Author Topic: Skuzzy, any thoughts? (Read 1085 times)

Kev367th · « **on:** June 23, 2005, 12:10:21 AM »

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121105,00.asp

PCI card that lets you use ram as a hard drive.

Any use for loading AH2 on?
Would have faster access than hard drive.

Or how about as page file?

Theres two things the article doesn't mention -
1) The final one should have a SATA2 not SATA1 interface.
2) You should be able to link two into a RAID array.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 23, 2005, 01:43:12 AM »

Hehe, thats funny. I like how they "discovered" the idea. I did virtually the same thing with my 8086 PC clone back in 1991, except mine was a ROM drive, not a RAM drive. Used boot information flashed onto EPROMS on an ISA card from Radio Shack. The EPROM programmer was the most expensive part. Whole thing cost me 50 bucks, but it was an "instant-on" computer thereafter, and freed up that precious little bit of space on my 20MB hard drive. The plans also included a theoretical RAM drive, but noted the cost was prohibitive. I bought the plans from a company out in Colorado from an ad in PC Shopper.

Also, didnt "Expanded Memory" later in the 90s use the same idea? Memory modules on add-on cards?

The idea has a proven track record, although it never caught on (mostly due to cost issues). Memory is cheap enough now. I'll see if I can dig up the plans that show how to make the add-on card recognized by DOS as a hard drive.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** June 23, 2005, 06:42:05 AM »

Page files are purged at each boot, so you would not want to use this device for that.

Loading all the skins and resource files for Aces high II into it would help AH a bit, but there would still be time needed for uncompressing them to load them on the video card.
Would be interesting to see how much help it could be for those who do not have 1GB of ram in thier system (currently).

Some would argue it would be better to add systme ram, but Aces High's memory footprint is growing. With the release of each set of skins and/or with the adding of new planes/vehicles it will require more and more ram to run smoothly.

Kev367th · « **Reply #3 on:** June 23, 2005, 09:25:25 AM »

Skuzzy - Why does purging of the page file make it unsuitable?

StarOfAfrica - Yup, and I also remember when you could mount SCSI drives on a card and add as much cache RAM as you could afford onto it.

Two things not mentioned -
1) Release version may be SATA2 not SATA1
2) Two can be linked in RAID array.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #4 on:** June 23, 2005, 04:51:21 PM »

I said that badly (really badly...I shoul dhave finished my coffee first). The page file is going to fill with stuff not being used. The stuff being used by the system will normally not reside in the page file.

Kev367th · « **Reply #5 on:** June 23, 2005, 09:53:36 PM »

Lol no probs, I'm a bit fuzzy prior to my 1st morning coffee.

I always thoguht Windows used the pagefile as 'virtual memory'?
Surely there would be some gains just from lower access times?

Like you said, maybe useful for skin cache etc.

Kev367th · « **Reply #6 on:** July 16, 2005, 12:49:26 PM »

Found some benchies on it, even RAID 0 striped Raptors couldn't come close to it.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** July 16, 2005, 01:49:51 PM »

Any type of non-mechanical mass storage system will always be faster than a hard drive. If not, then it is badly designed.

However, for maximum performance, one would have to really look at how one uses the computer system.

Kev367th · « **Reply #8 on:** July 16, 2005, 02:33:24 PM »

Yeah,
Latest is is has been changed to allow up to 8gb per board, and may come out with SATA2 instead of SATA1.

Good thing is at SATA1 speeds you could use any "old" PC2400 mem sticks you had lieing around to populate it without a performance hit.

For SATA2 you would need minimum of PC3200 mem sticks.

Stone · « **Reply #9 on:** July 16, 2005, 06:25:44 PM »

http://mac-guild.org/raid.html

Kev367th · « **Reply #10 on:** July 16, 2005, 09:51:16 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Stone
http://mac-guild.org/raid.html

Novel if nothing else

Thinking the I-Ram might be good to load AH2 on, fast access, and very high speed transfers.
$60 ish for the board, and I have 2x512 DDR400 lying spare. Although really all you need is RAM in excess of 150mb/s if the board stays at SATA150.
If they release it as SATA2 (300), then your looking at PC3200, fairly cheap now (1Gb = $66).

Currently AH2 installation around 740Mb.

Overlag · « **Reply #11 on:** July 17, 2005, 10:53:25 AM »

i had my Aces high install on my 2x80gig IDE drives and it was nice and fast

however now, since ive moved to my A8N SLI Premium i cant run the raid, and id got so used to how fast the raid was its shocking how slow it is now. Even though the Sata drives are faster in general useage hmm.... I knew i should have gone mad and got 2x200gig sata's

Kev367th · « **Reply #12 on:** July 17, 2005, 08:04:35 PM »

Was thinking that the I-RAM with AH2 on should all but get rid of any stutters due to texture loading.
Especially as each new model and new skin increases the amount of memory required, and with most current mobos limited to a max of 4x1Gb, which shows up as around 3.5Gb.
I would guess we're not far off not being able to cache all skins (@512x512) in vid mem.
Only worth if it you happen to have some 'spare' ram lieing around though.

Unless anyone knows of a permanent RAM disk prog? i.e. one that doesnt dump its contents on shutdown (wouldn't think poss, but you never know).

Alky · « **Reply #13 on:** July 17, 2005, 08:14:16 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
and freed up that precious little bit of space on my 20MB hard drive.

Was that the same 20 meg hard drive the salesman said, "I don't know what you would ever use 20 megs for."

Overlag · « **Reply #14 on:** July 17, 2005, 09:15:17 PM »

they should also make a program as standard that "backups" the data onto the HDD as a ISO or whatever file. Whenever you want to (ie click backup now) or you can set it to back up every day at a certain time or something.