VRprofessor Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I was just wondering what impact an SSD drive would have for caching and overall performance in SL. Any thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Brynner Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Personally i don't have any experience with SSD, but what i did read and understand about it is that they become slow when fragmented. The SL cache does cause fragmentation very fast. I would read about SSD if the above still could be a problem for latest SSD's as the technology evolves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 ssd will speed up loading textures alot faster, tho the gpu still needs to render it. There is 1 problem with ssd, they degrade when data is written onto the same place unlike normal hdd`s I`m using an old vertex2 ssd as cache/temp data storage for the sake of speed, even tho the odds of it degrading are 10 times faster then when using it for normal things. IF you want to use an ssd, i would strongly recommend using a small 30gig cheap vertex 1/vertex 2 ssd The vertex 3 series are for the sandybridge systems with +P69 controller that can run at the advertised speeds, not to mention that they are abit more expensive to use as a "dump" disc. If it would fail after an year, the costs are neglectable to replace it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer Boyle Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Alicia Sautereau wrote: ssd will speed up loading textures alot faster, tho the gpu still needs to render it. There is 1 problem with ssd, they degrade when data is written onto the same place unlike normal hdd`s I`m using an old vertex2 ssd as cache/temp data storage for the sake of speed, even tho the odds of it degrading are 10 times faster then when using it for normal things. IF you want to use an ssd, i would strongly recommend using a small 30gig cheap vertex 1/vertex 2 ssd The vertex 3 series are for the sandybridge systems with +P69 controller that can run at the advertised speeds, not to mention that they are abit more expensive to use as a "dump" disc. If it would fail after an year, the costs are neglectable to replace it That is an interesting idea. I think I will try putting the cache on a RAMdrive and seeing if it improves performance before buying another SSD, I tried that in the past, and it didn't help, but that was on a different, slower computer, and there may have been some other bottleneck that kept it from working. With a three year warranty, wearing out an SSD does not seem to be much of a concern to me. If it fails under warranty, I get a free replacement. After three years, technology will probably have advanced enough that I won't mind replacing it, and the replacement will probably be a lot cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenni Darkwatch Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 If you can do so and have the space... create a RAM disk, copy the cache to the RAM drive before launching SL and off the RAM drive when done. If you're on Linux by any chance, look into rsync for doing the copyback. It's faster. Like previous posters have said: Consumer SSDs still have issues with slowing down on fragmentation, and SLs cache is not very efficient anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 A word of warning regarding ramdisk The ram image has to be READ from the hdd into memory IF you have a slow HDD and/or MEMORY, you will see your windows start/shutdown times extend into the minutes (when auto load/save enabled) It does work fast when loaded, a trade off that every one has to decide for them selfs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VRprofessor Posted January 8, 2012 Author Share Posted January 8, 2012 I didn't even think of RAM drive. That should work great for me....if I can learn how to set one up. Anyone have some simple instructions or a link? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenni Darkwatch Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 Depends on the OS... what are you using? Windows? Mac? Linux? And what version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 8, 2012 Share Posted January 8, 2012 http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk G`nite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VRprofessor Posted January 8, 2012 Author Share Posted January 8, 2012 Alicia, thanks for the link. I'll be trying it out in the next few days. Jenni, in my case I am using 64bit Windows 7 on all of my computers, with varying amounts of installed RAM. I either have, or would be able to upgrade to, 8gb RAM in all impacted computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VRprofessor Posted January 8, 2012 Author Share Posted January 8, 2012 In searching I found another RAMdrive software: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk I am fiddling with both this and Ramdisk to see if I can set them up to work properly with SL cache files. (I know it CAN be done, the question is whether <b>I</b> will be able to figure it out. Wish me luck!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer Boyle Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 I have used the Dataram RAMdisk. It worked perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloo Uriza Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Linda Brynner wrote: Personally i don't have any experience with SSD, but what i did read and understand about it is that they become slow when fragmented. Not sure why that would be, though that can be readily circumvented by avoiding NTFS and VFAT filesystems and using a smarter filesystem like ext4 that doesn't suffer from fragmentation anywhere near as bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloo Uriza Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Unless you're using a particularly ancient operating system or an operating system that handles filesystem caching especially poorly, you're not going to see any significant difference using a RAM drive for your SL cache versus letting the filesystem handler do it's job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Solo Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 I would just spend whatever money you choose to spend on buying more RAM and then let the operating system's disk-caching system do its job. The SSD will make your system boot faster. It will make things load faster the first time, but since SL gets most of its data over the internet, you won't get as much improvement as--say--those running local-disk based games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Solo Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Baloo Uriza wrote: Unless you're using a particularly ancient operating system or an operating system that handles filesystem caching especially poorly, you're not going to see any significant difference using a RAM drive for your SL cache versus letting the filesystem handler do it's job. I second that opinion. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenni Darkwatch Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Try running the cache from a RAM disk (or even from an SSD) and form your own opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloo Uriza Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Jenni Darkwatch wrote: Try running the cache from a RAM disk (or even from an SSD) and form your own opinion. Be sure to actually measure the results, or you may form the incorrect opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenni Darkwatch Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Been there done that on different OSes. For me, it made a big difference. Maybe for you it makes none. Hell if I know, or care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloo Uriza Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Jenni Darkwatch wrote: Been there done that on different OSes. For me, it made a big difference. Maybe for you it makes none. Hell if I know, or care. I'm pretty sure if you actually quantitatively measured the results, it wouldn't. Or you're using something truly ancient for an OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Wrong, once it`s download, it`s store in the cache. If you set 10gig cahce, you can go to all your fav places and wait for it to load, when you return to that spot later on, the textures are loaded almost instantly and only the gpu needs to render them. Getting more ram is pointless when not running 64bit, and even then, after 14 hour ingame session with building/texturing/shopping/clubbing, sl still doesn`t use more then 1.7gig of ram. I have 16gig installed running at 2133mhz, all cached places render within seconds from an vertex 2. Experimented with ramdisk and that was a dissaster because it has to load 4gig into memory at once instead of loading indivudual textures from an ssd, the rendering time was exactly the same as that is the job of the gpu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Solo Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Alicia Sautereau wrote: Wrong, once it`s download, it`s store in the cache. Mmmm grasshopper. You are on the right track when you start thinking about caches. Think about disk cacheing some more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laatab Langsdorff Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I experimented with the cache on a SSD versus a fast HDD (velocorapter). The SSD was faster as you expect but not so much that it would be worth the wear and tear. It was a sata 6 SSD too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 No point with a throw away vertex 2 and cache set to ~10gig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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