[HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

[Rion_Starkiller]

And why do we need so much for OS and applications?

 

I'm not sure, but perhaps he assumes that your paging file is 0 (as it should be when you have that much RAM), that your Windows settings are set to "Best Appearance," Windows Aero is ON, and that you will alt-tab during the game to your browser -- which will always be running. Perhaps you even have some iTunes playing.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Rion_Starkiller

[bcrosbie]

Worked on this a bit last night and don't think I have working quite right. The "T" drive size didn't increase over the time I played. I'm sure it's an issue on my end.

 

My question is how do we go back to factory settings? Removal of links, etc? I apologize if I missed the answer to this along the way.

[Lemon_King]

I'm not sure, but perhaps he assumes that your paging file is 0 (as it should be when you have that much RAM), that your Windows settings are set to "Best Appearance," Windows Aero is ON, and that you will alt-tab during the game to your browser -- which will always be running. Perhaps you even have some iTunes playing.

 

Some people multitask more than others.

 

and

 

Could you elaborate a little bit more on what DCA/S/B setup is? And why do we need so much for OS and applications?

DCA/S/B = DiskCacheArena / Stream / Buffer files

As for OS & Application, thats because you can never really predict what the user may be running beyond the game.

 

Worked on this a bit last night and don't think I have working quite right. The "T" drive size didn't increase over the time I played. I'm sure it's an issue on my end.

 

My question is how do we go back to factory settings? Removal of links, etc? I apologize if I missed the answer to this along the way.

Delete the Junctions and rename SWTOR_Backup to SWTOR in Local. Edited January 25, 2012 by Lemon_King

[JaggedOne]

Thanks for the info !!!

[ArnoDajon]

Right you are, and probably because of the way the tokens are calculated. I installed mine to e:\swtor so I never noticed that in testing. Thanks, I'll take a look when I get home this evening. Until then the workaround you've posted is correct but I expect you'll need "" around the path since it contains spaces:

 

SET installloc="C:\Program Files(x86)\Star Wars-The Old Republic"

 

Ok, it was burning my brain, these lines should do it:

 

for /F "skip=2 tokens=3,*" %%i in ('reg query "hklm\software\bioware\star wars-the old republic" /v "Install Dir"') do set installloc32=%%j
for /F "skip=2 tokens=3,*" %%i in ('reg query "hklm\software\wow6432node\bioware\star wars-the old republic" /v "Install Dir"') do set installloc64=%%j

 

I'll test this later when I have access to the game.

 

 

Had the same problem, your fix worked fine thanks.

 

and thanks to the op and the person who came up with the "all in one" batch file

[unclekaula]

Using the commands in the first post, all the settings saved and worked fine until I restarted my computer. Now anytime I exit the game, I lose all my graphic and UI settings. I noticed others were having the same problem, did you guys get it resolved?

[PHInnocent]

This!

 

A MILLION TIMES THIS!

 

The game is entirely new experience, THIS MODERATORS!

 

STICKY IT!

[ArnoDajon]

Using the commands in the first post, all the settings saved and worked fine until I restarted my computer. Now anytime I exit the game, I lose all my graphic and UI settings. I noticed others were having the same problem, did you guys get it resolved?

 

Looks like it (I don't have the issue so I cannot confirm this will work)

 

=> http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=2135445

[mrkitethreeeight]

Had the same problem, your fix worked fine thanks.

 

and thanks to the op and the person who came up with the "all in one" batch file

 

Thanks for checking those lines, updated my original batch file post.

[Urko]

This!

 

A MILLION TIMES THIS!

 

The game is entirely new experience, THIS MODERATORS!

 

STICKY IT!

 

I feel this is proving the game uses far more memory than the developers say.

 

As clever as this "fix" is , players SHOULDNT* have to do all this for decent performance IF they have the recommended specs.

 

*NB:- i have 8 gig also and will try, just for the sake of it.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Urko

[Astralll]

I have a G73 Asus laptop with 8 GBS of Ram W7 64bit and will try this tonight. I also have a desktop with 16gbs of ram and will also try this on that box. Then I'll post my results.

[cooLLedge]

i was never stuttering or lagging anyway but thought it would increase the load time between planets but it doesnt

 

anyone tell me how to reverse it, is it just a case of removing the ramdrive app?

[mrkitethreeeight]

I feel this is proving the game uses far more memory than the developers say.

 

As clever as this "fix" is , players SHOULDNT* have to do all this for decent performance IF they have the recommended specs.

 

*NB:- i have 8 gig also and will try, just for the sake of it.

 

I disagree about what it proves. I think it just proves poor design. Why would you have the app load data from disk, then cache it back to disk just to read it again? All we're doing is turning that poor design into something that makes the game perform better. None of us have enough ram to cache the whole assets folder, but since they made these silly intermediary files we have this clever enhancement.

 

I definitely agree that it shouldn't be necessary.

[Lemon_King]

i was never stuttering or lagging anyway but thought it would increase the load time between planets but it doesnt

 

anyone tell me how to reverse it, is it just a case of removing the ramdrive app?

 

Delete the Junction in Local, and delete the DiskCacheArena junction in ..\Star Wars-The Old Republic\SWTOR\

If you renamed the original SWTOR folder in Local, rename it to SWTOR.

