RAM Disk

[rjhowie]

A great many years ago before the arrival of the pc, I had a great time on an AtariST. I have a hazy memory of once using a ram disk for some reason. From what I know you can put files on it and load fast but you apparently lose them when off power. However, I have come across a reference that it is possible to get round this so that they will load up again when you switch on. Anyway to get to the point -would I be right in saying that running Trainz on such would be totally practical?

 

[pdkoester]

the amount of ram needed is not practical

 

[johnwhelan]

A great many years ago before the arrival of the pc, I had a great time on an AtariST. I have a hazy memory of once using a ram disk for some reason. From what I know you can put files on it and load fast but you apparently lose them when off power. However, I have come across a reference that it is possible to get round this so that they will load up again when you switch on. Anyway to get to the point -would I be right in saying that running Trainz on such would be totally practical?

The advantage is that RAM is faster than disk and it used to be a lot faster however these days disk have got faster so the advantage isn't so much. It's main advantage was for disk intensive programs. However Trainz these days can use close to 4 gigs of memory, so it just loads every thing into memory, the operating system will use any spare memory in much the same way as the ram disk programs used to but more flexibly so its fallen out of fashion. You'd still need to read everything from disk into memory anyway then transfer it from one bit of memory to another so it would probably end up being slower. Its a bit of the past from when operating systems didn't use memory to cache the hard drives.

Cheerio John

 

[LNERlover5]

Even if the quantity of RAM was currently viable. The data stored in the RAM needs to be loaded and saved to a hard disk or SSD regardless when the machine is started and shut down. Which for even a small amount can affect boot and shut down times noticeably. I was using a small 2GB RAM drive saving to a Crucial M4 SSD and the speeds were still quite slow.

 

[boleyd]

Save your pennies for a Solid State Disk.:Y:

 

[dstelley]

I remember the RAM drives, but now SSD drive or even a pair of striped 10K RPM spindle drives are faster that the RAM was back in the day. I just moved my trainz installation from SSD to Striped drives and my only limitation was bus speed. Those not too techie might not understand but the drive speeds available these days are sooo much faster. I do have one question though maybe someone can help with concerning RAM and Trainz. I bought a new PC that is way too overpowered. twin Xeon processors, 32gig RAM. Its loaded. I run trainz on it and it is impressive, but I thought it would use more RAM since it was available. 2012 SP! with all the hotfixes. It uses around 700-750 Meg on trains.exe. With 32 Gig available, I expected more. Is there an option somewhere to throttle it up? or let it use more?

 

[johnwhelan]

I remember the RAM drives, but now SSD drive or even a pair of striped 10K RPM spindle drives are faster that the RAM was back in the day. I just moved my trainz installation from SSD to Striped drives and my only limitation was bus speed. Those not too techie might not understand but the drive speeds available these days are sooo much faster. I do have one question though maybe someone can help with concerning RAM and Trainz. I bought a new PC that is way too overpowered. twin Xeon processors, 32gig RAM. Its loaded. I run trainz on it and it is impressive, but I thought it would use more RAM since it was available. 2012 SP! with all the hotfixes. It uses around 700-750 Meg on trains.exe. With 32 Gig available, I expected more. Is there an option somewhere to throttle it up? or let it use more?

>but now SSD drive or even a pair of striped 10K RPM spindle drives are faster that the RAM was back in the day

Disks are measured in milliseconds, RAM in nano seconds, look it up in the dictionary but I think one is ten thousand times bigger than the other and I don't think disks have improved that much.

TS12 even with SP1 is a 32 bit program so even under a 64 bit operating system it can only address 4 gigs of memory max. and it does depend on the layout you are running.

Cheerio John

 

[rjhowie]

Thanks for the answers as it was just an advert and passing curiosity from the old days. Hard to imagine when I had the AtariST, You could do much everyday stuff with the tiniest of resources including documents and everything!

Can I say boleyd, you are right on there re SSD's as that is part of my new pc specs replacing one of 2 machines and especially just for Trainz!