Re: ReadyBoost on Windows XP ?? Do it yourself !

[garymbuska]

 Yes this is one way to get a little better performance but I would suggest caution here if you are limiting your virtual memory it could create a problem. it could even slow your system down as it waits for memory to become available which is probably why your system increased your memory as it wanted a bigger space.
 Like overclocking a CPU OR GPU all of these can help but one should be aware of the problems if you do not do it quite right or exceed your specs. It is possible to destroy a CPU or GPU this way. So I would take extreme caution doing this. 8-)

[Daube]

Of course, this is why I was asking the experiment only to the people owning 2 Gb drives.
I have myself only 1 Gb of RAM, and I have set my virtual memory to 2048 Mega bytes, fixed size, and my system is perfectly fine with that. I think that if can find a good 2Gb usb flashdrive that is not too much expensive, I will give it a try... along with a new GB of RAM of course.

[EGNX]

Good isn't it!
Imagine using one of these....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Integral-COURIER-4GB-USB-Drive/dp/B000KDT1CU

[Daube]

Wow... I seriously need some hardware-knowledge update, I didn't even know that 4 Gb flashdrives exist, silly me  ;D

[ozzy72]

It is an interesting use of hardware but remember flash memory is much slower than ordinary RAM and can turn into a bottle-neck all by itself if your system really doesn't have sufficient memory.

[Ashton Lawson]

great idea.

btw, there are 5 Gb flash drives...

10 Gb is in the making still i think...  (who knows, maybe it exists, but isnt on the market yet...)

[alrot]

Are we Talking about Pen drives? :-?.... :-/ ..Is it the same?..well :-/ forget it Mine only 250mg



Edit:10 minutes later: Hey I establish one of my other HDD drives as Virtual Memory(instead where my FSX is) and Seems like its working better ,It Should because one its downloading Data ,terrain etc ,while the other works as a virtual memory ,I'm testing it Right Now

[Ashton Lawson]

yes, i am referring to pen drives...

anyway, i just did an interesting test:

i plugged in both of my flash drives, one 256Mbs (freebie) and another 128Mbs.  A formatted them, and then set them to hav virtual memory, and disabled the vm on my other harddrives.  i restarted my computer (btw, my default RAM is 256Mb, not much), and then tried one of my most RAM intensive apps, 3DS Max (since i recently uninstalled FS9).  Anyway, the performance increase was quite remarkable since my RAM basically jumped from 256 to 640Mbs.  I thought: great, im gonna keep using this.  but of course, i spoke too soon.  i closed 3DS Max, and ran my memory optimizer, then decided to post this.  guess what, IE7 didnt load properly.  it was my lack of VM.

so, i went back to settings, and put the virtual memory i had on my HDs, then restarted.  now, its working fine, and doesnt seem to hav sacrificed the performance increase from before.

So, id say, that if u hav flash drives, unless they are more than 1-2 Gbs in size or u already hav over 1gb of RAM, keep the virtual memory on the main HDs.

[Daube]

The point is all about the real amount of virtual memory that your computer really needs.
In your case, I suppose that you had your virtual memory on your harddrive set to 'let windows choose the size", right ? When this option is set, Windows can dynamically increase or decrease the amount of virtual memory, depending on the needs.

When you set the virtual memory on such small usb drives, they cannot be extended that much, leading to the problems you've mentionned above.

In my case, I already have 1 Gb of RAM, and I set my virtual memory to a fix size of 2048 (min = max = 2048) to avoid the swap file fragmentation that occurs with a dynamic size (min different from max). So I wouldn't get any problems on a 2 Gb Flashdrive, but oviously I would with a smaller one.

[Daube]

Ok folks, I think I was completely wrong since the beginning.

[Ashton Lawson]

nah, thats ur computer.

and i didnt hav my settings set to dynamic.  i set each hard drive to 2Gbs of vitual memory, and when i disabled that and applied VM to my flash drives, the settings stayed.  I dont use any dynamic thing on my computer, unless you call CPU usage dynamic.

basically, i ur computer will allow it, a 5Gb flash drive probably could help.  but u must make sure ur computer isnt changing any of ur settings, as mine didnt.

Daube, you may want to check ur computers settings, to see that there isnt any other function which resets ur changes.  mine works a little bit faster now that i hav my two flash drives active as virtual memory.

there is still hope!

[Daube]

The point is: The settings were OK after reboot !  :o
I mean: the virtual memory on the original drive was still disabled, just like for the system drive, and only the USB drive was marked as having virtual memory on it... but when I looked on the disks, the pagefile.sys was on the system drive, and it was 1,5 Gb big, instead of beign on the USB drive at 2gb. The USB drive was completely empty, with 2 Gb available.

[Ashton Lawson]

oh...  hold on, lemme check mine...

hey, ur rite...  (yes, i deselected hide protected operating system files)

oh well.  maybe some programmer could make a ReadyBoost for XP, maybe i could (i wish)...

im gonna google it rite now...

[bok269]

With XP, is the boost in performance enough to justify the effort?  Or should I wait till I get Vista?

[Ashton Lawson]

Nah, u should forget the idea.  there is no real boost in performance, just a flicker of hope in the subconscious of ur mind...  basically, u can set the functions to use the flash drive, but XP wont use it.  there is no pagefile.sys that is used.  i suppose i may be able to look inside windows, and possibly set the flash drives as a directory, but now, i cant do much...

basically, there is no ReadyBoost for XP, or anything like it, so im just about giving up.

pray, that i find something within windows, but dont expect much...

P.S.  u can try too, click on Start Menu>Run and type in regedit and search the registry for virtual memory key addresses.
       we could get lucky...