RE: W2K RAMlimits

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

Sorry about calling you Bob earlier Robert.  I also accept that there are
others involved in the discussion; I just thought that I ought to let you
know my limitations since I felt that the post was directed primarily to my
comments despite its being available to others who might be more
knowledgable.

>I wasn't thinking in terms of a *physical* RAM-based disk drive, using
>RAM on a PCI-based card or something.

I thought that was the case; and neither was I when I originally responded.
When this alternative PCI based RAM disc was brought up, I have to admit
that the fact that it was PCI based and not motherboard-based seemed to pass
by me unnoticed until you just mentioned it.  The point you make regarding
it's use with Photoshop as a scratch disk is a good one.

With respect to " I was thinking about the OS using some amount of system
memory as a temporary filesystem," my earlier remarks pertaining to the
amounts of physical motherboard based RAM that a system can handle and costs
apply as you note.  While I am not as optimistic about large capacity RAM
chips becoming more readily available in the ordinary channels and at lower
prices even in the near future as you appear to be, it may be more the case
in the more distant future; but by then the whole system may be demanding
more access to motherboard based RAM so as to result in no net gain in
discretionary surpluses of RAM available for RAM disks of the sort you are
referring to.  At present, I think that the only professional image editing
which might be demanding enough to really need such an increase in speed in
data transmission would be those involved in movies, streaming video, and
the like.  I do not think that still images and image editing even on the
professional level is all that demanding at present or will be in the future
as to require the incremental speed up in data transmission that would be
provided.

However, I do have a question about another of your statements on this in
another post which I did not understand and would like clarification.  In
another of your posts dated the same as this one, 6/16/02, you say:
	If you really want to use a memory-based filesystem for
	application-level swapping performance, the right thing to do is to
	use some kind of RAM or virtual-memory based filesystem (in the latter
	case, use the smallest swap space you can, or even don't use any swap
	space if your OS allows it).
I do not understand the part that relates to the "virutal-memory based
filesystem," since that is already what all versions of Windows uses
currently and Photoshop utilizes in terms of scratch disks and whose
dissatisfaction served as the impetus for this discussion of RAM drives.
How is the "virutal-memory based filesystem" in your "use some kind of RAM
*or* virtual-memory based filesystem" an alterantive?  Moreover, in image
editing, the comment, "use the smallest swap space you can" is not very
useful since the smallest typically is quite large depending on the image
file sizes one uses and the application that one works in.  Photoshop
typically requires virtual memory of from 3 to 5 times the image file size
and many professional image files range from 50-125 MB.  Thus, one is
talking 150MB of virtual memory minimum to around 750MB at the highter end
per open image file within those files size ranges.  What did you have in
mind when you made that statement?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-epson-inkjet@leben.com
[mailto:owner-epson-inkjet@leben.com]On Behalf Of Robert L Krawitz
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 6:33 AM
To: epson-inkjet@leben.com
Cc: epson-inkjet@leben.com
Subject: Re: W2K RAMlimits


I wasn't thinking in terms of a *physical* RAM-based disk drive, using
RAM on a PCI-based card or something.  That's always going to be much
slower than using standard motherboard-based memory; PCI bus bandwidth
is usually only 133 MB/sec on PC motherboards and even 66 MHz, 64-bit
PCI is only 533 MB/sec.  I was thinking about the OS using some amount
of system memory as a temporary filesystem.

Granted, it's currently only server-based (and high-end workstation)
system boards that can go above 4 GB, but with the price of memory
being what it is, I can't see that staying the case for long.  I was
also thinking in terms of professional image editing.

--
Robert Krawitz <rlk@alum.mit.edu>      http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf@uunet.uu.net
Project lead for Gimp Print/stp --  http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton
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