I used RDISK but it is much easier to just install a large disk cache with UIDE. The difference is that, with a RAM drive you'll have to load the files to RAM manually, and with disk cache this is done in the background automatically.

I usually use this:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/fre … es/dos/ramdisk/

I recommend to load the ramdisk always on top memory with /t because some software relies to have the free memory at low physical addresses.

Is there a ramdrive that will put the storage at end of RAM ?
For example, I have 64MB ram, 32MB cacheable by the CPU, so i want to use 32MB as cached ram and the last 32 MB as a ramdrive ?

Would it be possible to put your swap file on a ramdisk to save wear and tear on a CF drive? And if you have more memory than your system can cache will it still cause the system to slow down if the memory that isn't cached is partitioned as a ramdisk and not normally accessible?

sunaiac wrote:

elianda wrote:

I recommend to load the ramdisk always on top memory with /t because..

Is there a ramdrive that will put the storage at end of RAM ?
For example, I have 64MB ram, 32MB cacheable by the CPU, so i want to use 32MB as cached ram and the last 32 MB as a ramdrive ?

top of memory -> memtop -> end of ram

I think I mentioned this ramdrive in non cached area already in one of the 386 threads.

sliderider wrote:

Would it be possible to put your swap file on a ramdisk to save wear and tear on a CF drive? And if you have more memory than your system can cache will it still cause the system to slow down if the memory that isn't cached is partitioned as a ramdisk and not normally accessible?

Why locate it in ram? If you do that, you use up physical memory, which means you need more space for a pagefile if your paging needs exceed the amount of free ram....

Just turn the pagefile off if you have a plenty of ram or cf/sd drives.

megatron-uk wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Would it be possible to put your swap file on a ramdisk to save wear and tear on a CF drive? And if you have more memory than your system can cache will it still cause the system to slow down if the memory that isn't cached is partitioned as a ramdisk and not normally accessible?

Why locate it in ram? If you do that, you use up physical memory, which means you need more space for a pagefile if your paging needs exceed the amount of free ram....

Just turn the pagefile off if you have a plenty of ram or cf/sd drives.

Isn't the point of the pagefile to speed up windows? And if you have 128mb of RAM and the system only caches 64mb, you're going to slow the system down even more.

elianda wrote:

top of memory -> memtop -> end of ram

I think I mentioned this ramdrive in non cached area already in one of the 386 threads.

Cool, that seems like a really good setup (32 cached ram, 32 ramdrive with doom on it 😁)

the only issue with a ram disk is the cpu overhead. Even on new systems. its faster than a floppy and hard disk, but if you play a game that continuously loads from the disk, you may have stuttering issues.

sliderider wrote:

Isn't the point of the pagefile to speed up windows? And if you have 128mb of RAM and the system only caches 64mb, you're going to slow the system down even more.

The point is, if you are short on RAM you can use extra RAM as part of the HDD. This is called paging, since pages of memory are put to a storage device.
As side effect, if they are accessed again they have to be exchanged again with another page of RAM so that the CPU can access it.
So it is better to use the RAM directly than to use the RAM for a RAM-Drive and page RAM there since the OS is short of RAM in the remaining RAM.
Paging is a feature of 386 Protected Mode.