Big RamDiisk, Lots of RAM, etc.

[jaclaz]

@98SE

As said the difference is that your use of the ramdisk is correct , while the issue that Trevmun reported is the memory being hogged increasingly after hours of usage, this means that some programs (or service/whatever) hooks memory and does not release it when terminated, adding memory (be it ram or a ramdisk, or a swap file on the ramdisk in the inaccessible parts of the memory) would not solve the problem, only shift it to some time later.

About Gavotte, while I am pretty sure that the program you use instead is "better", (BTW which one is it, out of curiosity?), the point I was trying to make that unlike your stated doubt (probably because at the time you tested an earlier version or with the "wrong" settings) , it does work nicely for the memory above 3.2 Gb without need of any patch to XP 32 bit, at least it does for both dencorso and myself, this is a reported fact (it is well possible that for *whatever* reasons it does not work properly on a specific motherboard, of course).

jaclaz

 

[TrevMUN]

3 hours ago, jaclaz said:

As said the difference is that your use of the ramdisk is correct , while the issue that Trevmun reported is the memory being hogged increasingly after hours of usage, this means that some programs (or service/whatever) hooks memory and does not release it when terminated, adding memory (be it ram or a ramdisk, or a swap file on the ramdisk in the inaccessible parts of the memory) would not solve the problem, only shift it to some time later.

jaclaz, when I brought up the RAM disk, I was actually referring to @NT Five's post a few pages ago in which he discussed the security benefits of running XP with one.

On 4/13/2017 at 3:11 PM, NT Five said:

It means that once booted, no one can access, touch, delete, corrupt or infect the RAM disk source file without mounting it with TrueCrypt and entering the password... and you can't mount image files directly with TrueCrypt (it can only mount "real" disks), so there is absolutely no way malware or even you can access the source file when the system is running.

The only "normal" way to modify the contents of the inner image file is to fire up Virtual PC, attach the VHD file, and boot into Windows in the virtual machine in order to decrypt the VHD container, and if you are really paranoid you can even get rid of this "back door". The only thing you have to do to close that door forever is to delete the first entry in boot.ini, to save the file and to switch off the virtual machine.

Now we can only modify the contents of the VHD container if we attach it as a secondary drive in VPC and select the "Decryption without pre-boot authentication" in the TrueCrypt menu, but we still have to enter the password before we can get access.

That's pretty good security, huh ?

As for what you've been saying, I'm already well aware that having more RAM doesn't mean that issue of running out in the long-term goes away, but frankly, I need all the RAM I can get anyway. In this day and age, 4 GB isn't really enough as it is, and I think the only reason I can get away with it is precisely because I'm using XP and thus have more RAM available (whereas the later OSes consume much more memory just to run).

Edited April 27, 2017 by TrevMUN

[98SE]

20 hours ago, dencorso said:

@TrevMUN: Well, on a Ramdisk of at least 4GiB (say, in a machine with 8 GiB, of which I have a couple), the Gavotte can be the host to the pagefile and XP is happy with it, provided one sets "DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001 as I posted above (to prevent the dreaded "Page Fault on Non-Paged Area" BSOD). It'll work equally well on x86 7 SP1 and Vista SP2, too. I don't know about 8+.

@98SE: Since you don't object to paying for good software, you should consider buying RLoew's non-XMS Ramdisk, which can make available to DOS and Win 9x all unused RAM available on your machine and is current and supported.

Not a huge fan of W10 but someone needs it so I installed.  Lots of W7 software doesn't work on W10 or W10 disables its functionality.  The Page Fault on Non-Paged Area BSOD sounds like an annoyance but I assume one time .reg file to add it in manually should avoid this issue forever?

No objection to his stuff.  I bought his > 1.5GB program just to test on a system with more memory than 98SE can deal with normally.  However even with DDR3 there were 512MB and 1GB sticks to avoid needing that software in testing.  The USB mouse also didn't function properly and could not be controlled.  Not sure if anyone else has this problem.  Serial Mouse using COM port 1 had no issue.

