Here's how I got ARMA2 to perform smoothly using RAMDISK

[Leon86 13]

Turning off the pagefile is pointless, if it's not needed it's not used. Also, vista and 7 will create the pagefile instantly once they feel like it. The last thing you want is getting a pagefile that's fragmented all over your harddisk by turning it on and off all the time.

[galzohar 31]

Turning off the pagefile is pointless, if it's not needed it's not used.

My point exactly.

[linderman 10]

i am dumm and didnt get it , how to work step by step with ramdisk and link... something stuff under win7 :((

read all 43 pages :( is there any explanation like:

1. ........

2. ........

3. .........

..

..

[breeze 0]

Hey is this stuff still relavant since the 64 bit patching?

[sailindawg 0]

I'd say yes, using a RAM disk to help stream ARMA 2/OA/BAF/PMC is very helpful. If you have enough system RAM it's an excellent performance tweak.

[sagitarius_2k 10]

how do i need to work properly??

i google, and find 3 sources

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055731929

http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f440-pr-arma2-general-discussion/89280-ram-ramdisk.html

http://www.tacticalgamer.com/arma-sops-technical-support-faq/164625-newest-beta-vs-ramdisk.html

i cut some file from addons folder ( plant, building, signs, road ) then everytime i play chenarus, all of that texture was gone

my parameter is = C:\A2\arma2oa.exe -mod=R:@RAM

[sailindawg 0]

Your mod line should read: -mod=R:\@RAM

It's your syntax.

[b00tsy 28]

I also went from Win Vista to Win 7 then to XP and found that XP gave me the best performance ever! far supriour to that of the other 2 operating systems.

I only have Vista, but there is an option in the file properties to run it with XP settings, would that make a difference?

[Posta 10]

I only have Vista, but there is an option in the file properties to run it with XP settings, would that make a difference?

You need the real deal.

[zorrobyte 30]

Works a ton better without any advanced config, Fancy Cache.

http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/

Also uses the RAM for anything else you might be doing instead of wasting it all on ArmA.

My HDD rarely spins up while playing/loading.

Plus you can put a inexpensive SSD in as a cache drive to make it even faster.

Ideal setup is Windows/Games/Etc on a HDD or HDD RAID array (think 4x 1TB drives), a 40-64GB SSD sitting in front of it teamed up with 8GB+ of RAM for caching, freaky fast at low cost with HUGE storage. It's what I'm doing right now actually.

Edited August 31, 2011 by zorrobyte

[Dwarden 1125]

Works a ton better without any advanced config, Fancy Cache.

http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/

Also uses the RAM for anything else you might be doing instead of wasting it all on ArmA.

My HDD rarely spins up while playing/loading.

Plus you can put a inexpensive SSD in as a cache drive to make it even faster.

Ideal setup is Windows/Games/Etc on a HDD or HDD RAID array (think 4x 1TB drives), a 40-64GB SSD sitting in front of it teamed up with 8GB+ of RAM for caching, freaky fast at low cost with HUGE storage. It's what I'm doing right now actually.

while promising concept (combination of several best features from other great RAM drives plus ability to cache each drive and use multiple layers of caches (SSD, raids, flashes etc.)

it's extremely unstable on complex system (multiple raids, ahci, sata/ata) or many drivers ...

can't recommend ntil they make theirs driver/filter robust enough for low level ops ...

[Tankbuster 1746]

Which is why I've just spent my birthday money on another 8GB of memory. RAMDisk ahoy!

[tarabas 10]

does a ramdisk perform better then a ssd in arma2, any bechmarks out ?

[Tankbuster 1746]

It should do, but I'm having trouble choosing which PBOs to move to the RD.

[zorrobyte 30]

while promising concept (combination of several best features from other great RAM drives plus ability to cache each drive and use multiple layers of caches (SSD, raids, flashes etc.)

it's extremely unstable on complex system (multiple raids, ahci, sata/ata) or many drivers ...

can't recommend ntil they make theirs driver/filter robust enough for low level ops ...

I will say in the few months I've used the product I've had no issues. I helped debug the EFI/GPT partition/bios fix and EFI/GPT works now. As for overly complex production machines with many raids, etc it'd be assumed the user was running a dedicated RAID controller with a decent amount of cache and 10-15K RPM drives where software caching would not be necessary.

For home/power users though with semi sane configs (read: 8+GB RAM) I recommend the software as a professional as normal RAM Drive based caching is a huge waste of resources.

Think about it. Putting whole PBOs in ram with code within it that may never get read when you could otherwise have a much simpler config while the system caches in RAM and/or SSD what files that are accessed most often not only for ArmA but your whole OS.

I just don't understand the need to setup RAM Disks and symlink everything has much use other than waste with software solutions that are available.

An end user hardware solution could be a Z68 chipset which has native SSD caching for HDDs.

You also have another solution SuperCache which is expensive but approved for enterprise use

Link

I'm not affiliated with any of these companies and simply offered FC because it's free in the beta and it works well, most efficient use of system resources vs RAM Drive for the problem at hand.

Edited September 5, 2011 by zorrobyte

[MavericK96 0]

Would this FancyCache show any improvement over just having the game on an SSD?

[liquidpinky 11]

I just don't understand the need to setup RAM Disks and symlink everything has much use other than waste with software solutions that are available.

You can put the PBOs into RAMdisk and also have a RAMdisk for your page file, cutting out your software middleman. ;)

Something I found worked very well when I used RAMdisk for A2.

[zorrobyte 30]

Would this FancyCache show any improvement over just having the game on an SSD?

RAM is 8GB/s transfer with virtually no latency. I had my install on a 64GB SSD and even 2x Intel 320 128GB SSDs in raid; the RAM cache helped, although to a lesser degree of course.

