RAMCache II - Is it worth it?

[FDSage]

After quite a bit of Google searching, I can't seem to find a lot of info about this feature. This seems like the right place to ask.

I'm building a new PC and ordered an ASUS ROG Maximus IX Formula motherboard. As of right now, I'm still waiting for everything to arrive. While looking at the mobo's features, I noticed RAMCache II which claims it can speed up loading times.

What exactly does this DO? It caches data, but in what way? Do you choose which data to cache?
With 32GB of RAM, a lot of that can get wasted sometimes. If I can use more of that to reduce the time spent on loading screens, great.
Will this slow anything else down? Any other programs? Boot time? Anything at all? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using it?

I know that's a lot of questions. I just want to decide if using RAMCache II is right for me.
I would like to minimize load times as much as possible, but not at the cost of performance in any other area of my PC. I do more than game, too. I work with Adobe Premiere Pro and its performance is important to me.

Any feedback is appreciated.

[Hastin]

So the ASUS ROG comes with two programs, RAMDisk and RAMCache - each are different, but with some of the same ideas:

RAMCache - Set it and forget it! - Basically, set an amount, and you can either use Smart Mode, which will cache from various disks, or use Advanced Mode with a specific disk. Basically, as files are read from the disk, a custom device driver intercepts which files are read - and then caches them into RAM. I've noticed that games that I load often load a little quicker. It doesn't replace writing them to disk, only reading them. Safer option, one-click setup.

RamDisk - Lots of options and control - With RAMDisk, you're creating a specific amount of memory in RAM to an actual Disk Drive. You can then create a junction link to specific folders on the drive, and then sync them at will. Items are copied to, and work out of the RAMDisk, so if you lose power, you might lose data. However, if you shutdown properly, it copies the items from the RAMDisk to a .bak folder for backup, and then reloads them into RAM during startup (which may take some time). It's nice and worth playing with.

If you're looking for RAM-based caching, I think spending the time to configure RAMDisk is worth it, as you can target specific applications/folders to cache. In addition, you can sync them at anytime - there's more control. With RAMCache, you're at the will of the driver, and it seems to do a fairly good job, but you might see variances on loading time if it's decided to cache it or not.

[FDSage]

That info is very helpful. RAMDisk sounds like a pretty good program. I'll fiddle around with it when I can.
Thanks!

[Brighttail]

Hastin wrote:
So the ASUS ROG comes with two programs, RAMDisk and RAMCache - each are different, but with some of the same ideas:

RAMCache - Set it and forget it! - Basically, set an amount, and you can either use Smart Mode, which will cache from various disks, or use Advanced Mode with a specific disk. Basically, as files are read from the disk, a custom device driver intercepts which files are read - and then caches them into RAM. I've noticed that games that I load often load a little quicker. It doesn't replace writing them to disk, only reading them. Safer option, one-click setup.

RamDisk - Lots of options and control - With RAMDisk, you're creating a specific amount of memory in RAM to an actual Disk Drive. You can then create a junction link to specific folders on the drive, and then sync them at will. Items are copied to, and work out of the RAMDisk, so if you lose power, you might lose data. However, if you shutdown properly, it copies the items from the RAMDisk to a .bak folder for backup, and then reloads them into RAM during startup (which may take some time). It's nice and worth playing with.

If you're looking for RAM-based caching, I think spending the time to configure RAMDisk is worth it, as you can target specific applications/folders to cache. In addition, you can sync them at anytime - there's more control. With RAMCache, you're at the will of the driver, and it seems to do a fairly good job, but you might see variances on loading time if it's decided to cache it or not.

I have tried so many times to use RamDisk for my Steam games. I create the disk and the Junction to Steam > Steamapps > Common > (my game). I play no issues, loads up fine until the reboot. I then go to load up my game and it won't load at all. It is as if that game doesn't exist. I try to set it back up via the backup/restore and it still is FuBar'd. I have to reinstall Steam and my game to get it to work again. I have tried the AMD RamDisk and THAT actually has the ability to save anytime there is a change in the files. Works fine, but you have to set up the junctions manually using a DOS window, which is a lot of hassle and I've messed it up more than once.

Anyone know where I'm going wrong?

[brkkab123]

I've noticed on my pc that RamCache improves ssd's read/write sppeds. It does on my h.d.d., too.
I have RamCache, Samsung Magician w/RapidMode enabled.
My Samsung and Intel ssd speeds both oncreased with RamCache enabled. It's especially noticeable on the Intel ssd, as Intel SSD Toolbox doesn't have a RapidMode, like Samsung Magician does for Samsung ssd's
My WD B;ack's speeds increased alittle bit, too, but not as much as both ssd's did.

[fmkenner]

Do you have to have another SSD for cache? I had another Asus board that had software called SRT that required a ssd, cached the ram too.

[Korth]

Your Samsung 960EVO M.2/NVMe SSD is compatible with Samsung's RAPID Magician software. It does exactly the same thing that ASUS RamCache does, albeit implemented in somewhat different ways. Samsung designed their RAPID software and their embedded SSD controller RAPID firmware/architecture to complement each other, so it should be "optimized" to run better on Samsung hardware than a more generic counterpart like ASUS RAMCache.

