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How does ready boost help with overall computer performance? Thank you
Marketpantry
Marketpantry
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Ready boost question(sorry dont know where else to put it)
- Thread starter marketpantry
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it allows you to use a usb key as virtual memory, flash memory is much faster than a traditional harddrive.
think along the lines of a ssd drive vs a regular drive.
think along the lines of a ssd drive vs a regular drive.
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Every review I saw said it is a waste of time anyway. Normal system memory is so cheap nowadays anyway...
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The primary advantage of using a memory stick for performance gain is its access time and read/write speed when dealing with small chunks of data.
By taking advantage of this, you stand to gain a significant improvement while doing the same thing. For example. If you browse the internet a lot, The DLL's, etc.. firefox uses will be temporarily stored on your readyboost device so they can be quickly accessed whenever needed. The bigger your memory stick, the more of these it can store, and theoretically, the faster it will be.
However, There is no real substitute for good old proper memory. You only really stand to gain a significant performance increase of a possible 20% if you have 1GB RAM or less, this is reduced to around 8-12% on 2GB systems, if that, and virtually zero gain with systems that have 4GB and above RAM.
It is important to remember that readyboost only speeds up programs that have previously been stored in its cache. The first time you start firefox it will more than likely be slower, but faster any other time until it is overwritten by another application you decide to frequently use.
Games do not benefit as far as i am aware, although i have read reports that state they do. It is possible for games such as half-life to gain a performance increase, since it has thousands of tiny files. But then again, If you meet the minimum spec, you wouldnt notice the difference anyway.
Having said all of this, i tried readyboost, and more times than not it created more problems than help. I wouldnt use it. I hope others manage to make more use of it than me.
By taking advantage of this, you stand to gain a significant improvement while doing the same thing. For example. If you browse the internet a lot, The DLL's, etc.. firefox uses will be temporarily stored on your readyboost device so they can be quickly accessed whenever needed. The bigger your memory stick, the more of these it can store, and theoretically, the faster it will be.
However, There is no real substitute for good old proper memory. You only really stand to gain a significant performance increase of a possible 20% if you have 1GB RAM or less, this is reduced to around 8-12% on 2GB systems, if that, and virtually zero gain with systems that have 4GB and above RAM.
It is important to remember that readyboost only speeds up programs that have previously been stored in its cache. The first time you start firefox it will more than likely be slower, but faster any other time until it is overwritten by another application you decide to frequently use.
Games do not benefit as far as i am aware, although i have read reports that state they do. It is possible for games such as half-life to gain a performance increase, since it has thousands of tiny files. But then again, If you meet the minimum spec, you wouldnt notice the difference anyway.
Having said all of this, i tried readyboost, and more times than not it created more problems than help. I wouldnt use it. I hope others manage to make more use of it than me.
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MR-FIX-IT
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And the funny thing is that they could not make Vista fast without it, like XP... Need another piece of hardware to make it seem faster. Ready boost is only good with drive 9MB/s or faster. I know many hard drives that blow that spec out the window...lol. Vista is so RAM hoggy, that I refuse to use it. RAM, CACHED, and FREE. Hardly ever see anything free, because the OS "needs" alot to run smoothly. 2gig and up. XP with 2gig would smoke it with the same hardware. Personally I think its an add on during the beta testing, as a repair of a hoggy OS. Sorry for the RANT.
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I personally think Vista was released too early. They could have done so much more with it, but were forced into it after mesing up so many release dates....
In my opinion, go 64bit - its the only way to make full use of your computer. COD4 dont support it, i know i know, but i dont think i have come across any other game i like that doesnt. Its more solid, more responsive, and lets face it, its the future!
In my opinion, go 64bit - its the only way to make full use of your computer. COD4 dont support it, i know i know, but i dont think i have come across any other game i like that doesnt. Its more solid, more responsive, and lets face it, its the future!
MR-FIX-IT
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More responsive? lol.. Not a chance.... Maybe if you have 16 gigs of RAM and the fastest SSD drive available, but if XP could support 4 gig of RAM, I'm sure it would beat it down..
Vista has proven to be (in some instances) to be 30% slower with the same hardware vs XP...
But that's not the question here. Ready boost supposedly speeds up an already slow OS...
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at the risk of threadjacking. i'll agree to differ 
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Sorry to thread jack but i would love to see some tests to back that up, maybe a year ago, but now a days, even in gaming the FPS difference has become almost irrelevant..... and what kind of hardware was that %30 done on......
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I played COD4 daily for 3 months+ on 64-bit Vista Ultimate...It works just fine.
