x
This website is using cookies. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. More info. That's Fine
HPC:Factor Logo 
 
Latest Forum Activity

HP Jornada performance increase when installing software to RAM

netcat Page Icon Posted 2017-05-05 7:17 AM
#
Avatar image of netcat
Factorite (Junior)

Posts:
29
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Does someone ever noticed a performance increase when installing software to RAM? I got pretty much everything installed to CF to save RAM apart from RedGear and wondering if there would be an increase in performance when installing or starting some programs to or from RAM. How much faster is RAM compared to CF anyway?

Please let me know your thoughts.
 Top of the page
Rich Hawley Page Icon Posted 2017-05-05 9:44 AM
#
Avatar image of Rich Hawley
Global Moderator
H/PC Guru

Posts:
7,188
Location:
USA
Status:
I believe that once a program is "loaded," it makes no difference where it came from. The loading time may be slower if loaded off a slow CF card, but not significantly so.

I imagine if the application has a lot of read/write action during its operation, and it involves a memory card then you might notice a lag.

But I do the same with my MP900, use my CF card for program storage as I know that the web browser uses available ram for page buffering, and the more you have available...the better the web experience.

To be honest however, it probably makes no noticeable difference what you use, or what HPC you use. If you currently used a 2400 baud modem and I used 1200 baud modem...the guy with cable internet would consider us as in the same category....
 Top of the page
Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2017-05-05 1:30 PM
#
Avatar image of Alt Bass
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,169
Location:
Russia
Status:
It won't speed up your Jornada to load small execs from RAMdisk, it will take twice as much memory though.

It would be much wiser to enable FAT cache, it is disabled by default. It is done by setting either HKLM\system\storagemanager\FATFS\CacheSize:DWORD (cache in sectors for all FAT devices, should be power of two) or HKLM\system\storagemanager\Profiles\PCMCIA\CacheSize:DWORD (for CF/PCMCIA only). This improved by UX dramatically: even each time you list directories back and forth only one step there is lots of uncached access.

More info: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms885403.aspx (it is somewhat different for CE3 but I could not find it). Write-back cache is CE5+ only unfortunately.
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2017-05-05 4:28 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Quote
netcat - 2017-05-05 7:17 AM

Does someone ever noticed a performance increase when installing software to RAM? I got pretty much everything installed to CF to save RAM apart from RedGear and wondering if there would be an increase in performance when installing or starting some programs to or from RAM. How much faster is RAM compared to CF anyway?

Please let me know your thoughts.
The average H/PC is using very legacy technology, has no caching on the CF, doesn't support DMA and the bus speeds are restricted - i.e. everything to get sub-optimal performance. However 8-11MB/s would probably be about all you can expect. DRAM on the other hand. 1990's PC100 SDRAM has a theoretical max transfer of about 800MB/s, although again the clocks, bus, processor etc. are no where near that fast in a H/PC.
 Top of the page
Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2017-05-05 5:05 PM
#
Avatar image of Alt Bass
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,169
Location:
Russia
Status:
Quote
C:Amie - 2017-05-05 7:28 PM

has no caching on the CF,


Can't it be enabled?
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2017-05-05 9:10 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
I doubt it. Although I suppose that a CE5/6/7 device could support write behind caching. I would assume that some modern photographic CF cards probably have some sort of UDMA cache acceleration, hence in part why they can support higher write speeds. To my recollection though, ATA/PIO doesn't support it, you need a modern bus and DMA to actually get any benefit from it. Plus driver support, plus be brave enough to turn it on (there is a reason why it is off by default).
 Top of the page
Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2017-05-06 1:52 PM
#
Avatar image of Alt Bass
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,169
Location:
Russia
Status:
I know about DMA, it always blew my mind that CPU was at 100% load while reading anything.

I mean, are you sure that cache cannot be enabled on CE3? I did use it on Sig3 though.
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2017-05-07 9:04 AM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Of course it can; if the hardware and driver support it
 Top of the page
Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2017-05-08 9:50 PM
#
Avatar image of Alt Bass
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,169
Location:
Russia
Status:
The cache I am talking about is part of FAT support, check out the MSDN link. No driver support is needed.
 Top of the page
netcat Page Icon Posted 2017-05-09 8:26 AM
#
Avatar image of netcat
Factorite (Junior)

Posts:
29
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Quote
HKLM\system\storagemanager\FATFS\CacheSize:DWORD (cache in sectors for all FAT devices, should be power of two) or HKLM\system\storagemanager\Profiles\PCMCIA\CacheSize:DWORD (for CF/PCMCIA only).


What size do you recommend?


Edited by netcat 2017-05-09 8:27 AM
 Top of the page
Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2017-05-10 11:06 AM
#
Avatar image of Alt Bass
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,169
Location:
Russia
Status:
Even 2MiB cache would make a difference, that's 4096 sectors (512B ones). Also set EnableCache: REG_DWORD to 1.
 Top of the page
Jump to forum:
Seconds to generate: 0.156 - Cached queries : 68 - Executed queries : 9