[SOLVED] Ramdrive not working above 4Mb

[Fredledingue]

I thought it was a good idea to put the internet files and the temp folder in a virtual ramdrive and with some imagination I will certainly find some geeky use for this.

The problem is that it doesn't work properly with more than 4 Mb.

If I set 5Mb, I do see a ramdrive of 5 Mb in Explorer, but programs won't be able to use it (access violation, disk full, file not found etc)

Thiis the content of my config.sys

device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
Country=032,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys
Device=c:\windows\himem.sys
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE ram
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 4096 /E

I was reading that EMM386.exe was not the best...

and of my autoexec.bat

mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
mode con codepage select=850
keyb be,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys
e:
md internet
md temp
SET TEMP=E:\temp\

Now does it make sens to do this in term of performance, except for the advantage of have all the files deleted when the computer shutdown?

I think nowadays, processor horsepowers are the main factor for speed and disk write time is minimal.

Anyway, if I could mount a virtual drive of 24 Mb in memory I would be happy, just for experimental purpose.

Edited June 19, 2006 by Fredledingue

[miko]

you can definitely do more than that, but not with the one included in windows i think, there were some who used to install the Q3 demo into a ram drive and get the jump on servers, should be a tutorial around . . .

found it -

http://www.thetechzone.com/articles/ram_drive/index.shtml

has RAM drive app download too

probably some stuff on MDGXs site (about RAM drives) as well.

Edited June 11, 2006 by miko

[LLXX]

The problem is that the Microsoft RAM drive can only load in config.sys (bumping your CD-ROM a letter) and has a 32 MB limit.

You should be able to use the M$ one...

I'd start removing items from config.sys and autoexec.bat until it starts working.

I don't even have emm386 loaded at all. I don't think it's needed unless you do a lot of work in DOS with expanded memory (obsolete).

[Fredledingue]

I'm supposed to have a 32Mb limit, but the practicable limit is 4Mb.

[azagahl]

Don't use RAMDISK. Use XMSDSK from furd19_i.zip instead; it supports up to 2 GB.

It's great for a TEMP directory or even swap file, if you have tons of memory.

Edited June 12, 2006 by azagahl

[MDGx]

More info + all necessary downloads:

http://www.mdgx.com/newtip12.htm#CACHRAM

HTH

[Fredledingue]

Thanks for your help!

I solved the problem by using XMSDSK from furd19_i.zip .

But I had to add /t in the command line otherwise I still had the 4Mb limit.

"Parameter /t can be used to tell the driver to allocate XMS memory from

the top addresses instead of lower ones. Some machines under Win95 hang

up when there's no free memory under 16 MBytes. It can be used too if

you have problem playing sounds under Windows. ... "