Installing a game into a RAMdisk almost eliminates load times.

demoship · May 19, 2013

I tried installing XCOM Enemy Unknown into a ramdisk (I allocated 20GB of my system memory into a ramdisk, leaving 12GB free for actual usage), and it loads ridiculously fast.

The initial game (not counting those stupid logo videos) takes appx 3 seconds to load. Each level (the mission objective screen) takes around 1 - 2 seconds to load, and other load screens take about 1 second (the ones with the rotating shield, the shield gets to rotate about 180 degrees and it's done loading. There's not enough time to read the tip message on the screen at that time). Hell, it took me a while to realize the mission objection screen was actually a load screen because it loaded so fast that I missed the "Loading..." message.

Downsides: You probably can only have 1 - 2 games installed at a time. You also have to shell out the extra money for 32GB of RAM. If you don't have that much you probably don't have enough space to install stuff and have enough RAM for system usage. Also, if you reboot or something, the contents of your RAMdisk go poof (I only reboot 3-4 times / year, so that's not that big of a deal to me).

Oubadah · May 19, 2013

demoship · May 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oubadah

I've seen a few vids on youtube of games like Skyrim comparing RAMdisk to SSD, and the gains were nowhere near what I'd hoped.

I'm more interested in whether a ramdisk will completely eliminate on-the-fly loading pauses in games that stream a lot (open world games, like Skryim). Tried much of that?

EDIT:

That, for example, doesn't inspire me to drop money on extra RAM for a RAMdisk, and then wait for the ramdisk to upload every time I boot the machine.

First off, if you reboot more then when you absolutely have to (eg, if you turn off your PC at night), installing programs to a ramdisk is not for you. I would say if you do it more then monthly it's more of a hassle then it's worth.

If load times are bad with a ramdisk, then something else is the limiting factor, because the ramdisk is going to provide at least 6 GB/s (that's gigabytes, not bits) of bandwidth, which means you can make a copy of the entire game in a second or two. If there's any kind of compression on the files then it's going to take time to uncompress them regardless of how fast your drive is. Or people just have improperly configured stuff. And no, a ramdisk will not COMPLETELY eliminate loading pauses, as it doesn't magically optimize the game to not load to memory and utilize the files straight up, since the game isn't aware of the fact the files are already loaded into RAM.

I'll install crysis warhead and give it a test.

Personally , load times are one thing i hate about modern games. If it takes 30 seconds to load levels then that's just ridiculous.

Masta Squidge · May 19, 2013

Any decent ramdisk manager will let you save an iso, to be loaded back up at reboot.

I get just under 7700 MB/s sequential read, and 10,560 MB/s seq. write with mine, and copying an iso to my ramdisk only take a minute or two, seeing as the transfer happens at around 150 MB/s... if you happen to have an SSD, you probably wouldn't waste your effort with a ramdisk, but it would transfer even faster... and some software can be set up to load your ramdisk at boot up.

But the poster above me is incorrect, even if your ramdisk is burning up 6GB/s read/write, you cannot possibly hope to "copy" from or two the ramdisk at that speed, as you are limited by your hard disk.

Personally I don't mind coping an iso over, as I find it well worth the minute or two initial wait... I usually use that time to go grab a big glass of ice water or something. The load times in game more than make up for it.

demoship · May 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Masta Squidge

Any decent ramdisk manager will let you save an iso, to be loaded back up at reboot.

I get just under 7700 MB/s sequential read, and 10,560 MB/s seq. write with mine, and copying an iso to my ramdisk only take a minute or two, seeing as the transfer happens at around 150 MB/s... if you happen to have an SSD, you probably wouldn't waste your effort with a ramdisk, but it would transfer even faster... and some software can be set up to load your ramdisk at boot up.

But the poster above me is incorrect, even if your ramdisk is burning up 6GB/s read/write, you cannot possibly hope to "copy" from or two the ramdisk at that speed, as you are limited by your hard disk.

Personally I don't mind coping an iso over, as I find it well worth the minute or two initial wait... I usually use that time to go grab a big glass of ice water or something. The load times in game more than make up for it.

When I say it takes a second or two, I mean copying from ramdisk to ramdisk. (which is essentially what's going on when the game's loading files. It's copying it from the ramdisk to ram)

ACHILEE5 · May 19, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by demoship

First off, if you reboot more then when you absolutely have to (eg, if you turn off your PC at night), installing programs to a ramdisk is not for you. I would say if you do it more then monthly it's more of a hassle then it's worth.

I wouldn't have installed to the RAM disk, instead I'd use Steam Mover to temporary move the game

Steam Mover is in my Sig!

demoship · May 19, 2013

Ok, results are in.

The time from the load screen coming up to "Press any key to continue" in crysis: warhead is 15 seconds for me. Which is more then twice as fast as that youtube video taking 35 seconds.

My hardware:

i5-3570K @ 4.5ghz
660 Ti
32 GB DDR3 1600
Windows pagefile disabled

I doubt the guy who made that video has much older hardware, he probably has his ramdisk set up in some incompetent way, like if he still has a pagefile.. the system could be putting part of the ramdisk in the pagefile which completely nullfies any performance gain.

Oubadah · May 20, 2013

demoship · May 20, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oubadah

15 seconds better, but I still don't think I'd bother vs SSD (for loading times at least).