As for his other program he doesn't offer trials on the non-XMS Ramdisk and modern chipsets I have noticed DOS HMA seems to be removed or disabled.  Himem.sys can't even access what it normally could.  I did try some alternative conventional memory software caches to try and speed up copying processes but it seems to have little or no effect which was strange.  If you've successfully tested his non-XMS Ramdisk on modern systems you can let us know.  I have a feeling it may not work or may need to be repatched for whatever was done to recent chipsets to be useful.

Edited April 27, 2017 by 98SE

[98SE]

22 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

I should probably clarify, @jaclaz and @98SE: my desktop rig runs XP64, so my only real concern when I go for that overhaul (since I'll be looking to take advantage of DDR4 if possible) is making sure I get hardware with drivers that support that OS. Despite XP64's reputation, that's not actually been a problem for me in the past ... but, now that Microsoft has EOL'd the XP family, it probably will be.

My laptop runs XP32, and also has 4 GB of RAM. Although that particular laptop, when I bought it, was optimized for multimedia development and long battery life, I prefer to use my desktop rig where possible since that's where the muscle is.

As for the RAM Disk stuff, it was a few pages ago, but @NT Five was talking about the security benefits of running XP with a RAM disk. That's what I was thinking of concerning my comments about having my desktop OS run on one with my next overhaul. Still, @98SE, what you were saying is also really interesting. I didn't think about a RAM disk acting as a workaround for granting XP access to more memory than Microsoft's limitations.

I haven't tested the 128GB patch yet still using plain old XP SP3.  But on another system I will see how it behaves.  I have no idea what files or code was done which would at least help others replicate or update it further.  But playing it safe for compatibility reasons yes any Ramdrive that can tap into > 3.2GB will be useful on XP SP3.  But still limitations of how much memory each program can access.  1.5GB seems to be a barrier on Firefox.  To get around it I used other browers like Opera and Sea Monkey all simultaneously and that seemed to work.  Using more pagefile size on the Ramdrive is required since you will run out of regular base OS memory.  But I can't say how far you can go with this.  For example if you open up like 100 or 200 Notepad and MS Paint windows there will be a point where it cannot open another window even though you didn't use 3.2GB of memory.  So whatever that limitation is if it can be patched or if the 128GB patch fixes that then yes XP would be more useful for a multitasker.  Someone just using one or two programs at a time will not benefit from it.

Any reason you prefer XP 64?  I would switch to W7 64 instead.  I don't think XP 64 can run all XP 32-bit software?  Have you tested? I would think XP 64 would be similar to Vista 64 in XP 32 bit compatibility.

Edited April 27, 2017 by 98SE

[98SE]

19 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

jaclaz, when I brought up the RAM disk, I was actually referring to @NT Five's post a few pages ago in which he discussed the security benefits of running XP with one.

As for what you've been saying, I'm already well aware that having more RAM doesn't mean that issue of running out in the long-term goes away, but frankly, I need all the RAM I can get anyway. In this day and age, 4 GB isn't really enough as it is, and I think the only reason I can get away with it is precisely because I'm using XP and thus have more RAM available (whereas the later OSes consume much more memory just to run).

XP can survive on 512MB but lots of disk thrashing.

2GB it starts to operate okay.

3.2GB Just makes it happier.

Next step up to W7 64.  8GB at least required.  So if you had 8GB Max memory I'd use XP 32 instead and make a 4.8GB Ramdrive.

If you have 16GB max go with 8GB W7 64 OS / 8GB Ramdrive.  Although you have to set 1GB min start, 2GB max to a pagefile on the Ramdrive since it is a hungry and greedy OS.  Disable Hibernate as well.  So your Ramdrive will be at most 6GB usable in the end.

Anything above like 32GB is when things start to get interesting.

Blu-ray threshold > 64GB is useful for editing an entire 50GB disc in one shot without lag.

