Had anyone give a RAM Disk a try to run rFactor2 ? It's interesting to see the loading times and performance.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4wJlg53hlQ http://www.pcworld.com/article/260918/how_to_supercharge_your_pc_with_a_ram_disk.html
When i see the read/write mb/s - this is very tempting to me store important files or programs on your RAM disk: you can write a image to your HDD/SSD and this save your Programs/important files (after a pc reboot you can load programs/important files in the ram disk) People who have 16 GB RAM can try it..
Perhaps you should check the amount that gets read/written when you're using rF2 before wasting any time and money (unless loading times are that important to you).
The prob I have with doing this is that I could spare 2 GB memory, but no more and to install rF2 to a RAM disk, I'd have to trim down my install to only a few tracks and cars or make virtual links or whatever you call it so that the big folders aren't on the RAM disk and that'd make the RAM disk useless... because the stuff that takes time to load wouldn't be on the RAM disk. I know Noel Hibbard has rF2 on a RAM disk so maybe he should pipe up in this thread and let us know how he does it?
Yes i hope he look in here.. Can we give the CBash folder a new path ? Eventually the track loading is faster when the cbash is on RAM DISC... (Cant test it at this time, my PC is in repair status ) Noel's System spec is 16 GB RAM and he write: RAM drive for my DataPath
I only have parts of my DataPath in a ram drive. Basically I have a DataPath on my RAM drive and a DataPath on my rotating disk and use mklink to mix the two together. I only really have the cars I use in my league and the current track we are using on the RAM drive. Everything else is on my rotating drive. If you already have a lot of memory then I really see no point in not making use of it. With 16GB of memory the majority of it will be sitting idle when running rF2. Why not at least do something with it.
Noel can you show us a comparison of track load times with HDD/SSD/RAM Disk ? In the DATA Path is the CBash folder? I cant look in, currently i have no gaming PC. EDIT: Have you split your RAM? 8 GB Disk | 8 GB RAM ? Do you set up the ram disk new after every startup or you configure this one time and the ram disk is fixed after restart?
I will do some testing later. I have a 4gb RAM disk and I have it setup to dump to disk on shutdown and reload on startup. So it has a little startup and shutdown lag by I never reboot or shut down so it isn't a big deal. Not sure people realize but a sleeping computer uses just as much power as a fully shutdown computer. 7 watts on my machine sleeping and shutdown.
Noel, next week i become my new gaming sys (bye bye 775) and i need some input about the best way to install rF2. I've in my new sys. 32 GB and i'm not sure if i split the ram or if i use 8GB/24GB. You have installed the CORE on your HDD and the DATA on your RAM..ok. It makes sense to install the complete game on the RAM? Or it is enough to install the DATA on RAM to become maximum speed.. (excluded the packages folder ===>packages i push to HDD)
With that much you could install the whole datapath to ram. I would worry about the core. It will not have much effect.
Today i install the demo on ramdisk (on notebook) but i see no difference in load times. 30 sec loading rf2 demo on hdd and 30 sec loading rf2 demo on ramdisc..
What about eBoostr? It uses unused usb sticks as cache devices. It will load files for that program from the usb sticks more frequently than just only from the hdd.