How to use more than 8G large memory
There are basically four representative application schemes for large memory systems, and we will analyze them one by one.
The first scheme is to directly install 64-bit Windows system. 64-bit Windows 7 is the most common, and now many brands of machines are pre-installed with 64-bit Windows 7. This scheme is the most limited to improve the performance of large memory system. The performance advantage of large memory can only be reflected in some applications that need large memory, but the change of system performance is not obvious in ordinary applications.
The second option is to load the system into memory. The installation of this scheme is quite complicated, but the system performance is greatly improved, the system loading speed is greatly improved, and the program loading speed is also very fast. However, at present, this scheme has great limitations. The whole system disk must be less than 2GB, otherwise the loading process will fail, that is to say, either the extremely simplified version of Windows 7 system or ordinary Windows XP system can be installed, but large application software can not be installed in the system disk, and only commonly used non-large application software can be installed.
In the previous analysis, we talked about that it is very complicated to install Windows 7 into memory successfully, and it is required that the space occupied by the files of the whole system disk should not exceed 2GB. Ordinary Windows 7 will take up about 10GB of space after installation. If you count the page file of virtual memory and the image file of system hibernation, the system with 16GB memory will occupy about 30GB of space, and it is impossible to mirror successfully. And the common method of slimming in Windows 7 is not very effective. After slimming, Windows 7 still occupies about 7GB of space, so we can only install an extremely streamlined Windows 7 system.
Because the Windows 7 Extreme Compact Edition downloaded by the engineer is automatically decompressed and installed, and the Windows 7 Extreme Compact Edition cannot be used because there is no system boot program, it is necessary to install the Windows 7 Extreme Compact Edition in two steps.
The first step is to install the standard Windows 7 system on the hard disk in the normal way. This step is very simple, so I won't say much.
Then enter the more complicated second step. After the system is installed, you don't need to install any drivers, just restart it directly, and use the WinPE tool tray to boot into the WinPE system. Enter the disk management interface from the computer management window of WinPE, and you can see the disk at this time. c:？ The 100MB partition reserved for the system stores the system boot program of Windows 7, which will not be displayed in Windows 7 system, but in WinPE. Right click on the disk? c:？ , choose? Change drive letter and path? , and then change its drive letter to? b？ , followed by the partition where the system was just installed (normally it should be a disk now? d:？ ) change its drive letter to? c？ . Well, what about the disk? c:？ Is that the partition where we just installed the system, and then click the disk with the right mouse button? c:？ Choice? Format? . After formatting, we run the installation program of Extreme Compact Windows 7, which will automatically extract the files to disk? c:？ After decompression, restart the computer, and the installation of Extreme Lite Windows 7 begins. After installation, we found that the actual space occupied by disk C is about 1.26GB, so we can install the driver normally or turn on Aero.
After the system installation is completed, install the drivers of all devices, and then install the FiraDisk driver of the memory virtual hard disk. First, enter the device manager, right-click the top bar of the hardware device list, and select? Add obsolete hardware (see above)? , and then click? Manually select hardware from the list? , navigate to the FiraDisk.inf file in the firadisk folder, and you can change the file named? FiraDisk virtual disk enumerator? A disk controller is installed in the system.
Then you need to modify the system startup information, otherwise bootmgr will find that the disk size has changed, resulting in a Winload.exe error at startup, and the system cannot be successfully started directly from memory. The method of modification is simple: Run as an administrator? Start? All programs? Attachment? Are you online? Command prompt? Program, input respectively? bcdedit/set { default } OS device boot？ 、? Bcdedit /set {default} device startup? And then what? bcdedit/set { default } detect Hal 1？ These three commands are entered once for each command, and the system will prompt the program to complete execution. At this point, the modification of the system startup information is completed, and then we will add the startup options menu.
First, extract Grub4dos to drive C and rename the folder? grub？ And then what about Will? grub？ Copy Grldr and grldr.mbr in the folder to the root directory of drive C, and then copy to? Command prompt? Enter in the interface? Bcdedit/create/d \ "Grub \ "/ application startup sector? Press Enter and the system will return a long string of characters. What shall we return? { 4b c205 F9-d2d 6- 1 1 E0-a 1 B9-9 1 16d6c 33702 }？ , and then we continue? Command prompt? Enter three commands in the interface:
Bcdedit/set {4bc205f9-d2d6-11E0-a1B9-9116d6c33702} Device partition =c:
bcdedit/set { 4 BC 205 f 9-d2d 6- 1 1 E0-a 1 B9-9 1 16d6c 33702 } path \ \ gr ldr . MBR
bcdedit/display order { 4b c205 F9-d2d 6- 1 1 E0-a 1 B9-9 1 16d6c 33702 }/add last
The characters returned by different systems are different. Do you want to play them? {}? Replace the characters in with the corresponding ones), press enter every time you enter a command, and the system will prompt the program to finish execution.
