wow on RAMdrive

[Michellangelo]

Hello,
I have 24 GB of RAM, so I created 20 GB RAMdrive and played WOTLK content on my ultramega fast drive . But now i have problem, because CATA added another 6 GB of necessary data - 23,5 GB is too much for my RAMdrive.. Bcoz all MPQ files are basicly compressed, i can´t load it now from RAMdrive .
Someone told me, in DATA folder are some files with old world data - before CATA changes (old Kalimdor etc.) and they´re not necessary for Playing wow. Is it true?. Is any option how to reduce wow folder under 20 GB ?

[patrick51]

Originally Posted by Michellangelo Hello, I have 24 GB of RAM, so I created 20 GB RAMdrive and played WOTLK content on my ultramega fast drive . But now i have problem, because CATA added another 6 GB of necessary data - 23,5 GB is too much for my RAMdrive.. Bcoz all MPQ files are basicly compressed, i can´t load it now from RAMdrive . Someone told me, in DATA folder are some files with old world data - before CATA changes (old Kalimdor etc.) and they´re not necessary for Playing wow. Is it true?. Is any option how to reduce wow folder under 20 GB ?

One of the patchs removed all the old files, So all the data in your folder is current, You can delete some of it but it will just redown load it and when you fill up your ram drive the game will crash. So either play it on your HD or get a SSD

[Michellangelo]

I have SSD HDD, but this solution is slower than RAMdrive. Thats why i bought 24 GB RAM for RAMdrive.

[henrik_s]

Two SSDs in raid 0 might be a decent compromise.

[karmamuscle]

You could try an ioDrive if your wallet allows it.

[Michellangelo]

well, for 2 SSD is raid controller needed - raid controller + 1 more SSD HDD - and thats same solution like SSD for PCI-e. My SSD has read speed around 270 MB/s - in raid it will be around 500 MB/s...my RAM drive has 6GB/s. In many applications you can´t see difference, but you can see it in wow - loading scenes, porting to other locations, loading dungeons etc...+ i have already 24 GB of RAM, i don ´t wanna spent 600 euros for "nothing" :P

[karmamuscle]

Then you could get a new motherboard and throw in some more RAM.

An example could be the Intel DX58SO2, it supports 48GB RAM

[patrick51]

[quote=Michellangelo;225758]I have SSD HDD, but this solution is slower than RAMdrive. Thats why i bought 24 GB RAM for RAMdrive. [/Q

I hate to burst your bubble but once wow is loaded you cant tell the difrence between a ram drive and SSD. A SSD's read speed is up to 500 megs a second . A ram drive is not instantaious it has a maxium speed of about 1 gig a second.When you load a dungeon or a zone you are tranfering a very small amount of data between your hD and the computer between 100 and 200 megs of data. so a ssd would load it in 1/5ths of a second and a ramdrive 1/10th of a second, A human being can not tell the diffrence between 100 miliseconds and 200 miliseconds.

Sources Tweaks .com
http://tweaks.com/articles/42415/spe...h-a-ram-drive/

[ricks322]

I tested by removing "everything" that is not needed and the current Warcraft directory is 22 GB. Of course that means no addons, saved var, and such. If you use auction addon's, and others your saved var directory can get to 100 MB easily.

And with 4.0.6, and 4.1 comming soon the size will only increase.

But as pointed out earler, the major improvment with using RAM is an increase in loading the game from start. In game play you are not going to be able to notice any increase.

[Xinhuan]

Couldn't you compromise by copying 20 gb of WoW to your RAM (exclude some 2 gb file), and symlink the last 2 gb back to the actual SSD?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link

[patrick51]

Originally Posted by Xinhuan Couldn't you compromise by copying 20 gb of WoW to your RAM (exclude some 2 gb file), and symlink the last 2 gb back to the actual SSD? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link

wont work that way all the files have to be in teh same directory, so leaving 2 gigs of files off would make it crash.

[patrick51]

Originally Posted by ricks322 I tested by removing "everything" that is not needed and the current Warcraft directory is 22 GB. Of course that means no addons, saved var, and such. If you use auction addon's, and others your saved var directory can get to 100 MB easily. And with 4.0.6, and 4.1 comming soon the size will only increase. But as pointed out earler, the major improvment with using RAM is an increase in loading the game from start. In game play you are not going to be able to notice any increase.

And to use a ram disk you have to copy 20 + gigs of files to the ram disk so in the big picture your not saving your self any time at all.

[ricks322]

Originally Posted by patrick51 wont work that way all the files have to be in teh same directory, so leaving 2 gigs of files off would make it crash.

Not with symlinks, you could have files or directories in another location. But since the data directory is the large one almost 22 GB just by itself, you are not really saving anything.

[Xinhuan]

Originally Posted by patrick51 wont work that way all the files have to be in teh same directory, so leaving 2 gigs of files off would make it crash.

I'm fairly sure symlinks work with individual files, not just directories.

[Taryble]

They do work for individual files - my MyMedia.lua file is kept outside of the Addons folder completely, but is linked into my SharedMedia folder.

[gfxamk]

Originally Posted by Taryble They do work for individual files - my MyMedia.lua file is kept outside of the Addons folder completely, but is linked into my SharedMedia folder.

so your saying i could keep my ui and wtf seperate from my wow folder?

maybe on an external drive?

[Nobgul]

I have all my my addon folders on a NAS and i just share them across the network. No matter what pc i am using i never have to change folders.

[gfxamk]

are there any speed problems by that method?

[Nobgul]

Not that I have seen. I am on a gigabit wired network on most of the pc's a few are wireless and even those don't have issues. Truth be told I ran wow from a Networked pc for a long time. Would have 4 of us playing wow from 1 computer over the network.

[acapela]

Originally Posted by henrik_s Two SSDs in raid 0 might be a decent compromise.

i can vouch for this. agreed, not as fast as a ram-drive. but way way faster than conventional magnetic storage. my whole system is significantly faster (starting up WoW, loading all my addons, and etc, is just one of the benefits). i don't start up WoW often enough to want to jump through additional hoops.