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Top Tip! Making Use Of Non-Addressable Wasted RAM On 32 Bit Systems
Submitted by admin on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 07:40.
- 4 GB Ram
- Enable PAE
- Enable PAE Windows XP
- Free Ramdisk
- Full Memory Not Recognized
- Gavotte Ramdisk
- Kernel Ramdisk
- Microsoft Ramdisk
- PAE
- PAE Windows
- Physical Address Extension PAE
- Ramdisk
- Ramdisk Cache
- Ramdisk File
- Ramdisk Pagefile
- Ramdisk Plus
- Ramdisk XP
- Windows XP 4GB PAE
- Windows XP Maximum Ram Support
- Windows XP PAE
- Windows XP PAE Boot
- Windows XP Physical Address Extension
- Windows XP Ramdisk
If you own a 32-Bit computer with more then 3 GB of RAM you must be knowing that your operating-system can only make use of roughly 3 GB RAM and rest remains unused because of memory addressing space limitation on 32 Bit systems, today I will be showing how you can make use of this wasted memory improving your computer speed significantly.
The best way to utilize this wasted memory and speed-up your computer is to use it as an RAMDISK, storing frequently accessed temporary files like system pagefile, temp-files and web-browser cache, since I/O operations to RAM is significantly faster then disk you will greatly benefit from using RAMDISK as a temporary file storage.
Follow the simple guide next to create a RAMDISK and use it to store temporary files.
- Download and install free Gavotte Ramdisk Utility.
- Extract the archive and launch ramdisk.exe.
- Click Install Ramdisk button.
- Once installed, configuration options will get enabled select disk-size and drive-letter as per your requirements, now select media-type as Fixed Media and click Apply button, this process will take few seconds to complete and a success confirmation dialog will get displayed.
- You can now click OK and exit the application, the new RAMDISK will be now visible in My Computer.
- The RamDisk can now be used as a regular disk-drive but keep in mind its temporary and any data on it will get lost on power-off, so better use it for temporary storage like pagefile, browser cache and temp file storage.
- To use RAMDISK as pagefile right-click My Computer and navigate to Properties -> Advanced -> Performance - Settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory - Change, now select the RAMDISK and set the pagefile.
NOTE : If the utility fails to recognize full installed RAM capacity, simply enable the PAE mode in BOOT.INI and merge ram4g.reg registry file found in archive followed by an system reboot.
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Does it work with Windows 7 RC
Nice software. I tried it on win xp. IT'S GOOD. Can you confirm does it work on Windows 7. Check my blog. http://beware-microsoft.blogspot.com/
Great...
Great tips.. yup, could it work in windows 7?
Does Not Work with Vista
too bad
Completely wrong
Myth - "Putting the Paging File on a RAMdisk improves performance."
Reality - "Putting a Paging File in a RAM drive is a ridiculous idea in theory, and almost always a performance hit when tested under real-world workloads. You can't do this unless you have plenty of RAM and if you have plenty of RAM, you aren't hitting your paging file very often in the first place! Conversely, if you don't have plenty of RAM, dedicating some of it to a RAM drive will only increase your page fault rate. Now you might say "yeah, but those additional page faults will go faster than they otherwise would because they're satisfied in RAM." True, but it is still better to not incur them in the first place. And, you will also be increasing the page faults that have to be resolved to exe's and dll's, and the paging file in RAM won't do diddly to speed those up. But thanks to the paging file in RAM, you'll have more of them. Also: the system is ALREADY caching pages in memory. Pages lost from working sets are not written out to disk immediately (or at all if they weren't modified), and even after being written out to disk, are not assigned to another process immediately. They're kept on the modified and standby page lists, respectively. The memory access behavior of most apps being what it is, you tend to access the same sets of pages over time... so if you access a page you lost from your working set recently, odds are its contents are still in memory, on one of those lists. So you don't have to go to disk for it. Committing RAM to a RAMdisk and putting a paging file on it makes fewer pages available for those lists, making that mechanism much less effective. And even for those page faults resolved to the RAMdisk paging file, you are still having to go through the disk drivers. You don't have to for page faults resolved on the standby or modified lists. Putting a paging file on a RAMdisk is a self-evidently absurd idea in theory, and actual measurement proves it to be a terrible idea in practice. Forget about it."
