Speed-up Sketchup with RAMDisk ?

derei · 20 Nov 2015, 21:18

Hy, I'm trying to speed-up a bit SketchUp, especially loading speed by using a RAMDisk. I have configured a RAMDisk of 3GB.

I moved my Plugins Folder on the RAMDisk and I made a symbolic link in its usual place. For some reason, symlink doesn't seem to work. SU loaded with no error, but without plugins too. Smart Copy worked and Symbolic Link Clone also worked (I didn't completely understood the complexity of this mechanism)

With Plugins on my SSD drive, loading time was 11.33s
From RAMDisk, the loading time was 5.88s

Maybe some of you which also tried this, or have better understanding/more experience, could provide more details, some suggestions.

Which files I could also move to RAMDisk, from sketchup, to increase its performance?

EDIT
I forgot to mention that RAMisk is backed-up on shutdown and loaded again on startup... so technically no information is lost (except if BSOD). I am just saying this in the eventuality of negative ideas concerning volatile nature of RAM

EDIT 2
Further testing shown me that is actually no difference if I move plugins on ramdisk... the only speed difference was between first load (after boot) and next loads.. i assume windows keeps those files "at reach" after the first accessing.

So, still open to suggestions if SU could really benefit of a RAMDisk.
Thanks.

pedrinalex · 20 Nov 2015, 23:55

Do you know mklink ??

I use this combination

RamDisk and mklink.

Yo must made a backup of your information. If you haven't a nonbreak.

Regards

Pedro

derei · 21 Nov 2015, 00:39

@pedrinalex said:

Do you know mklink ??

I use this combination

RamDisk and mklink.

Yo must made a backup of your information. If you haven't a nonbreak.

Regards

Pedro

Yes, I know. This is how I actually do the symlinks or the junctions (hard-links). I was just saying that I don't fully understand the mechanism behind this, to be able to decide which is best for this particular situation.

And as i said in my post:

I already set up a 3GB RAMDisk
RAMDisk is set to save image on shutdown

The issue is now to know which files are using the most I/O on my drives, which could benefit of the fast access.

I tried with plugins folder, assuming that it takes long to parse all of them and interpret before US launches... but from my tests I observed that there was no significant speed-up.
First time when you open SU after windows start it loads slower, but the next runs are almost twice faster. And with the plugins in RAMDisk was exactly the same.

I am thinking to put my Models folder in there, to speed-up the Autosave process. (Of course i won't actually keep my models in there, i suppose...is just to make SU to save in there).

What is your configuration? What do you keep in ramdisk ? Does really improve your SU speed?

slbaumgartner · 21 Nov 2015, 13:03

Most OS's cache file data in RAM after each read. Some even anticipate by reading ahead when you start loading a file. So, unless you are running short of RAM or reading enough data to overfill the cache, a second read of the same file comes from the cache not the hard disk. Until you reboot or wait long enough for something else to fill the cache, a second load of the same files will go much faster than the first. This effect may be causing confusing results for you, as the RAM cache will be the same speed as your RAM disk. That is, the RAM disk will cause faster load the first time, but not necessarily on subsequent launches.

derei · 21 Nov 2015, 14:49

@slbaumgartner said:

Most OS's cache file data in RAM after each read. Some even anticipate by reading ahead when you start loading a file. So, unless you are running short of RAM or reading enough data to overfill the cache, a second read of the same file comes from the cache not the hard disk. Until you reboot or wait long enough for something else to fill the cache, a second load of the same files will go much faster than the first. This effect may be causing confusing results for you, as the RAM cache will be the same speed as your RAM disk. That is, the RAM disk will cause faster load the first time, but not necessarily on subsequent launches.

Yes, I agree with you. Was my assumption too.
So, there is no real benefit for any of the SU resources to be located in a RAMDisk, you say? Amost all SU activity happens in RAM, once it was launched (exception the autosave) ? There isn't much I/O to the drives during work?

slbaumgartner · 21 Nov 2015, 18:07

I believe there may be a little i/o for caching the undo stack, but other than autosaves, not a lot.

derei · 21 Nov 2015, 18:45

@slbaumgartner said:

I believe there may be a little i/o for caching the undo stack, but other than autosaves, not a lot.

Humm... sometimes, undoing complex operations (eg, Artisan) will be a pain... so for this it may be useful. Any ideas how this operation could be moved to another drive? Where is the location of the file that stores the undo stack?

slbaumgartner · 21 Nov 2015, 22:18

I have no real info - it is not documented - but would guess in some temp directory.