Possible fix for stuttering....worked for me anyway :D

[snedie]

From what I can read you seem to have stuttering issues in skyrim/bf3 and the benchmark u-heaven at least, right? While I understand it's a quick fix, I always hate band-aid fixes that ignore the problems underneath.

But I guess if it works, it works, but it sounds like you have some conflicts on your system, I guess with the myriad of software/hardware out there it's a roulette if you're going to have issues.

Yup, it could be any one part of my rig, software or hardware, I've heard of bad capacitors causing random glitches with games.

For me, this fix worked, worked for someone else too so I'm glad I posted it up. It has to be worth a try if nothing else, most of us have RAM going to waste and using a small chunk of it for a file which has important functions for the whole machine can only be a good thing.

 

[Coolasmoo]

Just tried this myself but used a FREE utility called dataram ramdisk which wont expire.

It only lets you create up to a 4Gb ramdisk but thats all i wanted.

 

[snedie]

Just tried this myself but used a FREE utility called dataram ramdisk which wont expire.

It only lets you create up to a 4Gb ramdisk but thats all i wanted.

Thanks for the tip, 4GB is all I require right now until I can afford 24GB (or 48 if/when I get around to saving up the monies for a dual cpu board )...Man Bf3 loading at 9GB/s

 

[snedie]

And for fair trial:

 

[Serpantine]

Just turn off page file. If you have 12GB of ram you don't need it unless you're actually using 12GB of Commit.

Allocating a page file in a ram disk makes no sense - Windows will just dump cached data, which it would normally hold in RAM into the ramdisk - Cached data is for applications which may use the data in the future, it's not being used right now, that's generally all the page file does unless you're hammering the bajesus out of your ram.

Crazy.

 

[snedie]

Just turn off page file. If you have 12GB of ram you don't need it unless you're actually using 12GB of Commit.

Allocating a page file in a ram disk makes no sense - Windows will just dump cached data, which it would normally hold in RAM into the ramdisk - Cached data is for applications which may use the data in the future, it's not being used right now, that's generally all the page file does unless you're hammering the bajesus out of your ram.

Crazy.

Again, for the fourth time. Windows will still allocate pages of memory into the pagefile regardless of the amount of RAM available and how much is in use. Disabling the page file causes more trouble than it is worth.

 

[Serpantine]

Again, for the fourth time. Windows will still allocate pages of memory into the pagefile regardless of the amount of RAM available and how much is in use. Disabling the page file caused more trouble than it is worth.

You sir are talking Mince.

There's a problem elsewhere in your machine, perhaps the timings are out on your ram (10km longshot) or maybe the frequency or the volts are out.

Windows is perfectly capable of allocating memory correctly, as are unix based operating systems.

Page is just another pool for it to dump into - I've no idea why you will have had stuttering but It's not because of an inherent fault with the design of the operating systems memory allocation.

 

[snedie]

You sir are talking Mince.

There's a problem elsewhere in your machine, perhaps the timings are out on your ram (10km longshot) or maybe the frequency or the volts are out.

Windows is perfectly capable of allocating memory correctly, as are unix based operating systems.

Page is just another pool for it to dump into - I've no idea why you will have had stuttering but It's not because of an inherent fault with the design of the operating systems memory allocation.

Sigh, please try reading THE ORIGINAL POST!

If you bothered to, you would see I never said it had ANYTHING to do with how WINDOWS allocated memory. It is due to the inherent latencies with disk drives and ssd's, something which is great enough to cause stuttering when games request data that is in the page file *on some systems.

As for a problem with my rig, I highly doubt it seen as it happens to be perfectly capable of running flat out for 7 days solid without the slightest hickup, this includes crunching numbers with a 0% tolerance for mistakes. Not to mention if it was a RAM timing issue stuttering would be the least of my problems. I'm afraid it is you talking "mince".

One last thing, if it isn't to do with pagefile access times then why does moving it to a location 72500x faster at responding happen to fix the issue?

 

[Serpantine]

In order to be constructive, guys if you have the time and have any interest on memory management watch this (and the follow up) http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WCL405

snedie - you posted earlier you had better results with a benchmark with a lower cpu clock, this would lead me to believe your clock isn't "stable" or rather perhaps is effecting the other bus' with the volts you're putting through it or the lack there of.

 

[snedie]

In order to be constructive, guys if you have the time and have any interest on memory management watch this (and the follow up) http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WCL405

snedie - you posted earlier you had better results with a benchmark with a lower cpu clock, this would lead me to believe your clock isn't "stable" or rather perhaps is effecting the other bus' with the volts you're putting through it or the lack there of.

The reason for the lower clock was because I didn't record my BIOS values before updating the BIOS firmware, and I simply could not be bothered with spending days setting it up again when 3.8Ghz was a doddle and works just fine. As for the higher scores that is simply down to video card drivers: With the new 7k cards coming out AMD have been optimising their driver suits to maximise performance in benchmarks, anyone who happened to record results from previous driver sets will undoubtedly notice the same phenomenon.

Once again, why does this fix work if there is some massive issue with my hardware? Why does it work for other people? Aliens?

 

[Serpantine]

Sigh, please try reading THE ORIGINAL POST!

