BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

[barneythecarney]

Hello everyone, I have a problem and want to see if anyone has any ideas before giving up. Two weeks ago I bought a Gigabyte I-RAM RAMDISK with 4 1gig sticks of recomended RAM. I bought this in the hopes of loading BF2 on it and have my game and maps load extra quick. Well at first everything seemed fine untill a few days after loading BF2 my game would no longer run, I would get the BF2 splash screen but then it would just go back to desktop. So I formated the RAMDISK and reinstalled BF2 but again it worked for a day or so then I would get a memory sanity error about halfway thru loading any map. So I reinstalled BF2 one more time and again it worked for a little bit but then stoped working, I cant remember the issue because at this point I was so angry that the RAMDISK was not working properly.

So has anyone gotten one of the I-RAM RAMDISKS to work for an extended peirod? Or does anyone have any ideas I can try beofre I pack all this stuff up and send it back to Newegg? I realze that the 1.3 patch is very buggy and all my problems could be because of it but when I load BF2 onto my hard drive it works as normal except for the ocasional crash to desktop which is to be expected with 1.3.

By the way I am using this with a Gigabyte GA-K8U-939 motherboard.

Thanks in advanced for any help.

[Silent_Bob_]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

Issnt that thing battery bufferd? you might want to let your PC run for an extended amount of Time to make sure the Buffer Battery is fully loaded. If its not loaded the RAM will lose its Information stored in it while the PC is off.

[barneythecarney]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

It does have a battery backup which is supposed to last like 4 to 7 hours I think but I dont beleve this is the issue. The I-RAM pulls power thru an IDE slot so as long as I dont unplug my power supply the I-RAM will continue to be powered if the comp is on or not. Also after BF2 stoped working I looked into the BF2 directory on the RAMDISK and everything seemed to be in order (no missing files that I could tell).

[Silent_Bob_]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

Hmm the files my be there but they may have become corrupted due to a Information loss due to Power loss. That or one of the RAMs u installed are faulty.

Is your PSU good enough? I would say at least 400W is necessery to utilize that monster plus the other stuff u have.

€dit: U can try and dont shut down your PC over night just to Standby mode and test again if BF2 works ok.

[Heavy552 AWG]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

I researched this item, it is a hideously expensive device to me. If I used 4 Gigabytes of PC3200 RAM from Kingston Im looking about several hundred dollars plus the cost of the PCI card. I would go get a stack of Raptor 150's and RAID 0 the things first.

For that kind of money I damn well better load AND VERIFY INSTANTLY or very close to instantly.

That hardware cost is a bit extreme even for a 50 (no.. make that 100 dollar game that barely works well every time.) on top of already upgraded or newly built computers designed specifically to run this game with uber connections.

I also have another question as to the Throughput of the PCI interface. Would it be better to use one of the newer -E's or -X's availible today?

Seems to me there are a growing number of hard drives using "Flash" technology with non-moving parts and also the new Magnetic drives/RAM are coming soon.

1.3 is a very bad patch. It crashes alot of servers and clients.

Finally should I even consider this device to cut down on the loading/verifying times to less than say... 5 seconds?

[barneythecarney]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

I see where you are going with this but I dont think this is the problem, but I could be wrong. The power supply I have is 450w. From what you are saying is that the card loses power as soon as I shut my pc off which is not true...the only way it will lose power is to pull the power cord out of the power supply. The card has a button on it that when you press it shows the battery power by lighting up some LEDs. Everytime I have checked it it shows full power.

This card sits in an IDE slot but ONLY uses it for power...the card itself interfaces thu a SATA port.

Also as far as your pricing you are a bit off. Now this setup is far from cheap but not as expensive as you stated.

1 gig kingston DDR400 3200 - $83 each X4 $332

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141307

1 I-RAM - $125 each

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815168001

So everything for under $500
Worth it? Maybe
I am usually in a chopper and taking the first white flag before anyone eles has loaded in.

[Heavy552 AWG]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

Hmm. How long does it take you to load and finish verifying data with that peice of hardware?

The reason I ask is that I dont mind using computer hardware to gain an advantage in on-line play. To be among the first (And moving) in a map when the clock finishes the countdown is very important in BF2.

If most of the BF2 players used this device and most everyone dropped into the map and got moving we might all crash the now lagging servers... (**Lightbulb)

What happens if you put this device into a server, loaded a server version of BF2 and cracked the whip yelling "MUSH!" Would that server run faster to the clients?

HERE is the specifications from the Newegg website (VERY GOOD website for parts)

SpecificationsModel
Brand GIGABYTE
Model GC-RAMDISK
Specifications
Type SATA
Internal Connectors 1 x Serial ATA 150
Interface PCI
Transfer Rate Up to 150MB/s
Dimensions 8.7" x 4.1"


I point to the specifications for "Transfer Rate up to 150 mb/sec"

My hard drives give me between 95-110 Mb/sec what good is the extra 50 or so MB/sec?

[barneythecarney]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

I never actually timed it but it was very fast...I would say maybe half the time it used to take. I guess what I am going to do is put each stick of RAM in my mobo and run memtest on each one to see if I have a bad stick or something. Any Ideas?

[Heavy552 AWG]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

I never actually timed it but it was very fast...I would say maybe half the time it used to take. I guess what I am going to do is put each stick of RAM in my mobo and run memtest on each one to see if I have a bad stick or something. Any Ideas?

That is not a bad way to do it. It would be rather a project hunting for bad ram. But stop a minute...

If ram is the IRAM's drive space according to windows, you should have all of the RAM (Shown as a disk drive within windows.. NOT the system ram) capacity availible and shown in windows "My computer" with a hard drive space equal to the capacity of your ram. If the ram is bad or had problems inside that space would be less would it not?

BIOs counts availible memory at POST and mine should finish at 2048 (2 gigabyte of system ram) before proceeding into windows at boot on my machine, I have no reason to suspect bad ram at this time.

Here is a thread I remembered and dug up from the dead; you might find this useful:

http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72984

BIC writes:

I dowloaded a Hard disk spped test called HD Tach

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public...request=HdTach

What do you think?

[barneythecarney]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

Hmmm...i'm not quite following you. Just because a stick of RAM has gone bad does not mean that windows will not recognize it.

[Kapyong]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

From what you are saying is that the card loses power as soon as I shut my pc off which is not true...

Hmmm...

Normally,
when you turn the PC power off,
the IDE power cables will be turned OFF.

Why do you think otherwise?

Kapyong

[Cigar_Man]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

Hmmm...

Normally,
when you turn the PC power off,
the IDE power cables will be turned OFF.

Why do you think otherwise?

Kapyong

Though he said it connects to an IDE slot, he meant a PCI slot as another poster mentioned.

The PCI bus always has power to it, that is why you can fry your MB changing cards in the PCI slots if you do not disconnect your power cord (easly to ground).

Also, the device communicates with the system through a SATA cable, so it is acting as a SATA device but uses ram instead of a disk.

[barneythecarney]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

Yes you are right I ment to say PCI slot.

[[GU]LIZARD{GEN}]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

A single SATA 2 will run bf2 alot better then raptors raid0. I got a SATA and I am the first one in every server since I got it. Bf2 icon spins twice and im in.

[barneythecarney]

Re: BF2 and I-RAM RAMDISK

WTF are you talking about? SATA is just the interface..are you talking about SATA hard drives?