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Improve video playback performance with a RAM disk

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Magic
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Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Improve video playback performance with a RAM disk

Post by Magic »

Some of you may already be familiar with the concept of a RAM disk, which basically means using part of your RAM as a disk drive. The reason to do this is that RAM is much faster than most hard drives, including SSDs -- sometimes 20 or 30 times faster than SSDs.

RAM disks are a great way to improve video playback. One of the performance bottlenecks of playing videos is that they usually have to be read from the disk drive as they are played. For high-quality videos, the slowness of the drive can result in dropped frames. Using a RAM disk often completely eliminates this problem.

Here's a good article on how to create a RAM disk: http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/create-10-g ... k-windows/. Personally, I recommend doing it only if you have 8GB RAM or more. And I wouldn't use more than 25-50% of it as a RAM disk, depending on your needs.

As the article explains, the disadvantage of a RAM disk is that it is temporary. It disappears when the computer is rebooted, and everything has to be recopied. However, you can use a third-party application to manage it, so that the recopying happens automatically.

RAM disks are useful not only for Magic, but for any application that does real-time video manipulation. Try it out and see how it works for you.
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: Improve video playback performance with a RAM disk

Post by blackdot »

Nice, thanks. I could put my 32 gb to good use :).
BaconMKII
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:31 pm

Re: Improve video playback performance with a RAM disk

Post by BaconMKII »

Hey Eric,
Im curious if setting up a RAM disk offers any advantages when rendering or if its something mainly to be used for realtime manipulation.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: Improve video playback performance with a RAM disk

Post by Magic »

Yup, it could definitely be faster for rendering, especially for large files. But if you want to keep the files permanently, you'll have to copy them out of the RAM disk, and it will take some time. So you'll need to calculate whether or not it actually saves time in the long run.
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