readyboost and gaming

[bobsmith123]

i have an 8gb usb stick, i have formatted it in exfat, id like to use it for readyboost does readyboost have any positive influence on gaming? and which is the best unit allocation size? i was thinking making it the largest unit size? as it would unload into the ram in massive blocks then? the stick is purely for readyboost all 8gb of it. i currently have a samsung f3 1tb hdd, 4gb ddr2 ram at 711, q6600 @ 3.2 and a gtx 460.

 

[Hikertrash]

i have an 8gb usb stick, i have formatted it in exfat, id like to use it for readyboost does readyboost have any positive influence on gaming? and which is the best unit allocation size? i was thinking making it the largest unit size? as it would unload into the ram in massive blocks then? the stick is purely for readyboost all 8gb of it. i currently have a samsung f3 1tb hdd, 4gb ddr2 ram at 711, q6600 @ 3.2 and a gtx 460.

In order to be able to be used as the virtual memory caching storage medium by ReadyBoost, the removable media will need to meet the following hardware and speed requirements:

1. The capacity of the removable media is at least 256 MB (or 250 MB after formatting).
2. The flash memory devices must be capable of 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads spread uniformly across the entire device.
3. The flash memory devices must also be capable of 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writes spread uniformly across the device.
4. The removable media device should have an access time of 1ms or less.
5. The flash media must have at least 235 MB of free storage psace.
6. Formatted as NTFS or FAT32 filesystem, both can make use a maximum of 4 GB of flash memory, which is the ReadyBoost limit, and in FAT32 case, the ReadyBoost.sfcache file size is also limited by FAT32 filesystem to 4GB.
7. ReadyBoost supports one flash device at any one time as of currently.

How to Enable and Use ReadyBoost in Windows 7 and Vista » My Digital Life

 

[Fumz]

i have an 8gb usb stick, i have formatted it in exfat, id like to use it for readyboost does readyboost have any positive influence on gaming? and which is the best unit allocation size? i was thinking making it the largest unit size? as it would unload into the ram in massive blocks then? the stick is purely for readyboost all 8gb of it. i currently have a samsung f3 1tb hdd, 4gb ddr2 ram at 711, q6600 @ 3.2 and a gtx 460.

You have 4GB's of RAM so ReadyBoost isn't going to do a thing for you. It's meant to speed up (marginally) systems with low amounts of RAM... like 1 or 2GB's.

Understand ReadyBoost and whether it will Speed Up your System

 

[whs]

In your case it will slow the system down - only a little, but guaranteed. This is because of the overhead to have to write the pages to both the disk and the stick.

 

[holo88]

works for me. wuit well actually. see really low system specs below. ( i have a 4.3 wei though....)

 

[whs]

works for me. wuit well actually. see really low system specs below. ( i have a 4.3 wei though....)

I bet it does, with only 1GB of RAM.

 

[bobsmith123]

so unit allocation size doesn't make a difference either?

 

[Fumz]

Games don't use the hard drive. Except for loading the map/level, it sit there idle, so any hard drive tweak is pointless.

 

[bobsmith123]

i understand that, actually one of my issues is when playing big open world games like new vegas i get a slight pause when teh game needs to load new textures etc, i understand getting an ssd would eliminate these, is there anything that can be done on a regular hdd? i was meaning allocation unit size on the memory stick, to enhance readyboost, i didnt know if it had any bearing on its performance.

 

[bobsmith123]

bump

 

[whs]

bump

What other answers are you expecting?

 

[bobsmith123]

about changing the unit allocation size of a formatted usb, does that have any bearing on the performance, can readyboost help with those load pauses you get when loading directly off the hdd or is it only possible to eliminate them with an ssd?

 

[bobsmith123]

and finally would readyboost definitely hinder performance on my pc?

 

[whs]

I thought it was clear that Ready Boost will do nothing for your confguration - nothing at all. It will actually slow you down. The person who thought it was doing something is only imagining it.

An SSD is, of course, another story. That would speed things really up - but probably not games. They are usually too big to fit on a small SSD - but you can always buy a large SSD like this one: Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 2 Pro OCZSSD2-2VTXP200G 2.5" 200GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

[sygnus21]

actually one of my issues is when playing big open world games like new vegas i get a slight pause when teh game needs to load new textures etc

That's a known issue with the game. And I have this as well.... see my system specs. And even though I don't have an SSD drive, even if I did, it wouldn't make a difference :shock:

And I wouldn't exactly put New Vegas in my list of optimized games. Point - the game has issues of it's own - Fallout: New Vegas PC Issues - Bethesda Softworks Forums

BTW - System specs might help us answer some of your "performance" questions. Also see this - Tips on Troubleshooting Game Issues

Edit - I see they're posted on page 1 instead of under "My System Specs"

 

[Fumz]

about changing the unit allocation size of a formatted usb, does that have any bearing on the performance, can readyboost help with those load pauses you get when loading directly off the hdd or is it only possible to eliminate them with an ssd?

Not sure how many different ways this can be said: ReadyBoost will do nothing for you. It would be wise to rid yourself of any notions to the contrary. Whoever told you ReadyBoost would improve game performance does not know what he/she is talking about. Whoever told you a system with as much RAM as yours would benefit from ReadyBoost does not know what they're talking about.

 

[sygnus21]

Agreed. With 4gig of RAM, ready boost isn't going to give you much of anything. Look elsewhere for performance improvements in gaming and forget ready boost.

The other thing you can do is to see for yourself. USB thumb drives are expensive. You can then let us know what you see/gained.

 

[holo88]

You can always fire up the resource monitor, and add the readyboost data thing, too see if its actually being used (to a positive means). tutorial here . (also on sevenforums, i think, but this is the one i used first )

I have checked that on various apps (mainly newer games), and it used most of the cache on the usb, rather than all of my ram. It made things a little more stable in my experience. But like everybody else said, if you have more than 3-4 gigs of ram, then its pretty much useless.