I run a SATA RAID0 setup on 4 Samsung 850PRO SSDs. I've found that RAMCache and Magician offer very close performance but (at least for the kinds of data I move around) Magician is slightly faster overall. I also prefer Magician's greater array of user-configurable options and settings, though many people instead prefer greater simplicity and automation, a bit of a personal choice.

You might find it worth comparing Magician vs RAMCache on your machine, in the context of measured benchmarked performances and in the context of apparent real-world performances. You can run both together, in theory, but their functions overlap and they just divide available memory into needlessly smaller segments and they can possibly even conflict in some situations - my experiments running both simultaneously were unsatisfactory, performance (vs no caching software!) was so dramatically diminished that I didn't even bother with the benchmark tests.

ROG RAMDisk is a fine product, but again there are other RAM disk softwares available.

RAMDisk and RAMCache (or Magician) won't do you much good unless you have lots of physical memory, I'd say 16GB or more, but they're also pretty much the only way most people could actually utilize home systems with >16GB RAM. Note that Win7/8/10 and all (recent) linux operating system cores have reasonably efficient memory management - they aren't perfect by any means, but they do indeed free up unused memory or fill up available memory fairly well - so long as they have enough physical RAM available to run smoothly (ignoring official system requirements, your operating system will generally tend to bloat itself into occupying about 4GB-8GB of RAM).

[chiilin]

Korth wrote:
Your Samsung 960EVO M.2/NVMe SSD is compatible with Samsung's RAPID Magician software. ......

Did you mean to say "Your Samsung 960EVO M.2/NVMe SSD is NOT compatible with Samsung's RAPID Magician software?

Because it isn't. Neither is the 960 Pro M.2 NVMe. I have both:

[Brighttail]

I have Ramcache I with my x99 motherboard. Really sux that I can't use RamCache II. It looks like the difference is the "smart mode" which "Automatically caches all your storage devices at the same time for optimal use of your system‘s caching resources. "

So if you have multiple drives in use, like your Windows drive and a gaming drive it may give you some extra boost. Asus really needs to allow us to upgrade our software for previous motherboard versions. 😕

[RavVveN]

Please view my PC spec's below.

1st Question:
When using Ramcache software provided with the Rampage V Edition 10 mobo, How much DRAM cache should i allocate on my OS drive?
My Intel 750 PCIE 3.0 SSD is a 1.2TB drive.
In the Ramcache software the minimum is 100MB & max is 62000MB or 62GB's.
That Intel SSD is just for my OS. I don't ever plan on filling it up more then half if even that.
At the moment this drive only has 1.01TB free of 1.09TB. Used space: 79.0GB Free space: 101TB
I'b be just fine using all 62 GB's in the Ramcache if it benefits this PC. I mostly play hardcore PC games, Sony Vegas Video editing, and Internet.

2nd Question:
In the Ramcache software it has above the hdd window: Select Master Drive,
and below that it shows all hdd's the PC detects.
Is this Ramcache software only for your master drive? Can you allocate your other drives as well or is it not needed and thus can not be done anyway.

Thanks for any input ya'll!


Motherboard:
ROG RAMPAGE V EDITION 10
Processor:
Intel Core i7-6850K Processor (15M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) FC-LGA14A 3.6 6 BX80671I76850K
Memory:
G.SKILL TridentZ Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3400 (PC4 27200) Desktop Memory Model F4-3400C16Q2-64GTZKW
Graphics Card #1
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW2 GAMING iCX, 08G-P4-6686-KR, 8GB GDDR5X
Graphics Card #2
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW2 GAMING iCX, 08G-P4-6686-KR, 8GB GDDR5X
Sound Card:
ROG SupremeFX 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
Monitor:
Sony BRAVIA KDL60NX810 60-Inch 1080p 240 Hz 3D-Ready LED HDTV
Storage #1
OS-W10: Intel 750 Series AIC 1.2TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEDMW012T4X1
Storage #2
QTY (2) Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache 3.5-Inch Hard Disk Drive
CPU Cooler:
EK-FB ASUS R5-E10 Monoblock - Nickel
Case:
The Tower 900 Black
Power Supply:
EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 1600W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode
Keyboard:
G910 ORION SPARK RGB MECHANICAL GAMING KEYBOARD
Mouse:
G900 CHAOS SPECTRUM PROFESSIONAL-GRADE WIRED / WIRELESS GAMING MOUSE
Headset:
G933 ARTEMIS SPECTRUM AND ARTEMIS SPECTRUM SNOW WIRELESS 7.1 GAMING HEADSET
Mouse Pad:
G640 LARGE CLOTH GAMING MOUSE PAD
Headset/Speakers:
Logitech Z906 Surround Sound Speaker System Bundle with Bluetooth Audio Adapter
OS:
Microsoft Windows 10 Home Edition 64 Bit