WOW huge performance boost!!!

[Leader 0]

A disk caching program can not improve your frame rate, it may speed up loading times but thats all it can do, if you want higher frame rates upgrade your GFX card, CPU and Memory.

[JackHorner 0]

A disk caching program can not improve your frame rate, it may speed up loading times but thats all it can do, if you want higher frame rates upgrade your GFX card, CPU and Memory.

That is true, but with arma's frame rate being so dependant on fast loading, the frame rates are better on average with this program. The loading stutters are my main gripe and this program really has helped to deminish them.

[kronzky 5]

I've always been *extremely* suspicious of the "magical" performance booster, but since I didn't read anything negative about it on the web, I figured I'll give it a try.

And while I didn't see any obvious improvements in the FPS (they were actually quite decent before), my map display is pretty much instantaneous by now. Bringing up the map happens immediately, switching back takes perhaps a second or two...

Definitely worth it!

But whether you will see any improvement yourself will depend on your specific hardware configuration (i.e. how much RAM, dual-processor, background processes, etc.)

[Jack-UK 0]

Yep, if you dont optimise your pc much, this program should show quite a big improvement! But for those who keep their pc up to date and optimised you might not see much improvement. =)

[kronzky 5]

If by "not optimizing much" you mean using a new bare-bones partition for ArmA, not having any unnecessary software, drivers or services running, having defragmented it with UltimateDefrag, and using all the latest drivers - then yes, I didn't do much optimization beyond those things...

As I said, you mileage may vary. But just because you don't see any improvements on your system doesn't mean it is not possible.

Windows certainly doesn't use spare RAM efficiently, no matter how "optimized" your installation is. So if you have 2 or more GB sitting around, then some specialized software like this can definitely take advantage of it.

[sickboy 13]

Nice find!

Windows Vista will take over most of the tasks this program does, as it already takes all the memory available to your system, and uses all for caching As soon as programs need the memory it will be freed accordingly.

Probably not as game-optimized as this little program, but it might just do the ~same or enough.

[Jack-UK 0]

Remember though, Vista wants 1GB mem for itself, like XP wants its 512mb, so make sure you get 2GB RAM if you want full performance from your PC's memory in vista =)

[sickboy 13]

Remember though, Vista wants 1GB mem for itself, like XP wants its 512mb, so make sure you get 2GB RAM if you want full performance from your PC's memory in vista =)

Not entirely true, Vista runs fine on 1GB, with only ~350mb in use, while 650mb is used as cache, but frees up when other apps need it.

That's not much room, but enough if you can't upgrade memory for now.. as arma only uses a max of ~400mb without the maxmem feature

1.5GB would be more than enough to run properly.... But, as said before... unused memory is used as system cache, as such ... more memory would increase performance in (texture) load times, as the system cache is larger

512MB would be too less to play any games properly on though Aswell as that general system performance will be quite slower due to very small cache.

Altough slightly off-topic, still on-topic on the Caching subject

[Dwarden 1125]

i tested this magical app too , it sometimes help with map unloading times sometimes not ...

(i bet this is something BIS developers can do themself w/o need to bother with strange 3rd party tools) ...

then i tried examine what it really does ,

seems it access every file by NTFS last access value (in settings defined drive/directory and timeframe) ...

so if you create profile with 1 million files , it simple accesss 1 milion files in certain intervals

(thus force windows to save them in memory (filecache) but no damn idea if it also mess with filecache size itself and other parameters) ...

and both systembooster and ultimatedefrag overall?

as fast example they unable to differ substed drive from physical or determine what's NTFS junction ...

all informations about what it does and how are extremely vague (techy like language but in fact it says nothing useful)

in memory drive with ArmA items on it will be way faster

p.s. i was using -maxmem=1024 MB switch but always when ARMA hit usage around 1000MB it crashed, now i run it with 999 value and it's fine

(to fill up ArmA memory usage i suggest You play bit with editor then You will see it can use more than just 400MB)

[kronzky 5]

so if you create profile with 1 million files , it simple accesss 1 milion files in certain intervals

(thus force windows to save them in memory (filecache) but no damn idea if it also mess with filecache size itself and other parameters) ...

Well, by creating a profile with a million files you're sort of defeating the whole purpose of this program: to put those files that you need the most into RAM. If there are more files in your profile than will *fit* into RAM I guess it will prioritize via the last access date (or whatever you specified as a criteria in your profile).

And yes, BIS could've kept the map in memory themselves (if there is enough RAM), but they didn't. So until some patch will address this issue, this utility made my gaming and editing a lot more enjoyable with map switching now as fast as in OFP times.

Seeing what kind of effect this thing has, I'm seriously thinking about getting 2 more GB of RAM, so I can keep pretty much everything important for ArmA loaded all the time...

[Grodin 0]

Makes my arma sort of crash after long periods of playing. game seems to shut down, but still appears in task manager

[Dwarden 1125]

so if you create profile with 1 million files , it simple accesss 1 milion files in certain intervals

(thus force windows to save them in memory (filecache) but no damn idea if it also mess with filecache size itself and other parameters) ...

Well, by creating a profile with a million files you're sort of defeating the whole purpose of this program: to put those files that you need the most into RAM. If there are more files in your profile than will *fit* into RAM I guess it will prioritize via the last access date (or whatever you specified as a criteria in your profile).

And yes, BIS could've kept the map in memory themselves (if there is enough RAM), but they didn't. So until some patch will address this issue, this utility made my gaming and editing a lot more enjoyable with map switching now as fast as in OFP times.

Seeing what kind of effect this thing has, I'm seriously thinking about getting 2 more GB of RAM, so I can keep pretty much everything important for ArmA loaded all the time...

where u get it place these files in memory

there is no memory usage change with this program at all ...

it just access in certain interval (defined by settings) files to keep them loaded in Windows file cache (in memory)...

but definitely this not apply to whole files (as u will need 2.5GB just for these)