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yup, CoD4 is new enough it works fine, heck, most games are
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I am not certain, but I think the reviews that I had seen claiming this were pretty much using the newest hardware at that time and doing nothing but switching hard drives. I am running a P4 with Vista Ultimate, and have no problems whatsoever with it being slow. Why don't we try comparing XP to 3.1 on something ancient like a P2? Why not do it with 32 MB RAM too? My point is, of course XP is going to run better on an E6600 with 512 MB RAM than Vista will. Also on my computer, with 74 processes running, only 42% of 2 gigs of RAM is in use. Sorry for the rant, I just can't understand why so many people are basing opinions on reviews of Vista from some less than reliable websites.
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Not to insult at all, but I think you are a little misguided MR-FIX-IT.
Back on topic. As others said, it can help if you have low amounts of RAM. OP, if you are referring the rig in your sig, I very much doubt you will see a difference.
EDIT: OP posted something while I was typing:
It isn't the sequential read speed that would speed it up, it would be the extremely fast seek times.
You see no free RAM because it actually uses it more efficiently by loading commonly used programs into RAM. After the OS is loaded, I click my Firefox icon and BAM, it is running. Open Outlook and BAM, it is running. Open WoW, it takes about 4 seconds or so (compared to the 10+ in XP mind you). I don't see how this is slower. At least Vista is using my RAM for something. I gave XP 64bit 8gb of RAM; it just sat there and looked at me stupidly.
Yes, more responsive. It loads my programs into RAM. When I run them, they are already in RAM and the HDD isn't touched...which greatly speeds up loading times.
I'm not touching this subject.
Back on topic. As others said, it can help if you have low amounts of RAM. OP, if you are referring the rig in your sig, I very much doubt you will see a difference.
EDIT: OP posted something while I was typing:
It is better because it can use more than 4gb of RAM. This helps you quite a bit in this case.
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oh rite! im sure i read on the back of the case it didnt work on x64... Or maybe it said not supported.. hmmm..
Either way you cant argue with fact!
Thanks for letting me know!
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That's one way of putting it. Glad you posted your reply before I did
Especially the bit about Vista being a RAM hog.. I dual boot XP 32 and Vista 64. Vista is way more responsive. XP just sits there with 2GB free RAM.
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I have 2 Questions revolving around this. First the majority of reviews are pre SP1 in which they improved Ready Boost Significantly. Second, most reviews have to do with Games, which usually will store in RAM and rarely use SWAP. When you play a game, you not only have your system memory but your video card memory to play with.
The problem I am having is that I am recording TV and also triing to play a BlueRay DVD. The RAM sits around 80% and the Hard Drive peaks, along with peeks on the CPU. This seems to happen and causes the jitters I experiance when playing some Blue Ray. I am upgrading to 4 gigs of RAM and hopefully changing to 64-Bit Vista, but I betcha on a system like mine, you would see a performance increase that surpass the cost of high speed RAM.
This is due to the assumption that I am using 3 processes that are writing to the hard drive and also require memory. I also assume that the software was not written to combind these activities all at once, so huge spikes in the needed amount of RAM will be needed. 2 Gigs is just not pulling it.
I would love to see upto date speed tests on FLASH RAM! But all reviews I see are a year or more older or use the many different flash memory that is not USB. I am curious as to what people think about it
The problem I am having is that I am recording TV and also triing to play a BlueRay DVD. The RAM sits around 80% and the Hard Drive peaks, along with peeks on the CPU. This seems to happen and causes the jitters I experiance when playing some Blue Ray. I am upgrading to 4 gigs of RAM and hopefully changing to 64-Bit Vista, but I betcha on a system like mine, you would see a performance increase that surpass the cost of high speed RAM.
This is due to the assumption that I am using 3 processes that are writing to the hard drive and also require memory. I also assume that the software was not written to combind these activities all at once, so huge spikes in the needed amount of RAM will be needed. 2 Gigs is just not pulling it.
I would love to see upto date speed tests on FLASH RAM! But all reviews I see are a year or more older or use the many different flash memory that is not USB. I am curious as to what people think about it
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I'll mention the article in October's Maximum PC. Even after SP1, Vista still doesn't stack up with XP, although it has closed the gap in a number of areas. It does quote MS people who seem to freely admit that there were several flaws in the release.
Greenjelly, the article doesn't mention Ready Boost, so I can't comment on it myself, except to say I haven't even bothered to try it yet.
Greenjelly, the article doesn't mention Ready Boost, so I can't comment on it myself, except to say I haven't even bothered to try it yet.
