So, i tried it with a 2GB drive, and must say, i’m quite impressed. When i’m panning fast, ofcourse you see the trees build up and pop-ins. But even then the rebuild is quite fast. When panning, in what I deem “normal” for me, it’s hardly noticable, unless you watch the edges closely. I’m able to give up 2GB. thanks for the ramdisk tip!
If the rolling cache, is acting like i think it is, this would give me a 30 to 35 miles radius (terrain, photo, objects, etc..)? I’m not really flying over the same place twice, but do always arrive and departure from the same place.
Can’t say I know enough but is using Ramdisk safe? seems risky from what I have read.
From discussions below its not really a risk if only storing rolling cache data on the ram disk.
There is really no way to use it unsafely. If you have 32 GB RAM, an 8 GB RAMDISK should not be a problem the SU5 uses so little RAM. Unless you choose for the RAMDISK to save itself to a file on system shutdown and rebuild itself from that file on system startup, the contents of the RAMDISK are deleted at system shutdown. Nothing to harm the PC. All it does it dedicate the amount of RAM that you tell it as a disk…it just emulates in very fast memory a storage drive. Try it, you will like it and learn something in the process.
Consider a ramdisk as an application on your pc which uses memory like every app does. The difference is mainly that an application uses more or less memory when more or less is needed where ramdisk uses a fixed amount. It will take not less or more then configured. That is what that line in the article is saying in scary words. Translated, it means your ramdrive will guarantee the size configured.
Of course other programs will not be able to use the memory used by ramdrive. But that is how programs are supposed to work with memory (i am simplifying here).
So, if you have 16gb and a ramdisk of 2gb, 14gb us left for other applications.
This us the same as any normal application using 2gb.
My understanding of Ramdisk is that if you was to have a sudden power outtage you would lose all the files stored on the ram.
Or is the file still stored on your ssd or hdd even though it is also stored on the ram.
So if you lost power the data would still be on your storage device?
I have used a ramcache before as this seemed a safer option but you can’t tell it exactly what data to stores as cache, only what drive it caches.
My understanding there is that the data is only copied with ramcache but still stored on the storage device.
So what your saying is if you had a power outage the data would be gone from your pc completely not just from the ram disk storage?
A generic ramcache would only speed up generic caching, If i’m correct ramdisk also can be used as generic cache by mirroring a cache on a physical disk (someone correct me if i’m wrong).
How Ramdisk is used for mfs in this topic, is as if it is a normal hard drive, but in memory as @blueline308 explained in his post. Without the use of a physical drive. So there is no copying of data between a physical drive and the ramdisk in memory. This means nothing is written to disk. A power outage will cause the data on the ramdisk to be considered lost.
So, in this topic it is explained how to only put the rolling cache of mfs data on a ram disk. This rolling cache is not essential for mfs to run. It is used to temporary store data, if mfs needs this data again.
I’m leaving out the interaction with RAM and a pagefile in these posts for clarity. There will always be some data which is in memory also on disk, but not in a form it is recognizable as in seeing a folder on a disk.
Only the data you put on the ramdisk in RAM, not from physical harddisk. Nothing more, nothing less
Thanks for taking the time appreciate it i think it sounds like something id rather steer clear of to be honest. i suppose if your certain to only put msfs rolling cache files on it then it doesn’t really matter.
I really only asked to clarify how it works for anyone thinking of trying it.
I had a rough idea but wasn’t 100% sure.
I have seen slight gains using ramcache but for me wasn’t really worth it so don’t bother now especially with the latest performance increase. In the past it did help with reducing stutters.
The Ramdisk is not used to install the game itself on. Only the terrain data which get’s downloaded continously. Because of this continues download, mfs has an option to create a cache to re-use this data. So its not for the game, but for mfs specific own use of a cache
To be honest i wasn’t even aware of uninterruptable power supply was a thing for use with pc’s I only got into them around 3 years ago have done a ton of research and even built the pc myself. Just certain things the info out there isn’t always so clear.
I do have the pc plugged into a surge protected socket.
Yeah no sorry its cos i came off another topic i actually updated my previous post because realised your only on about using ramdisk for the rolling cache data not game files. In that instance its not really a risk at all.
SU5 introduced the stutters for me while panning the view around. Before SU5 FS2020 would keep the surroundings all in memory so no reloading on looking around.
Before SU5 I didn’t use any rolling cache since it only caused slow down (and stutters) while updating the cache, especially in PG areas. It would only write data to cache after you leave the area, prompting that data to stay longer in memory while in the queue to be written to the rolling cache. This process could fall behind causing a nasty downward spiral where memory use kept going up (falling further behind) and the sim would grind to a halt.
That runaway memory problem is gone, the sim now quickly deletes everything that’s no longer in view. The other extreme, which causes stutters and pop in while looking around. Rolling cache on SSD or in RAM helps to speed up reloading the scenery.
The cache file is just temporary data, which actually should be deleted between updates. A power failure doesn’t matter, cache reset. Actually if it’s on disk you have the risk of ending up with a corrupted file. (I play on a laptop so power outages don’t effect anything)
However the cache going missing just prompts FS2020 to give you a warning at startup that rollingcache is disabled. It doesn’t affect the game at all.
Putting the game files in a ram cache is not risky either. The game only reads from them, unless you download updates in the content manager / market place. However the only gains will be at startup, while flying FS2020 does very little access to the game files. A couple hundred bytes per second here and there, usually nothing. Internet use is orders of magnitude higher, hence stopping the game from re-downloading the same stuff every time you switch views is very helpful.
But putting it on a ram disk is really just the cherry on top. I (and probably many others) happen to have loads of RAM ‘left over’ since SU5. I don’t have that much SSD space left (256GB SSD) so for me the choice is easy. Got 20GB of RAM not doing anything, put it to work.
So I gave it a go today using ramdisk with MSFS rolling cache works great especially using 40gb for the rolling cache. I found using smaller number still meant stuff was having to reload in but this went away at 40gb. For me can’t say it improved performance or fps but it did stop things loading in and out so well worth it for me.
So I installed a 4GB RamDisk using imDisk, thanks for advice you made OP. 4300MB to be exact to be able to set 4GB in game. I immediately saw the benefit on the pop-in side, flying in VR and using the London discovery Tour. Pop in was nearly instant instead of dispatched on several frames. A very good improvement, at least it will allow me to wait for Devs to fix the problem. I selected than the Ramdisk is created at Windows boot, checked the AWE case; and it don’t take any time, so fully transparent.
I’m not sure if the trees in my case is placebo, but because scenery etc is faster back on screen it appears the trees rebuild happens earlier, not faster. But that is in my case. Allthough if things are able to happen faster, it will affect all other things as well ofcourse.