Edited April 28, 2017 by 98SE

[TrevMUN]

6 minutes ago, 98SE said:

Any reason you prefer XP 64?  I would switch to W7 64 instead.  I don't think XP 64 can run all XP 32-bit software?  Have you tested? I would think XP 64 would be similar to Vista 64 in XP 32 bit compatibility.

I've only had an issue with 32-bit software not running on XP64 exactly twice, both with games. First was with Firaxis Games' Civilization 4. I never got to the bottom of why that was.

Second has been with Sega's Phantasy Star Online 2, which supports (or supported, at least) XP32 but for some inexplicable reason not XP64. My suspicion is that PSO2's executables run a version check, and because XP64's version number differs from the XP32 family, Sega decided to prevent people from playing the game with that OS. You can't even install the game on an XP64 machine. If you try to copy an installation from a supported machine to an XP64 one, the game still gives you the same (in Japanese) "unsupported OS" error message.

However, all other 32-bit programs I've used over the years have worked fine. 16-bit programs are another story, of course.

As for why I preferred XP64, the ability to use more than 4 GB of RAM was the big draw. I wanted access to 64-bit computing without having to ditch XP for Vista; this desktop rig's been running XP64 since 2008. It was only when I came to MSFN in recent years did I ever hear about the possibility of running XP32 with more than 4 GB of RAM, whether by patch or by the RAM disk approach.

Even so, I'm going to keep XP64. For my day to day purposes this OS works very well, and considering it has the least RAM consumption of all the 64-bit Windows OSes, that's worth it to me. Microsoft is already trying to put Windows 7 in an early grave, what with the attempt to lock 7 and 8 users out of security updates, and I don't like what they're doing with 10 to consider ditching XP64 for that.

[98SE]

14 hours ago, jaclaz said:

@98SE

As said the difference is that your use of the ramdisk is correct , while the issue that Trevmun reported is the memory being hogged increasingly after hours of usage, this means that some programs (or service/whatever) hooks memory and does not release it when terminated, adding memory (be it ram or a ramdisk, or a swap file on the ramdisk in the inaccessible parts of the memory) would not solve the problem, only shift it to some time later.

About Gavotte, while I am pretty sure that the program you use instead is "better", (BTW which one is it, out of curiosity?), the point I was trying to make that unlike your stated doubt (probably because at the time you tested an earlier version or with the "wrong" settings) , it does work nicely for the memory above 3.2 Gb without need of any patch to XP 32 bit, at least it does for both dencorso and myself, this is a reported fact (it is well possible that for *whatever* reasons it does not work properly on a specific motherboard, of course).

jaclaz

 

Since it was awhile back it may have been tested on a P4 or a Sandy Bridge.  Unless you can verify around 2011 that the earliest Gavotte Ramdrive supported > 3.2 GB memory region which is the reason I probably moved past that program either because it couldn't or because it crashes or it had a clunky interface.  Was there a special code you had to force it to use above 3.2GB?  I think it just used the OS base memory.  My feeling is it did not suit my purpose at the time.  As my P4 only had 2GB max memory so I doubt I would have tested Gavotte for that purpose.  There was also a Microsoft based Ramdrive that also worked in XP but I think it was limited to 32MB at the time.  For all we know this Chinese programmer may have programmed the one I'm using after perfecting it and licensed it off.   There are probably multiple commercial Ramdrive programs out there that should support > 3.2GB by now for XP.  I haven't taken the time to look at the free ones again or other commercial ones that could be better but if Gavotte works for you then you should stick with it that way if they pop back up again and notices a bunch of you are still using it maybe the source code will be released and then it can be improved by us.

Edited April 27, 2017 by 98SE

[98SE]

1 hour ago, TrevMUN said:

I've only had an issue with 32-bit software not running on XP64 exactly twice, both with games. First was with Firaxis Games' Civilization 4. I never got to the bottom of why that was.

However, all other 32-bit programs I've used over the years have worked fine. 16-bit programs are another story, of course.

