RAMDISK for SWTOR (increased performance)

[exca]

Since it works kind of fine at my place after some testing and I have no news yet from Ocmer_, here's SWTOR Unleashed v2.0 :

EDIT : link removed (rather use 2.1 preview in a post below this one)

 

WARNING, if you try this out, be aware you're beta testing it. So don't expect it to be bug proof (even if I haven't come accross one yet). I will take no responsability for whatever happens, use it at your own risks (as I do ^^).

 

From my point of view though it should work a lot better than 1.3.0. The quit button put your game back in retail mode.

Edited April 15, 2012 by exca

[DiabloDoom]

Given how Windows utilises page files and works with virtual memory why would you want to put a page file into ram anyway ?

 

It wouldn't actually improve anything. As a rule, the more RAM you have by default, the less the system will use page filing. Using imgdisk or something similar to commit some of that RAM to a page file actually starves the system of resources.

 

Read here for more detail as to why its pointless to commit RAM to a page file.

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1193401/why-it-is-bad-to-store-the-page-file-on-a-ram-disk.

 

To your last point though, yes, if you have a large amount of spare RAM, you can reduce the size of the default paging file to a small amount in the windows settings.

 

And generally thanks to the OP for his work etc. This hasn't solved everything for me (still get FPS drops in warzones) but it has improved it noticably. Now we will wait to see if they have tweaked and improved on these problems in the main game client when patch 1.2 comes out tomorrow.

 

It says why I would want to in a post before that one. 32bit OS left me with 416mb unused ram. Why would I not want to use it?

[exca]

Swtor Unleashed 2.1 preview for those willing to help us debug it :

EDIT : link removed since I found a bug with settings conservation.

Edited April 15, 2012 by exca

[Dodosan]

I'm running into a slight problem. When i click launch swtor unleashed button the window dissapears so when i quit playing and i want to free the memory by clicking remove and click i need to restart the program and even then the button doesn't seem to do anything, the ramdisk drive is still there.

 

Ow and thanks for the great work!

Edited April 15, 2012 by Dodosan

[Ocmer_]

I'm running into a slight problem. When i click launch swtor unleashed button the window dissapears so when i quit playing and i want to free the memory by clicking remove and click i need to restart the program and even then the button doesn't seem to do anything, the ramdisk drive is still there.

 

Ow and thanks for the great work!

 

Ye it is a small bug that it does not remove the ramdisk at removing the setup.

Between gamesession (even between reboots) there is no need to remove the setup, you can leave it as setup and launch again next session.

 

To free/dismount ramdisk, use the dismount ramdisk button

Edited April 15, 2012 by Ocmer_

[Dodosan]

Hmmm it seems i can't find the unmount button in the app, or do you mean the unmount option of the imdisk app?

[Ocmer_]

Hmmm it seems i can't find the unmount button in the app, or do you mean the unmount option of the imdisk app?

 

If you use version 1.3 there are 2 huge buttons on the top "Launch Unleased" and "Dismount ramdisk". Launch will start the game and do the setup/mounting if needed, dismount will just remove the ramdisk to free memory. Remove only should be used when upgrading to a newer version of the program or you want to go back to retail SWTOR.

[exca]

Here's v2.2 preview for those wanting to test it. It works fine at my place :

EDIT : link removed, check 2.3 below

Edited April 15, 2012 by exca

[deathomight]

If you use version 1.3 there are 2 huge buttons on the top "Launch Unleased" and "Dismount ramdisk". Launch will start the game and do the setup/mounting if needed, dismount will just remove the ramdisk to free memory. Remove only should be used when upgrading to a newer version of the program or you want to go back to retail SWTOR.

 

I dunno I use it to change what is loaded into memory, once I finish a planet that isn't used for PVP i unload it and load the next, the entire process is faster than the load screens going back and forth with PVP and everything.

[exca]

After quite some tests, I'm quite confident with 2.2 as it is now. One of the changes include the fact that settings are stored within your SWTOR folder rather than local app, so if anything goes wrong (who knows), you will find your settings etc more easily.

[Kenshinth]

Tried 2.2 seems to have resetted all my ingame settings and my UI kept giving me a error about not being able to save.

 

*Update* Went back to 1.3.0 and did a repair to the client and everything is fine again.

Edited April 15, 2012 by Kenshinth

[Aesten]

After quite some tests, I'm quite confident with 2.2 as it is now. One of the changes include the fact that settings are stored within your SWTOR folder rather than local app, so if anything goes wrong (who knows), you will find your settings etc more easily.

 

I think something may be up with the moving settings from localapp to game location. The symlinks pop up with "location that doesn't exist" and such.

[exca]

If you want to use 2.2, you need to start it with the game in Retail mode.

 

It means you must first remove any 1.3 active setup or so, since 2.2 can't dismount 1.3 setup (it uses differents folders). I guess it's why you had an issue.

 

Try it again without any 1.3 active setup please and tell me if everything's ok or not. I tested several things and my settings a preserved fine going from unleashed to retail, vice versa, remove several times in a row the "active setup"... no issue so far, that's why I'm curious about your issue.

Edited April 15, 2012 by exca

[NasherUK]

TBH they should add an option for saving the cache file to ram instead of the hard disk. for systems with 6+ GB.

[Kenshinth]

If you want to use 2.2, you need to start it with the game in Retail mode.