Do you have and COD games? COD4/5 showed the biggest gain when switching to SSD, I wonder if a RAMdisk could work even better.

It's a pity RAM pricing is going up, otherwise I'd be inclined to test the effects of a ramdisk on streaming pauses myself.

Well, 15 seconds vs 45 seconds (for a SSD) is a massive difference.

It's not so much initial loads that's an issue, it's if you get to a part where you need to reload a few times it becomes a big deal. Short load = no big deal. Long load = give up.

45 seconds is an awfully long time to be looking at a load bar.

Jester435 · May 20, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by ACHILEE5

I wouldn't have installed to the RAM disk, instead I'd use Steam Mover to temporary move the game

Steam Mover is in my Sig!

I am going to check out Steam Mover when I get home..

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

RAM disk is very expensive for what you are getting in terms of performance.

ASUSfreak · May 20, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by demoship

45 seconds is an awfully long time to be looking at a load bar.

Not when your childhood was Commodore/Amiga

Switching disks was a PITA, but I got TWO FDD's

demoship · May 20, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jester435

I am going to check out Steam Mover when I get home..

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

RAM disk is very expensive for what you are getting in terms of performance.

Well, the way I look at it is, I probably paid $120 for the ramdisk. I spent $240 total on memory, but I would've needed half of that anyway since your system needs like 16GB of RAM. I run quite a few apps (bitcoin app takes over a gig of RAM, utorrent sometimes goes up pretty high as well, and I leave a ton of browser tabs open), and using a page file nowadays is absolutely ridiculous.

It's also substantially faster then an SSD (though much smaller), and you don't have to worry about write endurance since you can write to RAM pretty much an infinite amount of times without it wearing out.

Masta Squidge · May 20, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jester435

I am going to check out Steam Mover when I get home..

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

RAM disk is very expensive for what you are getting in terms of performance.

I guess 7-10GB/s sequential is bad performance. It is expensive in terms of capacity, but the performance is just plain stupid.

Difference is, unlike the SSD, I can just unmount the ramdisk and use my ram when I need it, which would be putting it to its "correct" use, justifying the cost.

superj1977 · May 20, 2013

Been playing Planet Side 2 since Christmas like this.

But, i tried some games and it seems to make little notice but i notice a difference with Planet Side 2 and its my daily go-to game so i want it the best i can get it

I dont have the ramdisk saved upon shutdown as that would cause a big delay in reboot times, i have a copy of the ramdisk image saved to one of my internal drives and when theres a game update i also then update my ramdisk image, kinda a pain in the butt with PS2 at the mo as theres lots of updates.

demoship · May 20, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Masta Squidge

I guess 7-10GB/s sequential is bad performance. It is expensive in terms of capacity, but the performance is just plain stupid.

Difference is, unlike the SSD, I can just unmount the ramdisk and use my ram when I need it, which would be putting it to its "correct" use, justifying the cost.

What I think he means is for the the typical user they won't get much out of it.

There's enterprise applications where companies spend millions on TBs of ramdisk storage for performance reasons. (And the volatile nature of RAM in those cases is irrelevant. That's only an issue with those systems if you're being cheap or stupid, since they typically have battery backup inside the system, battery backup for their entire datacenter, and generators for their datacenter)

Oubadah · May 21, 2013

demoship · May 21, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oubadah

My experience with Crysis/warhead on SSDs was not 45 second load times, much less. (that youtube vid was HDD vs RDSK BTW, and I personally haven't even seen loads that long even on HDD).

Oh, ok.. Maybe the guy has a crappy system then, or is on a dell or something.

I wonder where the bottleneck is, since it's obviously not on the storage media anymore.

Brokenstorm · May 21, 2013

In my experience, the benefits of a RAMDisk can vary greatly from game to game.
For example I can load a level in Metro Last Light in less than 1 second, but in games like Skyrim the difference is much less. (but still worth it for me)

The only problem I have now is that games load so fast now that I don't have time to read the hints on the loading screen.

I also tested a bunch of RAMDisks here

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oubadah

I've seen a few vids on youtube of games like Skyrim comparing RAMdisk to SSD, and the gains were nowhere near what I'd hoped.

EDIT:

The fact that he uses a camera instead of a screen capture program tells you all you need to know, I wouldn't put much trust in his results.

Oubadah · May 21, 2013

Brokenstorm · May 21, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oubadah

What about streaming hitches? I don't give a rat's arse about initial load times to be honest - they haven't bothered me for years. It's the in-game loading that's the important thing, and where I was really hoping ramdisks would shine. BTW, 1 second loads in Last Light is no spectacular feat if the game is anything like 2033 - loads are only 2 seconds off a wd6400aaks.

Do you have any video where I could see such hitches? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by demoship

Oh, ok.. Maybe the guy has a crappy system then, or is on a dell or something.

He obviously made the RAMDisk too big and didn't leave enough RAM for the system and the game.
So now the game hits the pagefile every time it loads something, which completely defeats the purpose of the RAMDisk.

Installing a game into a RAMdisk almost eliminates load times.

demoship

Oubadah

demoship

Masta Squidge

demoship

ACHILEE5

demoship

Oubadah

demoship

Jester435

ASUSfreak

demoship

Masta Squidge

superj1977

demoship

Oubadah

demoship

Brokenstorm

Oubadah

Brokenstorm

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