If you bothered to, you would see I never said it had ANYTHING to do with how WINDOWS allocated memory. It is due to the inherent latencies with disk drives and ssd's, something which is great enough to cause stuttering when games request data that is in the page file.

As for a problem with my rig, I highly doubt it seen as it happens to be perfectly capable of running flat out for 7 days solid without the slightest hickup. Not to mention if it was a RAM timing issue stuttering would be the least of my problems. I'm afraid it is you talking "mince".

One last thing, if it isn't to do with pagefile access times then why does moving it to a location 72500x faster at responding happen to fix the issue?

Papering over the cracks explains your bottom point.

The thread is about you having found a cure for a problem. Your cure makes no sense as all you're doing is telling the machine to use it's available ram rather than disk. You can achieve this by (I'm echoing so many points) turning off the page file.

It's an interesting benchmark but it is actually pointless, try not to take my points as hostile as they're anything but.

I'd like to see some benchmarks with the page file turned off, on a fresh boot with nothing else running compared with your ramdisk - show me tha numbaz.

 

[snedie]

Papering over the cracks explains your bottom point.

The thread is about you having found a cure for a problem. Your cure makes no sense as all you're doing is telling the machine to use it's available ram rather than disk. You can achieve this by (I'm echoing so many points) turning off the page file.

It's an interesting benchmark but it is actually pointless, try not to take my points as hostile as they're anything but.

I'd like to see some benchmarks with the page file turned off, on a fresh boot with nothing else running compared with your ramdisk - show me tha numbaz.

Those are with the page file turned off. And it isn't a cure in the slightest bit, just something that happened to work for me and might (and has) work for others.

"all you're doing is telling the machine to use it's available ram rather than disk"

I would love to know how you figured that one considering that the OS does not know that drive resides in RAM. To the OS the pagefile still exists on a drive and is still treated as such, the fact this drive is a RAMDISK has no bearing on how the OS allocates memory.

 

[Serpantine]

Those are with the page file turned off. And it isn't a cure in the slightest bit, just something that happened to work for me and might (and has) work for others.

"all you're doing is telling the machine to use it's available ram rather than disk"

I would love to know how you figured that one considering that the OS does not know that drive resides in RAM. To the OS the pagefile still exists on a drive and is still treated as such, the fact this drive is a RAMDISK has no bearing on how the OS allocates memory.

You missed my point, the OS is going to allocate to page file as it wants. Your page file exists in RAM, therefore it just pages to ram.

Page is used for things that aren't in use right now generally as the machine knows the speed loss - so it's used for caching big maps in skyrim, textures etc.

If there is no page, it just uses RAM instead.

Do you see why this makes no sense yet?

 

[snedie]

You missed my point, the OS is going to allocate to page file as it wants. Your page file exists in RAM, therefore it just pages to ram.

Page is used for things that aren't in use right now generally as the machine knows the speed loss - so it's used for caching big maps in skyrim, textures etc.

If there is no page, it just uses RAM instead.

Do you see why this makes no sense yet?

What I understand is that disabling the page file often causes more problems.

Anyway getting onto productive matters which people might actually care about, someone asked for speeds without the page file which I happened to already do so here are the speeds WITH the page file on the RAMDISK:

Pretty interesting results, seems I achieve slightly faster results with a page file in regards to the SSD's. However, in fairness to the trolls I'm not counting this as anything conclusive and I might (at the weekend) run a several pass benchmark with and without to get a true average.

 

[Serpantine]

One last point.

You mentioned "imagine bf3 loading at 9gb/ps" - You realise you're loading the bf3 files (as dictated by the game) into ram, from your hardrive or SSD.

The maximum you would load new content into ram is at something like 4-500mb/ps. Once it's in ram, sure, go nuts but again.. RAM is RAM, pagefile makes up your total avaliable RAM.

Turning it off does not cause more problems if you have enough ram to fulfil your systems needs.

Read the links i sent, they're interesting either way.

/Outta here.

 

[snedie]

One last point.

You mentioned "imagine bf3 loading at 9gb/ps" - You realise you're loading the bf3 files (as dictated by the game) into ram, from your hardrive or SSD.

The maximum you would load new content into ram is at something like 4-500mb/ps. Once it's in ram, sure, go nuts but again.. RAM is RAM, pagefile makes up your total avaliable RAM.

Turning it off does not cause more problems if you have enough ram to fulfil your systems needs.

Read the links i sent, they're interesting either way.

/Outta here.

Yes, you are right in a way, in that the RAMDISK image must be loaded from the disk / ssd drive but this is done at logon and takes less than 1 minute, I barely have an email read in that amount of time. Once this has occurred in the background, the game is ready to be loaded to RAM from RAM

 

[Serpantine]

Yes, you are right in a way, in that the RAMDISK image must be loaded from the disk / ssd drive but this is done at logon and takes less than 1 minute, I barely have an email read in that amount of time. Once this has occurred in the background, the game is ready to be loaded to RAM from RAM

Completely missed the point again!!!

 

[snedie]

Completely missed the point again!!!

Enlighten me oh great one, your mystical enigmas baffle my feeble peasant mind.

 

[silversurfer]

What I understand is that disabling the page file often causes more problems.

Nope its been discussed at length previously but its just an urban myth or a bit like this thread, whatever works best for you but no pagefile is required if you always have enough excess memory