 

It means you must first remove any 1.3 active setup or so, since 2.2 can't dismount 1.3 setup (it uses differents folders). I guess it's why you had an issue.

 

Try it again without any 1.3 active setup please and tell me if everything's ok or not. I tested several things and my settings a preserved fine going from unleashed to retail, vice versa, remove several times in a row the "active setup"... no issue so far, that's why I'm curious about your issue.

 

I removed 1.3 and launched it as retail first did all my settings then exited launched it with 2.2 and all settings resetted and my UI would still give out a error stating it could not be saved.

Edited April 15, 2012 by Kenshinth

[Jetgrindgarn]

So after a few attempts the only thing i seem to be able to check is AddDiskCacheArena to the ramdisk, if anything else is selected I get an error that says "Unhandled exception has occured in your application." etc etc

[exca]

... I'm clueless at the moment.

 

Can you tell me exactly what buttons you click, so I'll try it the exact same way?

 

And verify (and manually save somewhere just in case before testing) that this folder exist and contains your settings prior to lauching SWTOR Unleashed 2.2 :

 

C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings

 

If you settings aren't here, it may explain why it doesn't work properly.

Please tell me also what's your gamedirectory, how much RAM you have, what is the total ram you request with the program, ... and copy paste the content of the XML conf file.

 

Also, are you sure you installed the provided ImDiskInst.exe file (from february) and not an earlier version?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

EDIT : maybe I have a lead, it seems SWTOR folder in C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\ doesn't get deleted properly sometimes after settings are saved to your game folder and before creating the same SWTOR folder as link pointing to the ramdrive. Will look why this happens.

 

EDIT2 : in the mean time, you can get your settings back in 2.2 just by restarting the game in retail or doing "remove and quit". 2.2 should never delete your settings (even with the issue you had), they should be recoverable from the tool with the walkthrough I just gave. If you can test this too I'll be grateful.

 

EDIT3 : I think I have a fix for the issue. I'm just checking a little more and will push you 2.3. Thanks for your patience

Edited April 15, 2012 by exca

[exca]

Here's 2.3 (fixed switching all Directory.Move replaced with a custom Directory.Copy + Directory.Delete since the Dir Move doesn't seem to work well across different volumes) :

http://dl.free.fr/v9jQm2kkw

 

I was not encountering this bug since my game in on my C drive. This is indeed interesting I learnt in the process ^^

 

Also, I can save settings in game, no problem, i can switch retail/unleashed, I keep them. But still all in on C drive here. Tell me if it's ok even for multi drives computers like yours.

Edited April 16, 2012 by exca

[Jetgrindgarn]

I tried looking forfolder and instead of

 

"C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\ settings"

 

found my SWTOR is a shortcut folder that goes nowhere, there is a SWTOR_Original folder though.

 

I think I shouldn't bother though I got lost after that

Edited April 16, 2012 by Jetgrindgarn

[Ocmer_]

I tried looking forfolder and instead of

 

"C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\ settings"

 

found my SWTOR is a shortcut folder that goes nowhere, there is a SWTOR_Original folder though.

 

I think I shouldn't bother though I got lost after that

Well if the folder SWTOR_Original is not empty there should be your settings in. If you would remove the setup, then delete the folder SWTOR (in local) and rename the folder SWTOR_Original back to SWTOR you should have your settings back.

[exca]

I tried looking forfolder and instead of

 

"C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\ settings"

 

found my SWTOR is a shortcut folder that goes nowhere, there is a SWTOR_Original folder though.

 

I think I shouldn't bother though I got lost after that

 

To get your settings back : delete this SWTOR folder and rename SWTOR_Original to SWTOR.

 

This means your 1.3 didn't remove its setup, so 2.x couldn't work. (though there was a clear bug you found I fixed in 2.3).

 

Then you can try 2.3 preview I uploaded, it should hopefully make you happy.

 

EDIT : well Ocmer_ replied faster than I did lol ^^

 

EDIT 2 : going to bed

Edited April 16, 2012 by exca

[Jetgrindgarn]

back up and running, took a bit but the new version seems to have done it

 

EDIT/UPDATE: so new version is up and running, tried to enable the recommended for improvements on fleet and played worse than normal.

 

I'll try to enable different settings though, 2 guildies using and they have experienced improvements, probably just need some tweaking and hopefully they'll have some recommendations.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Jetgrindgarn

[exca]

Maybe it's an option we can add about the ram drive itself (unsure). We can create it ram only, or backep up with virtual memory. Actually I set it to ram only.

 

EDIT : i tried to remove some assets files from my ramdrive and got better performance..... strange The baseic fx + dynamic give me the best result for now.

Edited April 16, 2012 by exca

[Ocmer_]

SWTOR Unleashed v2.4

 

Owkee I did some testing aswell and found it stable enough to release it "officially".

 

Read in the Unleashed post about using arguments, so you users can create shortcuts to directly start the game in unleashed or retail mode. Also remove is possible, which also dismounts the ramdisk to free memory.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=3780118

Edited April 16, 2012 by Ocmer_

[exca]

I found an issue (and the way to fix it) with the calculation of the ramdrive size when a setup is already active (because it checks the file sizes to remove them when you uncheck assets and since assets are links, file size is near 0). Should be fixed tonight at most since it's an easy fix.

In the mean time you can remove your setup, then change the settings. Without links the calculations will be correct.

Edited April 16, 2012 by exca