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Help needed with RAMDisk: can't find/ create disk after soft reset.

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Hey everyone.

So last night I decided to use RAMDisk, and guess what: it worked like a charm.

After a soft-reset the RAMDisk was gone. (I know that that's normal, it's in your RAM..)

The problem is that I cant seem so to start RAMDisk again. When I start it, I cant find a optical drive under my computer. Tried restarting PC, restarting RAMDisk, everything. A google look-up did not help.

Is there anyone with a solution?

Thanks in advance,

WhatNow

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You should probably try other IT tech forums.

I highly doubt you'll get any useful information here regarding that.

Edited by bahhh

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Oh ye of little faith.

This is something I'd considered with my slow HDD but 8GB of fast RAM, your post prompted me to have a go. I suspect you're having a problem because it's colliding with your optical drive's letter at system startup so there are instructions on how to change the drive letter below.

I've just set up a 4GB RamDisk with the help of instructions I found here and here. I used DataRAM Ramdisk's freeware "personal use" version for a RamDisk up to 4GB in size which is automatically populated when logging into Windows.

After installing Dataram RamDisk, run the RAMDisk Configuration Utility from your start menu. I set mine to the maximum of 4092mb and selected a FAT32 partition. Start the Ramdisk by clicking the button. Leave this window open, we'll come back to it.

dayzram01.png

After the Ramdisk drivers have installed the drive should shows up in My Computer. Now would be a good time to format it however you'd like (I left mine as FAT32) and rename it to something more useful, e.g. "RAMDISK".

Now open up the Computer Management control panel (Start menu, Run command, "compmgmt.msc" or simply type "Computer Management" in the start menu search box).

Click on the "DIsk Management" snap-in on the left column. Right click on your Ramdisk, and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

dayzramdiskmanagement.png

Click on the drive letter, select "Change..." and pick a new drive letter, for example R: (for Ramdisk). It's a good idea to pick something far away from C:, D: and E: to allow some room to avoid other drive letter collisions; for example if you leave a USB disk plugged in at startup it'll be assigned the next available letter after your hard disk and optical drives.

dayzramdriveletter.png

Now populate your Ramdisk. I copied my @DayZ folder, and created another folder called @RAM. Create another folder called "addons" in the @RAM folder, this is where your PBO files will go. Don't forget to copy the corresponding BIKEYfiles along with your PBOs. I copied the following files into my R:\@RAM\addons\ folder:



structures.pbo 865 MB
buildings2.pbo 342 MB
plants2_Tree.pbo 341 MB
buildings.pbo 240 MB
characters.pbo 233 MB
misc.pbo 209 MB
chernarus_Data_Layers.pbo 208 MB
Roads2.pbo 181 MB
misc3.pbo 131 MB
ca.pbo 129 MB
water2.pbo 97.8 MB
chernarus.pbo 91.1 MB
plants2_Bush.pbo 82.9 MB
buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo 59.1 MB
chernarus_Data.pbo 52.5 MB
utes.pbo 49.5 MB
misc2.pbo 45.3 MB
signs2.pbo 37.8 MB
rocks2.pbo 33.8 MB
plants2_Clutter.pbo 33.4 MB
plants2_misc.pbo 19.6 MB
plants2_Plant.pbo 17.1 MB
water.pbo 11.1 MB
misc_fix.pbo 3.45 MB

These might not be optimal. I'll leave it for others to suggest the most frequently accessed PBO files DayZ uses, which would be most valuable to access from RAM. Most of these files were listed in the guide I linked to above.

Now go back to the RAMDisk Configuration Utility. Click on the "Load and Save" tab. Now that you've populated your ramdisk, click the button marked "Save Disk Image Now". The image will take a few moments to be saved to your C: drive.

N.B. I'm assuming you DON'T have an SSD as your Windows system disk. If you do, it would be better to change the image file location to a drive other than your system disk to prevent unecessary write-wear on the SSD when you save the ramdisk image.

Now check the box for "Load on Startup". Go to the File menu, and click "Save Settings". That's it.

dayzram02.png

You'll probably notice a delay in logging into windows as the Ramdisk will be populated with your saved disk image each time you boot.

Finally, you need to tell Arma where to get the files from. If you used R: for your ramdrive, change the -mod=@DayZ line in your program shortcut to -mod=R:\@RAM;R:\@DayZ

That should point Arma to the @DayZ and @RAM folders you created in the Ramdrive earlier.

When you update DayZ, you'll need to copy the @DayZ folder from your ARMA2OA to the ramdisk and manually save the Ramdisk image again. If you don't want to do that each time, don't bother copying the @DayZ folder to the ramdisk and just use -mod=R:\@RAM;@DayZ in your ARMA2 shortcut instead. In that case the DayZ code will be loaded from disk, the PBO files you copied will come from ram.

Most of the info I found relating to Ramdisks with Arma was a couple of years old at best and some notes indicated that the current beta patches reduce the need for this kind of setup. I noticed a modest decrease in load times and slight decrease in stuttering when moving into new areas of Chernarus. I'm not sure if I'll keep using it, but your mileage may be better.

tl;dr - Buy an SSD. They're getting cheap at around £70/$100 for 120gb.

Also check out Symbolic Links AKA Directory Junctions here, here and here. Probably be useful for both ramdisk and SSD users.

Good luck.

Edit: Spoiler tags are converting the images to clickable links instead of hiding them. Will maybe fix that in the morning.

Edited by tomfin
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Well, I tried your method and.... worked like a charm! :)

Thanks for the time you took to work it all out and writing it down here for me.

Too bad the change in FPS isnt that much with your pc, for me the FPS changes from ''slow'' to ''very smooth'', the difference is truly incredible here.

Your help is appreciated, would recommend this for a sticky for Dataram users.

WhatNow.

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Tomfin: That post deserves to be a sticky one atop the troubleshooting forum!

Well, I tried your method and.... worked like a charm! :)

Thanks for the time you took to work it all out and writing it down here...

...for me the FPS changes from ''slow'' to ''very smooth'', the difference is truly incredible here.

Your help is appreciated, would recommend this for a sticky for Dataram users.

I second the above! I gained 100-150% fps just from running the mod-folder from the RAMdisk...

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