let create links on same drive but not other drives, perhaps i missed some thing.

---------- Post added at 23:32 ---------- Previous post was at 23:31 ----------

thnk you will try.

If you're still having issues, you can try running command prompt as an admin and set up a junction that way. Cut and paste the files to their new location, then open command prompt as administrator and type mklink /J "path" "path" typing mklink /? will bring up the help and list of options.

http://windows7themes.net/windows-7-mklink-command-use-to-create-symbolic-links.html

[steven breen 0]

Such as moving high I/O Arma files to a ramdisk and linking them back to the install directory. Allowing you to utilize the speed of your SSD for the game, but some .pbo's which are heavy in reads can be placed on a ramdisk for extra performance. ]

Which .pbo's would you say are read the most? I may set up a small ramdisk purely to test as, well, its free! I see no point having the RAM unused (for the most part...).

[RuecanOnRails 10]

Which .pbo's would you say are read the most? I may set up a small ramdisk purely to test as, well, its free! I see no point having the RAM unused (for the most part...).

They can vary heavily from mission to mission. You got your standard ones like buildings, plants, rocks, etc any LOD object which you frequently see changing in game.

If you want to be precise, try running process monitor and filter out only arma3.exe and .pbo reads

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

it will record 10 minutes of content so run around in a mission you play often for ten minutes then stop and export the data to a spreadsheet app.

There's an thread about I/O for Arma 2 which you can read about setting it up and try to adapt it for Arma 3.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?88629-ArmA-2-I-O-analysis-results

[steven breen 0]

That thread about I/O looks very interesting. Thanks for sharing :) Time to do some reading....

[ramius86 13]

Probably 3x better a pciexpress ssd because it 3x faster. Or create a raid0 with some 256gb ssd...

[fred41 42]

... you could try the following:

Restart your system, start arma as usual, play some hours :)

Use procmon from sysinternals, while playing to find the most accessed files (.pbo in Addons folder).

Than use process explorer (sysinternals too) and look for system wide use of physical RAM (should be in the range 4-5GB).

Build the difference to installed RAM (8GB for you) and this value is the MAX size you should use for your RAM disk.

I can really recomment ImDisk (free, very fast and stable) http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/

Copy the most needed files in that RAM disc and make related links to this files.

Dont forget to set your page file size in an appropriate range.

Fred41

BTW: Lets hope BIS change the file cache behavoir soon. Using more of the available physical RAM for system file caching, should make a RAM disc unnecessary.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Fred41

[J0K3R 5 93]

Anyone tried out these,

http://www.radeonmemory.com/software_4.0.php

[ramius86 13]

Anyone tried out these,

http://www.radeonmemory.com/software_4.0.php

this is DataRam RamDisk with the AMD logos :o

[Valken 622]

Buy 8GB more ram and use the ramdisk. I'm a 8 GB ramdisk and can load most of A3, and most of A2.

There is nothing faster than the memory controller on the cpu. :D

[froggyluv 2136]

Buy 8GB more ram and use the ramdisk. I'm a 8 GB ramdisk and can load most of A3, and most of A2.

There is nothing faster than the memory controller on the cpu. :D

I used to swear by RamDisk but aren't the constant daily Dev updates a bit taxing to update to Ramdisk? Curious how you have that set up..