As for why I preferred XP64, the ability to use more than 4 GB of RAM was the big draw. I wanted access to 64-bit computing without having to ditch XP for Vista; this desktop rig's been running XP64 since 2008. It was only when I came to MSFN in recent years did I ever hear about the possibility of running XP32 with more than 4 GB of RAM, whether by patch or by the RAM disk approach.

Even so, I'm going to keep XP64. For my day to day purposes this OS works very well, and considering it has the least RAM consumption of all the 64-bit Windows OSes, that's worth it to me. Microsoft is already trying to put Windows 7 in an early grave, what with the attempt to lock 7 and 8 users out of security updates, and I don't like what they're doing with 10 to consider ditching XP64 for that.

Well since I didn't try using XP64 extensively to do 32 bit compatibility tests I have no clue if you are better off sticking with it.

If I had to choose a 64bit OS that closely resembles XP 64 it would be Vista.  It still retains the Classic mode.  But you have to add SP2 and DX11 patch to make it worth it.  Same classic user interface and probably better than XP 64.  Without those two patches I would say stick with XP 64.  W7 only has one benefit which is USB 3.0 support over Vista.  Both Vista and W7 I dislike one common area.  If you rename a file in a directory with hundreds of files it starts to refresh the entire folder and it can take a minute or longer before you can rename another file.  This never happened in XP 32-bit.  Does this occur in XP 64-bit?

Also have you thought about trying W2K Server?  I saw someone tweak it so it runs like XP 32 and it might be better than XP 64 since it has drivers and stuff still where as XP 64 might be dwindling since most XP 32 drivers are gone these days and harder to find.

Since you are using the XP64 have you run into Browser crashes like Firefox around 1.5GB memory used freezing occurs?

Edited April 27, 2017 by 98SE

[TrevMUN]

2 hours ago, 98SE said:

Both Vista and W7 I dislike one common area.  If you rename a file in a directory with hundreds of files it starts to refresh the entire folder and it can take a minute or longer before you can rename another file.  This never happened in XP 32-bit.  Does this occur in XP 64-bit?

I just tested that in one of my folders that has a lot of files and subdirectories; didn't happen. XP (and XP64) have their own weird quirks, though. Like the way windows and open programs will randomly shuffle about in their arrangement. That can be an annoyance if you're trying to do a lot of cross-window operations, like dragging and dropping images from a browser to a folder, or clicking through several different windows.

2 hours ago, 98SE said:

Also have you thought about trying W2K Server?  I saw someone tweak it so it runs like XP 32 and it might be better than XP 64 since it has drivers and stuff still where as XP 64 might be dwindling since most XP 32 drivers are gone these days and harder to find.

I haven't, no, but truthfully I can't see W2K Server having better driver support than XP64 or XP32 at this point. That's why I'm interested in Dibya's projects, trying to convert drivers for newer hardware for the XP family to use.

2 hours ago, 98SE said:

Since you are using the XP64 have you run into Browser crashes like Firefox around 1.5GB memory used freezing occurs?

Not necessarily that. However, once my machine has to dig into virtual memory and if I have other memory intensive programs running, the rig starts grinding when trying to tab back into to Firefox and browse around. Now, on certain sites, like Twitter ... if you are scrolling hours back on your timeline, and you attempt to click on a tweet or retweet something rather than opening it in a new tab in order to view and/or retweet it, Twitter will cause Firefox to lock up and start rapidly consuming memory, forcing me to kill the process. (Then again, Twitter's been making one awful UI choice after another in recent years.)

I actually have two Mozilla-based browsers running right now with 300+ tabs open on each. They often break 1.5GB memory consumption, but don't freeze because of that.

[98SE]

7 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

I just tested that in one of my folders that has a lot of files and subdirectories; didn't happen. XP (and XP64) have their own weird quirks, though. Like the way windows and open programs will randomly shuffle about in their arrangement. That can be an annoyance if you're trying to do a lot of cross-window operations, like dragging and dropping images from a browser to a folder, or clicking through several different windows.