At this point, we can say that all the changes in Windows 7 system have been completed, and then we restart to WinPE system. Run VDM and create a file named. Ramwin7.img？ 2GB image, and then load this 2GB image into the system. At this point, a 2GB disk will appear in the system. A:? , click on the disk? A:? , select format disk? A:? , and then divide it into d discs? System volume information? 、? Recycler? And then what? Ramwin7.img？ Copy all files and folders except the disk? A:? In, the production of mirrors has been completed.
The next step is to modify the secondary startup menu and set the D disk with the tablet? grub？ Under the folder? menu.lst？ Open the file and write the following 6 lines of code at the end:
Title Ramwin7
Found it? set-root /Ramwin7.img
Map? mem /Ramwin7.img (hd0)
Map (hd0) (hd 1)
Map? hook
Chain loader (hd0,0)/bootmgr
All the work is done here. Restart the computer and select? grub？ It will automatically enter the memory version of Windows 7 after more than 20 seconds. Because the extreme compact version of Windows 7 we use is a 32-bit version, at this time, the memory version of Windows 7 occupies 2GB, leaving 1.46GB of available memory. At this time, the running speed of Windows 7 system is really fast, but the extreme simplification has also brought many problems: due to being too simple, the system can only run a few applications such as Office and IE, and PCMark7, Sisoftware Sandra 2011can't run normally, and various games including Paradise 2.5 can't load normally.
2. Install Windows XP in memory.
Because many software can't be used normally after installing Extreme Lite Windows 7 in memory, we installed Windows XP system in memory instead. Compared with installing Windows 7 in memory, installing the memory version of Windows XP is much simpler. After installing the system, drivers and application software, you can delete some unused components to simplify the system. Then right-click the FiraDisk.inf file under the firadisk folder and select? Installation? , the system will automatically restart and start to install the driver of FiraDisk Virtual Disk Enumerator. You can install the FiraDisk Virtual Disk Enumerator disk controller by manually navigating to the FIRA Disk folder.
Next, you need to manually change the drive letter of the system disk, otherwise you will not be able to boot to the memory version of Windows XP. Click? Start? Run? , input? regedit？ Are you online? [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\
Installed equipment]? Captain general hospital? \DosDevices\C:？ Renamed? \DosDevices\B:？ In this way, when we boot to the memory version of Windows XP system, the original C disk will become B disk, and the system disk of the memory version of Windows XP will be automatically assigned as C disk.
After the modification is completed, restart the computer to enter the WinPE system, run the VDM tool as mentioned above, and install it on the Windows XP system disk? c:？ Create a file named. RamXP.img？ 2GB image. When this image is loaded, drive A will also appear. Will you divide the system disk like a memory version of Windows 7 image? System volume information? 、? Recycler? And then what? RamXP.img？ Copy all files and folders except the disk? A:? In, the production of mirrors has been completed.
Engineer's Tip: It should be noted that the path of the system partition in the boot.ini file must be? Multiple (0) disks (0)rdisk(0) partition (1)\WINDOWS? .
Like the previous memory version of Windows 7, extract Grub4dos to drive C and rename the folder? grub？ And then what about Will? grub？ Copy the grldr file in the folder to the root directory of drive C, edit the boot.ini file, and enter? c:\\grldr=\"GRUB\ "？ . Finally, use a tablet to put the C disk? grub？ Under the folder? menu.lst？ Open the file and write the following 6 lines of code at the end:
Title RamXP
Found it? set-root /RamXP.img
Map? mem /RamXP.img (hd0)
Map (hd0) (hd 1)
Map? hook
Chain loader (hd0,0)/ntldr
After all the operations are completed, restart the computer and select? Grub？ , and then select RamXP from the Grub menu. It takes about 10 seconds to enter the memory version of Windows XP system. Similarly, due to the poor compatibility of 64-bit Windows XP, we still installed 32-bit Windows XP. At this time, the memory version of Windows XP occupies 2GB, and the system still has 1.46GB of available memory, which significantly improves the system performance and runs like a fly. Because the Windows XP system itself is not large, a considerable number of applications can be installed after installation and moderate streamlining, and these applications can be used normally, and the playability is higher than that of the memory version of Windows 7.
The third scheme is to virtualize part of the memory into the hard disk. In this way, a partition with very fast reading and writing speed will appear in the system. After installing some applications in the virtual hard disk, the speed of starting these applications will be greatly improved, but the performance of the whole system will not be greatly affected. However, the current virtual hard disk software also supports writing the data in the virtual hard disk into the mirror when it is turned off, so that the data will not be lost when it is turned off again. This scheme also has some limitations at present? At present, the virtual hard disk software can only create a virtual hard disk with a capacity less than 4GB.