But it is still helpful
Even if the above theory is true, it is still helpful to store temp-files and browser cache for faster access.
The full conversation regarding this issue....
Here is the full conversation about the issue :
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=1b1c4b97548e77eba73c3a77757fe3e0&p=63581#post63581
You decide !!
agree
this utility might be useful for temporary internet files
Temp files & Browser Cache
Oh God,, Thanks after reading your article i better not use it. I have 1.5 gb ram and everything is running fine. Using Win XP SP3. Pentium D, D101 gcc mother board. Previously 512 KB ram i used. Then also it was sufficient.. So i think better not play with it.
So what about the Temp files and Browser cache. Can i use this ram disk for them. What are the problems in using them?
You might be right, but....
I think you are right if you are talking about a computer with less than 3GB of RAM. I think this utility is mainly meant for some of us who bought 4+ GB of RAM not knowing that XP-32 can only make use of 2-3 GB of it (I always thought it was only 2 GB but Megaleecher says it's 3 GB). I currently have a gaming computer that has 4 GB of RAM, with a XP-32 drive and a Vista-64 Ultimate drive. I'm probably gonna get rid of the glitchy, resource hog Vista and just put everything on the XP-32, so this utility will come in handy for me.
Actually not wrong, under the stated circumstances
While the common "pagefile on a ramdisk" fallacy, or it's equally evil twin "ramdisk using virtual memory" are universally bad ideas, for the very reasons just described, this article is specifically about using "Non-Addressable" RAM. That is, RAM that the OS cannot use.
I have no idea how accessing the non-adressable ram for ramdisk use is done (or why, if the ramdisk driver can, the OS doesn't), but if it is possible, it sounds like an excellent idea to use such a ramdisk for a page file.
like eBoostR
its like eBoostR program making usb or hard disk storage device as ram
USE WASTED x86 RAM
Superspeed.com has a paid version that uses the RAM over your 4GB 32 bit limit. I have 6GB of ram in my PC, now 2 GB is lost, so now I find it feasible to turn this wasted 2GB into a 6000 MB/s (not Mb) drive. Unfortunately I have not found freeware that uses the unrecognized ram.
But if I had 64 bit (x64) Windows, I wouldn't bother!
By GigahetzInc.com
Weird
Isn't it supposed to be NON ADDRESSABLE ram?
If the chipset is 32bits, no matter what software you use, it is IMPOSSIBLE to access more than 3+ GB of ram.
If the chipset is 64bits and the OS is 32, maybe it could work.
But if you have a 32bits WinXP it is very unlikely you have a 64bits chipset.
PAE and Driver
The RAMDISK software make use of PAE and system drivers to make use of non-addressable RAM.
OK...that could do the trick
But only if your limitation is your OS being 32bits (and your chipset is 64bits).
If your chipset is 32bits, there's no way you can access that non-addressable RAM. It's just not possible.
Please ignore my previous comment.
I might be wrong, I'm not really sure.
Just ignore it in case it is wrong.
Cheers!
Here's the best link about MSFT pseudo limits:
http://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm
Thanks Geoff.
Your site is really ugly.
I've always loved RAM Disk
Since the days of DOS when I use to do programming, RAM Disk really speed up the compilations. Just make sure I don't forget to save the compiled work to my HDD.
Anyhow, as of the present day, now that I have 4GB and knowing full well that XP SP3 can only address 3 GB, this utility really helps, especially when I work with Photoshop.
Now I can have a 1 GB scratch disk whenever I need to work with PS. It's a great help to a professional graphic designer.
Thanks for the utility!
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