[cooLLedge]

Delete the Junction in Local, and delete the DiskCacheArena junction in ..\Star Wars-The Old Republic\SWTOR\

If you renamed the original SWTOR folder in Local, rename it to SWTOR.

 

thats exactly what i've done already, thanks for the reply though, appreciate knowing i've done it correctly!

[Zyllos]

That is extremely interesting that BW is caching stuff back into slower disk space instead of using faster system space.

 

I will give this a try once I get home. I do not have any problems running this game but would be nice to get as much as possible out of what hardware I have.

[Lemon_King]

That is extremely interesting that BW is caching stuff back into slower disk space instead of using faster system space.

 

I will give this a try once I get home. I do not have any problems running this game but would be nice to get as much as possible out of what hardware I have.

 

Its more or less an extended version of the LRC from Hero Engine, setup to work with BWA's Archive Format.

http://wiki.heroengine.com/wiki/Local_Repository_Cache

Edited January 27, 2012 by Lemon_King

[Orfens]

i will try to put all file in a 21 go ramdrive ,including DiskcacheArena

, i hope 21 go will be enough , that s all i can have atm.

i just get enough ram to do that i will back to forum to inform you if it work better

[SirSlayAlot]

Question:

 

I have a normal Sata3 with everything installed on it, Windows, games, programs, but have setup a 64gb SSD drive to act as the cache inbetween my system and my Sata3 HDD.

 

I'm assuming this RamDrive does the same thing? Just with memory?

[Orfens]

ok then , i had some problem setting the 24 go , nvm i will stay with lemon 's tweak.

 

but just to know , do you guys have a :

 

1/ Diskcachearena 1go file who is modified at start ( for example 6h12 ) and after 30 min playing no modif on it ( it still notice : 6h12 last modified).

 

2/ On the T:\swtor\swtor\ there is 2 files of 0 ko stream and static + a link (junction) for setting .

 

3/ On the intall location : C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\swtor , the diskcachearena link (junction)

 

 

all is correct ?

 

offtopic : is it possible to make some junction for asset , like art / gfx / etc ? , i tried one , game lauch but without some textures^^ .

[LaPilesos]

Hello,

just to point some things :

1. It's works wonders - and i really curious that BW doesnt use accesible memory as cache for his own engine. If it bearable and doable with simple RamDrive - it would be 2 times more effectiv if they implement caching as their own process.

2. Batch file is good but missing some things:

i think - in order to confirm proper link to settings from T: there should be If EXIST check for T:\SWTOR\swtor\settings\anyini.ini. I have had situation where links was not properly estabilished. Doesn't tested it at full degree - but looks like some timing problem.

 

And common things that improve load times alot:

Don't forget to turn AV checks/ru time guard on main intallation directory and ramdrive as whole off. Some AV engines are horrible if they should check huge files on the fly.

Edited January 27, 2012 by LaPilesos

[PHInnocent]

Hello,

just to point some things :

1. It's works wonders - and i really curious that BW doesnt use accesible memory as cache for his own engine. If it bearable and doable with simple RamDrive - it would be 2 times more effectiv if they implement caching as their own process.

2. Batch file is good but missing some things:

i think - in order to confirm proper link to settings from T: there should be If EXIST check for T:\SWTOR\swtor\settings\anyini.ini. I have had situation where links was not properly estabilished. Doesn't tested it at full degree - but looks like some timing problem.

 

And common things that improve load times alot:

Don't forget to turn AV checks/ru time guard on main intallation directory and ramdrive as whole off. Some AV engines are horrible if they should check huge files on the fly.

Of course you should have sanity checks when you're building proper scripts, but I'm perfectly happy with the quick and dirty version here.

 

Btw, I didn't put anything to startup but pointed the shortcut to start the batch file that silently creates the RAM-drive, creates the symlinks, starts launcher.exe and exits. Then I changed the icon to SW:ToR launcher icon and now it looks on desktop like nothing has changed form the original setup.

 

I did check the size of the cache-file from time to time and it did change a little (didn't check the timestamp, but size).

[TobKilla]

I will try that

[Dyaheon]

Definitely trying this, some use for my 18GB RAM.

 

However, as I'm cruising around the fleet, it is not only the DiskCache files that are getting hit obviously. As I don't have enough RAM to fit whole assets folder in RAM, I wonder if it would be possible to just put some commonly used files from the assets folder (in addition to the disk cache ones obviously) to the RAM drive, such as Warzones, fleet, Ilum, Operations, player models etc etc., while leaving the large and rarely visited (from a lvl50 perspective) leveling planets assets as is?

 

Here's an example of what gets read while speeding around the fleet: http://i.imgur.com/b9GbP.png

 

EDIT: Actually, the OP apparently has a command for just that, linking single files. Will have to figure out if I could make use of it

Edited January 27, 2012 by Dyaheon

[LaPilesos]

Does anyone tested SuperChache or O&O CleverCache 7 or Ebooster? Will be there gains for stream files? Chache usually is much eaysier to setup as customized RAMDISK+HARDLINKS - probably people will appericate this if it's too hard to get RAMdisk running?