Got ya well i was wanting to load faster so i could spawn in the jets and choppers etc. But since the whole game would be on the ram already why would you have to use anymore ram to play the game?? Just wondering. Also i was thinking of a ssd but the ram only cost $35 shipped so that was the cheaper way out. And since im a super broke college student this was the best way to get better load times.
Although the game would be in "ram", it is not in ram to be processed. It's merely in a section of the ram that you have set aside to act as a logical virtual drive. The OS still needs to load the data from the "virtual drive" to the available ram to allow the processor to do its thing.
However, because the data is already in ram on a virtual drive, it does indeed get loaded much faster into the available ram. You can see in this picture just what kind of speeds can be achieved from a ramdisk.
As has been pointed out though, BF3 is way too big for just a 16GiB motherboard. You would need at least 24GiB of ram (imo) to be able to have a ramdisk large enough for the game AND enough ram left over for the OS/running programs (including the game itself).
My personal experiences with running a ramdisk:
- Don't bother with a ramdisk if you are using a 32bit OS. Even with PAE mode and (some) ramdisk programs ability to access ram beyond the first 4GiB, its still a hassle, and has its limits.
- If your going to use that much ram in the first place, you really need a OS that can put it to use efficiently. If you're a Windows user, anything less then Windows 7 (even Vista) would not do a good job of managing your ram, nor of using it efficiently. (I have no experience with any other OS so cannot comment on others).
- As per the first 2 points, Windows 7 64bit would be your best bet to make best use of your ram, but keep in mind that Home Premium will only allow use of up to 16GiB of ram. Anymore then that, and you need to use Windows 7 Professional. (Stupid Microsoft )
- From my experience, it's best to just let Win7 manage the use of your ram (via Superfetch) instead of trying to make a huge ramdisk and loading a game onto it. I initially ran a 10GiB ramdisk, which left only 6GiB of available ram for the system (just like I had before) and didn't really notice much of any improvement on my day to day normal use of my system. However, once I reduced the ramdisk to just 6GiB, and left 10GiB of ram available for the system, I saw a major boost, even to my games. Windows 7 with Superfetch does a hell of a job making use of your ram and cacheing often accessed data, so everything (not just whats in the ramdisk) loads faster after Win7/Superfetch adjusts to your computer usage.
- A ramdisk is best used for folders/data which are read/written to often, AND are not that critcal. I'm currently using my 6GiB ramdisk as a temp/swap drive. I have a 1GiB swap file located on the ramdisk, as well as both the Windows temporary directories. Firefox's cache, my printer spool, and a couple of other programs temporary folder all goto the ramdisk too. If for whatever reason my computer crashes or fails to save the data from the ramdisk to my hard drive, its no big deal.
If after reading all that you still want to try a ramdisk, I'll put in my two cents on that as well and suggest
QSoft Ramdisk. It's not crippled in any way, in most reviews its one of the faster, if not fastest ramdisk software, and it will allow a number of options to save the ramdisk to your hard drive. Keep in mind, that with a ramdisk your boot up time (from shutdown or reboot) will be longer, especially if you have to load a image to the ramdisk first. Same problem with shutdowns, so using your computers "Sleep" mode is preferred if you want instant on/off of your PC.