I've been playing around with RAM disks on and off for almost two years now, and this just confirms my previous experiences. Cache folders can be loaded to RAM, thus making the use of large data warehouses faster - for example, image libraries with lots of thumbnails. I can see some usage for power users though, because of the file synchronization function. There is also very nice free GUI application for creating symbolic links, removing any need to mess with command line. If you are considering buying it, try a free RAM disk application first to see if you gain any improvement in your games. Considering the rather high price-tag of 28€/$29/£23, I certainly would not recommend purchasing it at full price. For more advanced usage the developer offers thorough video guides on their YouTube channel.ĭimmdrive offers much better read/write speeds than any SSD, but testing didn't show any major load time improvements compared to ordinary SSDs. Using the app itself is pleasant, as the GUI is clean, and every function is easily accessible. ![]() With a simple drag and drop to the Dimmdrive window, the application imported the game and I was able to use it without issue, as it showed up in the GAMES tab. Importing a game's folder to the APP tab worked flawlessly though. However, Dimmdrive instead relies on the config.vdf file found within the config folder to find Steam games so deleting this file would probably solve the issue, but I wasn't keen on messing with my Steam installation. I don't have my Steam installation in the default C:\ location, but Steam has correct registry entries for its placement on my F:\ drive. The Steam integration of Dimmdrive application failed for me completely, as it found only one game, and to add to that, incorrectly. The loading times for Stalker: Call of Pripyat scales perfectly on different storage speeds, and the story is similar with Crysis and Civilization. Older and PC exclusive titles are a different story. I have no idea what kind of sorcery or black magic developers used for this game, but it is incredible. The Bioshock: Infinite loading time from a USB drive is absolutely astonishing, as it is only 4 seconds slower than a RAM drive. I suspect this is mostly because of the multi-platform nature of these games, as the previous console generation had little RAM and slow HDD/DVD/BD storage, requiring games to be a lot better at data loading optimisation. I was most surprised that the newer games were not very susceptible to drive speeds, and even using from older mechanical HDD, the loading times weren't bad at all. For Crysis, Civilization V, Bioshock: Infinite and Splinter Cell: Blacklist the loading times on the RAM disk are practically the same as from an SSD, and only Stalker: Call of Prypiat loaded 7 seconds faster from the RAM drive. SSD offers an impressively large improvement, but surprisingly, the RAM disk fails to give any significant gains in all but one game. In order to prevent the Windows Prefetch system from skewing the results, every game was tested only once, then the system was fully restarted and games were transferred to a different drive and tested again.Īs expected the USB HDD had the slowest load times, followed by 1 TB mechanical HDD. ![]() Measured times are based on loading save games, using a stopwatch. A selection of games available on Steam was used to test load times on different storage solutions. Testing was done on a system with an Intel Core i7-2700k clocked to 4.5 GHz and 32 GB of RAM 1333 MHz. Applications that will access the data through such symbolic links are going to be unaware of it, seeing the files at their original location. In essence, it is a shortcut to the folders and files at the file system level. So, how does it work? Dimmdrive creates virtual RAM disk and then it uses the Windows implementation of the NTFS symbolic link function to create a virtual directory on your physical disk that links to the real files and folders inside the RAM disk. File synchronization and other features are also used on data added this way. Importing other content is as simple as drag and dropping it into the main window. Additionally, Dimmdrive also can be used with any applications and folders.
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