So You have just upgraded your RAM on 32 bit OS from 3Gb to 8GB and what’s this, system properties still shows only 3.xx GB of memory in use…
This happens because windows can address at most 2 ^ 32 address location in RAM which is just above 3GB, so it discards anything above 3GB. There is no way 32bit Windows can use more than 3GB however, there is an application which can make use of extra ram as Paging File. Using extra ram as Paging file will greatly improve your systems performance because of access time difference between RAM and HDD…
To create RamDisk from your excess RAM you need an application call “RAMDISK” (http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php). It will cost you minimum $34.95 for Basic Version for more details on Pricing look at above mentioned page.
Ramdisk is used to create a Virtual disk from the excess RAM which is not used by 32bit WIndows Operating System. The Virtual RAMDisk appears in my computer like a physical hard disk attached to system for OS and other programs. You can configure it’s size, drive letter and file system etc, but maximum size you can define is as per available RAM. You can perform all operation as you do in a physical HARD Disk (like copy, cut, move, delete), but files stored on this drive will be erased as soon as you shut down your system because it is created from RAM and will not be permanently stored. RAMDisk can also be shared and used from Network system.
The difference which makes RAMDisk usable above hard disk is access speed. The time required for a hard disk to read data depends on RPM and other Hardware factor where RAMDisk is almost 50 times faster than that. Reason behind this is very simple that it don’t have any mechanical parts.
How To use RAMDisk for Performance Boost
To Boost system performance using RAMDisk, you need to create a DISK out of your excess ram and then change your Paging file to be stored in this disk, this will reduce the time taken for paging file to read HDD and you will feel a severe performance boost.
The process to do this is explained below -
Install RAMDisk and configure your excess ram as drive. If you have a 8GB RAM create a RAMDisk of 5GB and assign a drive letter(H:) to it. Make sure that you allocate only Unmanaged RAM otherwise it will try to use RAM which Windows is using and can lead to system freeze and unpredicted results.
- Go To System Properties (right-click My Computer on Desktop) –> Advanced –> Performance [Settings] –> Advanced tab –> Virtual Memory [Change] –>Click your Hard Drives and check “No Paging File” then “set” .
- Click H: (Ram Disk) and choose System Managed Size and if you wish you can use Custom Size and set inistial size and Maximum size equal to your size of your RAMDisk.
- Start — Run — Regedit [open] goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> SYSTEM –> CurrentControlSet –> Control –> Session Manager –> Memory Management –> [doubleclick] ClearPageFileAtShutdown and change option to “1″ and click OK. This will make sure that paging File is purged when you shut down your windows. and when you restart System will not try to Look for pagefile and cache it while booting
- Restart the Computer and now enjoy your computer using full advantages of your RAM > 3GB.
You can Also use your RAMDisk for temp files or any other operation or for any other application. It’s up to you. wherever you requires high access speed use it and then later transfer those files to Hard Disk.
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Can you go into more detail with the following Section:
Install RAMDisk and configure your excess ram as drive. If you have a 8GB RAM create a RAMDisk of 5GB and assign a drive letter(H:\) to it. Make sure that you allocate only Unmanaged RAM otherwise it will try to use RAM which Windows is using and can lead to system freeze and unpredicted results.
I have installed Ramdisk Plus 9.0.4.0
I have windows XP
I have 8gb of RAM installed.
I try to go into Ramdisk>memory>unmanaged, but I am really not sure what to add or what to set.
Thanks for you help.
Regards
I hope Windows XP means Windows XP 32 bit.
If you using 64 bit version of XP then you need not to install and create RamDisk.
For more help look into following faq –
http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/faq.php#A002
Also If you are on Windows XP 32 bit and you have 8 Gb memory installed you can safely allocate atleast 4Gb without even thinking…
The benefit of a RAMdisk are very apparent. You get a small HDD section which has the speed and access times of ram. if we use 3 channel DDR3-1600, it is 38.4GIGAbytes per second. where as HDDs are around 100-120 MEGAbytes per second. SSDs around hitting 200MB/s. So it makes a big difference…
Thanks alot for this nice writeup
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Excelent tip. My T2300 1.6GHz notebook behaves like a workhorse! I feel I am now working on a brand new laptop – all applications open so fast,its unbelievable. And, I using 985MB as ramdisk.
Thanks a ton!
Glad to hear it, su.
Did you allocated the 985Mb from the Unmanaged memory?
If so, I’m impressed with the amount of RAM on your laptop!!
Nice, there’s also some info on how to set application temp files here:
http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?showtopic=38005
java temp files, firefox temp files, internet explorer etc. putting all the temp files on ram speeds up the software dramatically and reduces the hard disk fragmenting. solid-state drives have real fragmentation problems. and ram is cheap
4x 2gb (8gb) of ram could cost you under £100.
I play all the latest games on my pc, and this technique I’ve found is the best for speeding up everything from photoshop to crysis. some software try and force the swapfile onto the system hard drive partition though, like ms office. and maybe others.
you can make a 2mb swapfile on C:\ and make it read-only to try and curb some of those software from forcing the swapfile on c:\. best way i’ve seen is to use hiren’s boot cd so you can boot a mini-operating system and right-click on the c:\ drive and set the 2mb swapfile to read-only. hehe
Yeah, everytime the subject of RAMdisk comes up now I hear the same baloney: “you don’t need it with OS’es newer than XP-32 bit”, but in fact those OS’s only take advantage of RAM caching on an OS level or where the program is written to specifically do that. Now most very established programs like Photoshop, or Office do that, but if you still have older programs or programs not written to do that then you need a RAMdisk to cache to ram, regardless of your OS.
Is this RAMDISK compatible with Server 2003 32bit OS? I am running a terminal server and when all my users are logged on, I am maxing out memory. Really should replace with 64bit server and os but cannot afford to right now.
why do you write that 2^32 is “just above” 3 gb? 2^32 = 4gb. it’s not “just above” 3gb.