Weird RamDisk Type Question

[EvilMunky]

OK So every now and then i have a weird idea and wanted to run it by some people and see what they thought re possibility and effectiveness.

OK imagine a machine with xp on it and 2gb ram. As we know the difference between 1`gb ram and 2gb ram doesnt seem to be all that great.
ALso, as you know - you can run a system without a paging file if you have enough ram.

Now imagine converting 1gb of your 2gb ram into a ramdisk that xp can access. Then imagine putting the pagefile on that ramdisk.

Hmm, wouldnt that be fast?????

Has anyone done this?
Can it be done?
Am i mad?

[davejp]

I used to do it with Windows 98 swap file, IIRC. It certainly was faster and fairly easy to set up as the drive was created at the dos level before windows started.

I'm not sure how XP handles Ram disks. Let us know if you get it working!

Dave

[Allen]

Erm, isn't the pagefile just HDD space that's used when your physical memory 'runs out'? Hence calling it virtual memory? Therefore, putting the pagefile on a RamDisk would be no different as using the memory as it is anyway?

Won't it?

[davejp]

I'm no expert but ISTR that XP will use the paging file even if there is plenty of real memory available.

Dave

[autopilot]

Erm, isn't the pagefile just HDD space that's used when your physical memory 'runs out'? Hence calling it virtual memory? Therefore, putting the pagefile on a RamDisk would be no different as using the memory as it is anyway?

Won't it?

Indeed, this is a fairly pointless exercise imo.

[ikonia]

not sure I agree on that.

when my machine boots up in windows mode it uses about 210 meg - yet the page file still has about 100 meg registered to it, I'm not sure if this is just an initial ammount to register the files existance.

I've got 2 gig of ram and in some senarios it seems like to use "page file"

[EvilMunky]

Windows xp definately uses the page file whether the ram gets filled up at all - this is the whole point behind my question. I have had numerous gigs of ram in machines before but the page file always gets created. Therefore i want to put the pagefile on the ramdisk for speeeeeed

[Allen]

OK, I didn't know/notice that. Are you sure it's definately used though?

[EvilMunky]

well if you delete it and then reboot etc - it will get created and accessed.

I have run without a pagefile as well which can also work - but i was lookin at a ram disk for other reasons too such as temp ie files etc.

[Allen]

well if you delete it and then reboot etc - it will get created and accessed.

I didn't think you could delete the filepage as it will tell you it's in use? Anyway, I know it's a physical file created on the drive, but I just thought that it was created to save the space on the drive so it wasn't over-written with anything else.

[r1zeek]

I didn't think you could delete the filepage as it will tell you it's in use? Anyway, I know it's a physical file created on the drive, but I just thought that it was created to save the space on the drive so it wasn't over-written with anything else.

Could you use a program such as move on boot to try and move it to the ramdisk?

[Allen]

Wouldn't know mate, I've never used a Ramdisk to be honest.