Ramdrive for fast level loading.

[koopdi]

Hey, I've been playing with the concept of copying maps to ram so that they load faster. It sucks to be left waiting for the next wave respawn in a team game.

I added this line to my fstab.

none /mnt/ramdrive ramfs defaults 0 0

Is there some way to verify that this is actually storing data in ram, and if so, is there a way to test read speeds on this data?

Thanks for your input.



That verification done, what's the best way to load maps and resources into ram on startup? I'm thinking, have a script copy the files over, then rename the original resources and create a symlink to them in ram for transparent operation.

What then to do on shutdown? Remove the symlinks and give the files their original names again?

All this accomplished, what's a good way to acurately time level loads, to see how much of an effect this has?

[Ant P.]

Linux already uses RAM for disk cache. Using a standard readahead tool like e4rat would work better.

[koopdi]

Without googling e4rat or readahead tool, I think I understand what you're saying.

Use the OS's built in ability to cash things to RAM and explicitly call this on large files that you may need loaded at a moments notice...right, that sounds way more elegant - thanks.