Many users with large memory have had the idea of virtualizing some memory to hard disk, and virtualizing memory to hard disk is the simplest application scheme of large memory. We use VSuite Ramdisk software to realize the virtualization of large memory hard disk. This kind of software uses a unique algorithm to virtualize the memory into a hard disk, so that the data reading and writing of hard disk files can be transformed into data access to the memory, which greatly improves the speed of data access, and is especially helpful for users who often exchange large-capacity files through the network. Because the memory has the characteristics of power failure and data disappearance, it is best to store temporary files. The new version of VSuite Ramdisk provides mirroring function, which supports automatically saving data to the mirror file when shutting down and automatically loading the data in the mirror file to the virtual hard disk when booting up, thus avoiding the problem of data loss caused by the original memory virtual hard disk software when shutting down. Moreover, VSuite Ramdisk also has the function of detecting and utilizing the unrecognized memory of the system, which can solve the problem that the 32-bit Windows operating system cannot make full use of more than 4GB of memory. We open a virtual hard disk with a maximum of 4GB in a 64-bit Windows 7 system, and then set the system's swap files into the virtual hard disk, and install Paradise 2.5 into the virtual hard disk. In this mode, we can see that for the virtual hard disk, the disk reading and writing performance has been greatly improved, but for the whole system, the performance of the whole system has not been greatly improved except for the obvious speed increase when loading the programs installed on the virtual hard disk.
The fourth scheme is to virtualize the memory into a disk cache, allocate the memory for the hard disk as a cache, and intercept the IO request sent by the system to the hard disk. If the data requested by IO is already in the cache, directly read the data in the cache to complete the IO request; Otherwise, read the data from the hard disk and store it in the cache, and complete the IO request at the same time. It can be seen that the more data read from the cache, the more the system performance will be improved. By avoiding reading the slow hard disk frequently, the system performance will be improved.
Since the Windows 98 era, many players are happy to modify the hard disk cache entries in the registry in order to obtain higher hard disk performance. Now many hard disk caches have reached 64MB, but for users who are crazy about performance, 64MB hard disk cache is not enough. When our memory reaches 16GB, we can consider using memory as hard disk cache. We use FancyCache for testing, which is a software that virtualizes system memory into hard disk cache.
FancyCache can store the data read from the hard disk into the system memory, so that the system can quickly read it from the memory the next time it accesses the data, and FancyCache also supports virtualizing other disks into the hard disk as a secondary cache, so we tested two schemes in the test. The first is to simply use 4GB of memory as the cache of the hard disk. The second scheme is to virtualize 4GB of memory into a hard disk, and then use this virtual hard disk as the secondary cache of the main hard disk.
It can be seen that in the 64-bit Windows 7 system, the performance improvement brought by the open memory virtual hard disk cache is very huge, and the score of PCMark7 even jumped to more than 565,438+000. We know that Futuremark has stated in the official explanation that their goal is to control the score of the high-end system composed of Core i7-980X six-core processor, GeForce GTX 580 graphics card and Micron Crucial C300 solid-state drive at around 5000. Without the need of SSD, only the systems of Core i7-2600K, GeForce GTX 560Ti and Seagate 7200. 12 1TB HDD have exceeded 5000 points, which shows us the rapid performance improvement brought by the large HDD cache, which is also the result we most hope to get.
In the random reading and writing test of HD Tune, we can also see the obvious changes brought by large cache. The random read-write performance of 4KB is only 59 IOPS for the first time, which is not much different from that of ordinary hard disk. However, the advantages of large cache are only revealed after the second test, and its random read-write performance of 4KB reaches 15 1263 ops, which is about twice as high as that of the current solid-state hard disk with the highest performance.
Engineer's summary
The memory version of this system is not yet mature.
Of course, installing operating system and common software in memory can greatly improve the performance and response speed of the system. However, at present, the boot program of the memory version system can only support the system image of 2GB at most, so if you want to install the memory version of Windows system, you need to simplify the system. Windows XP system is fine, it doesn't need to be simplified too much, and it won't affect the use, but the memory system can't hold large software. Windows 7 system needs to be greatly simplified, which leads to the incompatibility of the system and many programs can't run normally. In view of this situation, we think that the current scheme of building a fast memory version system by putting the system into memory is not mature, and we suggest that you do not consider it. It is not too late to consider installing the memory version of Windows until the boot program of the memory version system can support the image of 8GB~ 12GB.
Memory virtual cache is the most efficient.
Looking at these schemes, we can find that virtualizing memory into hard disk cache is the best way to improve the performance of the whole system, which not only greatly improves the performance of random access data, but also improves the running speed of the whole system to some extent. In fact, for the whole hard disk, the capacity of virtual cache doesn't have to reach 4GB, and 1GB or even several hundred MB can obviously improve the system performance. This scheme is also very suitable for users with 4GB of memory and 32-bit operating system. Because FancyCache can identify the unused memory of the system, it will not affect the memory capacity of the 32-bit system itself, and can also improve the system performance. Of course, if the memory is large enough, we suggest to virtualize a part of the memory into a hard disk that will not lose its contents when it is turned off, and put games, commonly used large-scale software and temporary folders in it, which will also improve the system performance to a certain extent.