I haven't, no, but truthfully I can't see W2K Server having better driver support than XP64 or XP32 at this point. That's why I'm interested in Dibya's projects, trying to convert drivers for newer hardware for the XP family to use.

Not necessarily that. However, once my machine has to dig into virtual memory and if I have other memory intensive programs running, the rig starts grinding when trying to tab back into to Firefox and browse around. Now, on certain sites, like Twitter ... if you are scrolling hours back on your timeline, and you attempt to click on a tweet or retweet something rather than opening it in a new tab in order to view and/or retweet it, Twitter will cause Firefox to lock up and start rapidly consuming memory, forcing me to kill the process. (Then again, Twitter's been making one awful UI choice after another in recent years.)

I actually have two Mozilla-based browsers running right now with 300+ tabs open on each. They often break 1.5GB memory consumption, but don't freeze because of that.

Are the Firefox version the 32 bit or 64 bit version?  Maybe that is why the 1.5GB memory barrier isn't acting up?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition

"Windows XP Professional x64 Edition uses the same kernel and code tree as Windows Server 2003[3] and is serviced by the same service pack.[4] However, it includes client features of Windows XP such as System Restore, Windows Messenger, Fast User Switching, Welcome Screen, Security Center and games, which Windows Server 2003 does not have."

I think if someone can patch over some 2K3 files you should retain the same compatibility for XP 32 still.  But if you think XP 64 has no drawbacks and only 2 games had issues with it then I would stick with that.  128GB limit isn't too bad.  Maybe a way to patch it easier since it is 64 bit to 192GB or 2TB.

Checking limit shows 1TB for 64bit.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_server_2003_r2

Do any Vista or W7 software or games work on XP 64?  That would be more interesting since the XP user interface is probably the best so far.

Edited April 28, 2017 by 98SE

[TrevMUN]

9 hours ago, 98SE said:

Are the Firefox version the 32 bit or 64 bit version?  Maybe that is why the 1.5GB memory barrier isn't acting up?

They're both the 32-bit version. One is Firefox proper, the other is Pale Moon.

9 hours ago, 98SE said:

Do any Vista or W7 software or games work on XP 64?  That would be more interesting since the XP user interface is probably the best so far.

That depends. Until a few years ago I thought the only issue I'd run into with sticking with XP is that I wouldn't be able to play newer games due to their requiring more recent versions of DirectX. However, since then I've learned that the newer Windows OSes have some different APIs than XP does. So when a developer makes a program that doesn't support XP, it's likely that the program is calling APIs used in Vista or newer, and so the program won't run in XP.

That's not always the case, though, and sometimes there's programs which don't support XP that still run because they don't call any APIs exclusive to the newer OSes. Even so, the API issue is going to be a hurdle going forward. I imagine @Dibya and the rest of the code-savvy gang here at MSFN will be working around that, though. MSFN found a way to get Windows 9X and Me to run XP-era apps with DLL modding, I imagine they can do it for XP and post-XP programs. I linked to it before, but just such a workaround exists for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

[98SE]

6 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

They're both the 32-bit version. One is Firefox proper, the other is Pale Moon.

That depends. Until a few years ago I thought the only issue I'd run into with sticking with XP is that I wouldn't be able to play newer games due to their requiring more recent versions of DirectX. However, since then I've learned that the newer Windows OSes have some different APIs than XP does. So when a developer makes a program that doesn't support XP, it's likely that the program is calling APIs used in Vista or newer, and so the program won't run in XP.

That's not always the case, though, and sometimes there's programs which don't support XP that still run because they don't call any APIs exclusive to the newer OSes. Even so, the API issue is going to be a hurdle going forward. I imagine @Dibya and the rest of the code-savvy gang here at MSFN will be working around that, though. MSFN found a way to get Windows 9X and Me to run XP-era apps with DLL modding, I imagine they can do it for XP and post-XP programs. I linked to it before, but just such a workaround exists for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

If they could make 95/98 era games work on XP that actually would be more valuable since most graphics cards of that era are not installable on modern computers due to AGP and PCI based so it we would need some sort of translation matrix to let it use Intel HD and AMD/nVidia PCIe cards.  I doubt those games would be taxing on modern graphics cards so something like a DOSBOX equivalent call it 95/98BOX for XP and higher is what we need.  We'd need compatibility to emulate the Monster 3D cards and probably something like a 6800 Ultra AGP.  I'm not sure if AMD actually had a better 95/98 graphics card than nVidia but might as well program 3 emulation graphics cards in case one was better for a certain game.

