Not any more, use it as a ramdisk and put the swapfile on it. 7.25GB should be enough for most people.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

4GB version is free to use, so no reason not to buy the extra.

I was using that exact tool before my upgrade, it worked very well too for putting temporary files on. It's certainly no substitute for more ram (and an OS that supports it!)

but....

in win32bit you can't access anything outside of 8gig (including gfx ram iirc?)

so you can only make a ramdisk into the 8gig you have (and so loose some ram to it)

Yeah, how are you even seeing the additional ram in windows in order to make the ram disk in the first place!?

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

I think you guys are right actually, from memory (no pun intended) it still showed my total RAM in task manager so it wasn't like it took it out of the equation completely.

I used to use a piece of software very much like this back when I was running a 286 with 3.5MB of RAM and DOS6. The Extended memory above 640KB was basically useless, so I made a ~2.8MB RAMDisk out of it.

the more things change......

nice find Serious.

That wont work....

From the FAQ on the page

QuoteCan RAMDisk use memory not available or seen by 32-bit Windows?

Dataram RAMDisk cannot make use of memory that is not available in 32-bit Windows systems between 3 and 4 GB. RAMDisk can use memory not "seen" by 32-bit Windows ABOVE 4 GB, i.e. 6 or 8 GB.

Although... reading that back.... I think I'm wrong lol!!!

Looks like 3-4gb area isnt usable but 4gb onwards is lol wierd 

Eh? Can't use the 3-4 but can use the 4+? That doesn't make sense to me.

Quote from: knighty on May 23, 2012, 01:01:39 AM
but....

in win32bit you can't access anything outside of 8gig (including gfx ram iirc?)

so you can only make a ramdisk into the 8gig you have (and so loose some ram to it)

The computer might have a 64 bit memory bus but Windows 32 has exactly that, a 32 bit memory space. At that point, which just happens to be 4GB, it runs out of address space.

So in Win XP 32bit you could access a maximum of 4GB, if the system was perfect. Unfortunately it isn't, so you lose about .75GB to the system. Right click on My Computer and choose properties, it will tell you how much memory is available, on mine it says 3.25GB.

The memory above 4GB isn't used at all, so putting a ramdisk up there and using it as virtual memory is worthwhile. It is much faster than using the hard disk as virtual memory.

Win64 can access lots more memory than 32, so there would be no point in using it there.

Even better, if you handle sensitive documents/passwords it stops windows writing them to the HD when it uses virtual memory, increasing security. When you switch off the memory is emptied - unlike the HD which retains the data until erased.

IIRC the ~0.5-0.75GB which you lose off the top with a 32bit system is because the system has to assign address space to Graphics RAM, various caches, buffers and so on. It can only address 4GB in total so there's less than that available to address main system RAM.

Presumably, Windoze has to assign the aforementioned non-main memory addresses in the 3-4GB range, and in so doing it obscures part of the system RAM so that even though the RAMDisk software breaks the 32bit limit it still can't see the RAM which is obscured.

Well it makes sense in my head anyway.

edit: I can't spel

Makes sense in my head too

My only 32 system is my N9   those concerns does remind of my 286s though and all different ways to handle memory above 640k. On my lappy I run 64-bit Ubuntu but it can only use 3GB as the CPU is of "celeron" type I believe.