Mail Archives: djgpp/2004/03/07/18:15:38
Carlo <cbramix AT libero DOT it> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> many of us know that a ram drive could improve a lot the compiler
> speed.
That "could" is now mostly an expression of past tense, not of a
hypothesis. A sufficiently large cache with write-back mode enabled
is almost exactly as good as a ram-drive, but a heck of a lot more
flexible in usage.
> In my opinion it would be better that ram drive use memory only when
> it's required.
But unfortunately that's not something the design MS-DOS can
accomodate without major hassles. MS-DOS doesn't expect or even
tolerate drives that change size during normal operation.
> At the moment, all existing ramdrives allocate the memory and then his
> usage is reserved.
Wrong. Resizable ones have existed for a long time, but have always
had various quirks and pitfalls, and it's quite sure none of them can
ever work under a Windows system, which treats all DOS programs like
second-class citizens.
> But what about using only the exact memory required for storing files?
> When files are deleted, that memory could be released, so our programs
> can use it.
That's quite exactly how a well-designed disk cache already works.
Even the ones built into various versions of Windows appear to get
that roughly right.
--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
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