As for running Vista and W7 games, I don't think it is worth the hassle to try to add that functionality into XP even if it sounds like a good idea.  It would be a huge undertaking and plus running a XP/7 dual boot is actually better than trying to get that idea to pan out and a much easier solution since modern day computers still can run W7 64 natively for now.  The W7 game would run w/o any compatibility problems and it would be taxing on the people trying to make every Vista/W7 game to work in a niche XP modified version.  It it better to have XP handle more than 3.2GB, 128GB currently with that patch.  If you had a 128GB capable motherboard I'd like to see it retain compatibility so it can run standard XP programs but divide the memory into standard 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB chunks selectable by the user so each program has access to regular, double or quadruple its normal base memory rather than all of it.  You still want to set aside remaining memory that can't be touched in case you need to create a Ramdrive where the memory region can't be encroached upon.

Given that info about no memory limits in a 32-bit browser maybe in your situation I'd stick with XP64 and W7 64 as a Dual Boot.  I wouldn't bother touching W10 unless you really need that DX12 support and if you did you'd end up with probably two graphics cards as most of the new ones will definitely not work with XP 32 or 64.

Edited April 28, 2017 by 98SE

[jaclaz]

And before I forget:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173201-gavottes-ramdisk-automation-package/

jaclaz
 

[98SE]

On Monday, May 01, 2017 at 1:01 AM, jaclaz said:

And before I forget:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173201-gavottes-ramdisk-automation-package/

Just took a look at the link.  So was the purpose of that to make it some sort of service and autoload it into the OS rather than manually running it on the desktop?  How exactly is the modified version Ramdisk that was linked different than the original release?  I haven't had time to try this program in years but from what I could remember you could only create 1 Ramdrive letter?  I can't recall testing for multiple Ramdrives.  Or could you create as many as possible until you ran out of memory?  I also noticed the user mentioning of it removing the actual drive letter so it doesn't use up a drive letter which was interesting.  But does this hidden missing Ramdrive letter still show up under My Computer so you can still access the files located there?  I noticed cell phones will show up under My Computer but not take up a drive letter.

[rloew]

On 4/27/2017 at 5:26 PM, 98SE said:

Not a huge fan of W10 but someone needs it so I installed.  Lots of W7 software doesn't work on W10 or W10 disables its functionality.  The Page Fault on Non-Paged Area BSOD sounds like an annoyance but I assume one time .reg file to add it in manually should avoid this issue forever?

No objection to his stuff.  I bought his > 1.5GB program just to test on a system with more memory than 98SE can deal with normally.  However even with DDR3 there were 512MB and 1GB sticks to avoid needing that software in testing.  The USB mouse also didn't function properly and could not be controlled.  Not sure if anyone else has this problem.  Serial Mouse using COM port 1 had no issue.

As for his other program he doesn't offer trials on the non-XMS Ramdisk and modern chipsets I have noticed DOS HMA seems to be removed or disabled.  Himem.sys can't even access what it normally could.  I did try some alternative conventional memory software caches to try and speed up copying processes but it seems to have little or no effect which was strange.  If you've successfully tested his non-XMS Ramdisk on modern systems you can let us know.  I have a feeling it may not work or may need to be repatched for whatever was done to recent chipsets to be useful.

I am not aware of any problems with my non-XMS RAMDisk on modern systems. I had no problem using a 29GB RAMDisk with my Z87 Motherboard.

You can PM or E-Mail me or post in the 95/98/ME forum for further discussion.