I've decided to move my Windows install on 2x 1TB HDDs on RAID 0, use my 64GB SSD as cache and 8GB of RAM. Couldn't be happier, speeds right along and I don't have to worry about where to install programs or games since I have 2TB of space.

One thing to keep in mind that Arma startup, join server, etc is CPU intensive. Even if you have every single file on a RAM disk it'll still take a few to load since it pegs the CPU while loading. My HDD light doesn't come on during loading but I'm still waiting a moment on a 2500K @ 5GHZ. In game works very well..

I play on very high settings 1920x1200 @ 10K draw distance and get acceptable framerates (31-61) depending on smoke, etc.

This is why I use a SSD and RAM. RAM is for right now caching, SSD caches everything else, and data thats never used sits on the HDD.

Edited September 6, 2011 by zorrobyte

[MavericK96 0]

Sounds good, I'll give this a shot. I tried some RAMdisk + SSD things but I wasn't terribly impressed in the performance.

EDIT: How do you set this up...just install and hit "Start Caching"? Or is there anything else required?

For reference I have:

80 GB SSD

640 GB HDD

1 TB HDD

ArmA 2 and Windows are on the SSD, all the other games are installed on the 1 TB (it's a 7200 RPM WD Black, so it's faster than the 640 GB, which is just used for storage and downloads mostly)

Edited September 6, 2011 by MavericK96

[Leon86 13]

The fancycache might be nice as an alternative to intel SRT they've introduced on Z68. Would be nice to compare fancycache, srt, readyboost and a normal system with the default windows cacheing.

Anybody know if you can tell fancycache to not do any writing? I dont care about write speeds but I do care about having the os survive a bsod. System is stable now but maybe I'll overclock a bit further in the future :)

Edited September 6, 2011 by Leon86

[Groove_C 267]

I really don't get it?!

Why setting a RADISK on your RAM?

I agree that you will get LOD switching and stuttering for the first time you will see an object to be drawn on your screen.

Once cashed in VRAM and fourther in RAM you won't see LOD switching or stuttering for objects already cashed/seen again.

Once cashed in VRAM and fourther in RAM your RAMDISK stuff gets useless!

Because textures are loaded in VRAM (GPU). Once available VRAM filled up, the rest of textures are stored in RAM!

If the GPU don't have enough VRAM, it handles your RAM like virtual VRAM.

IF your RAM is nearly full, it handles yours HDD/SSD like virtual RAM.

So, you don't necessery need 24/32 GB RAM to make RAMDISK to put the whole installation folder on it!

In my case, I just turn off HDD/SSD Windows pagingfile to avoid information storage on HDD/SSD handled like virtual RAM. So everything remains in my RAM.

Once my GTX 580 3 GB VRAM is filled up (2.7 GB) I see my RAM space getting smaller and smaller till I get Windows 7 x64 complaining about Low on memory with my 8 GB RAM after a couple of hours playing on PvE EVOLUTION on 30 slots server with a lot of AI ground/air units!

Just go for 16 GB RAM and what don't feet in your VRAM will be sotred in RAM. And don't forget to switch off Windows pagingfile to avoid usage of your HDD/SSD like virtual RAM!

But be sure to get 16 GB RAM, because with my 8 GB RAM Windows complains about "low on memory" after a few hours of playing.

Or if you don't have enough money, reactive or make pagingfile bigger. But don't wonder if you get LOD swithing and stuttering again!

Edited November 16, 2011 by Groove_C

[special_air_service 10]

I really don't get it?!

Why setting a RADISK on your RAM?

I agree that you will get LOD switching and stuttering for the first time you will see an object to be drawn on your screen.

Once cashed in VRAM and fourther in RAM you won't see LOD switching or stuttering for objects already cashed/seen again.

Once cashed in VRAM and fourther in RAM your RAMDISK stuff gets useless!

Because textures are loaded in VRAM (GPU). Once available VRAM filled up, the rest of textures are stored in RAM!

If the GPU don't have enough VRAM, it handles your RAM like virtual VRAM.

IF your RAM is nearly full, it handles yours HDD/SSD like virtual RAM.

So, you don't necessery need 24/32 GB RAM to make RAMDISK to put the whole installation folder on it!

In my case, I just turn off HDD/SSD Windows pagingfile to avoid information storage on HDD/SSD handled like virtual RAM. So everything remains in my RAM.

Once my GTX 580 3 GB VRAM is filled up (2.7 GB) I see my RAM space getting smaller and smaller till I get Windows 7 x64 complaining about Low on memory with my 8 GB RAM after a couple of hours playing on PvE EVOLUTION on 30 slots server with a lot of AI ground/air units!

Just go for 16 GB RAM and what don't feet in your VRAM will be sotred in RAM. And don't forget to switch off Windows pagingfile to avoid usage of your HDD/SSD like virtual RAM!

But be sure to get 16 GB RAM, because with my 8 GB RAM Windows complains about "low on memory" after a few hours of playing.

Or if you don't have enough money, reactive or make pagingfile bigger. But don't wonder if you get LOD swithing and stuttering again!

but, what's the difference between switching to windows xp and adding compability with xp sp2 ? is that adding compability windows xp sp2 is also same like switching to windows xp ? or is it some kind of different thing ?:confused:

[NeuroFunker 11]

i did try that "put some important pbs in your ram disc, it worked, all i can say, my performance got much worse with it, i had stutter and textures block preloading stuff. i used 4gb ramdisc filled with biggest arma 2 pbo's, loading of chernarus was quite faster for sure, but performance was awful.

[old_painless 182]

Hm, perhaps your bottleneck moved to the CPU .... Are you running a decent rig?

[NeuroFunker 11]

did you ready my signature? ;)