Should i buy primocache?

[OctupleGolf001]

it tripled my SSD performance!

 

[Toothless]

It didn't. It's using ram as a cache. Your drive isn't faster..

 

[lexluthermiester]

Should i buy primocache?​

No. Waste of money. It's just a fancy RAM-Drive type software. Unless you have a frak-ton of RAM(128GB+) is will not be worth the purchase.

I was wrong. See testing below...

 

[Mussels]

Aww, i was hoping this would be a good primocache thread.

I have a frakton of spare RAM and played with it, but want to see other peoples thoughts and advice on how best to use it before i pay.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Aww, i was hoping this would be a good primocache thread.

I have a frakton of spare RAM and played with it, but want to see other peoples thoughts and advice on how best to use it before i pay.

Ok, I'll be fair, if you have 32GB+ and you leave at least 16GB for your system, this is useful, but 32GB is the bare minimum! There-in lays the catch, you have to have a serious amount of RAM to get the most out of this program and it is very much a case of the-more-memory-the-merrier!

The program is found below;

PrimoCache - Excellent Software Caching Solution to Accelerate Storage

Home page of PrimoCache product which is a supplementary software caching scheme to improve the system performance.

www.romexsoftware.com

Learn more here;

PrimoCache Overview

PrimoCache Help Documents - Get Started - PrimoCache Overview

www.romexsoftware.com

And the Specs;

Features & Specification

PrimoCache Help Documents - Get Started - Features & Specification

www.romexsoftware.com

The minimum is stated as 2GB, and the recommend 4GB, but there is no way in hell a user will make the most of what this program can do unless you give it huge chunks of RAM. The useful minimum is 32GB system RAM with 16GB allocated to PrimoCache.

Honestly, the prices are very reasonable(lifetime use) if you can make the most of it.

Purchase PrimoCache

Buy or upgrade PrimoCache

www.romexsoftware.com

 

[OctupleGolf001]

thanks, i have 20gb ram

 

[Mussels]

thanks, i have 20gb ram

Let's just assume 16GB is needed for the OS and programs, as thats a common recommendation

That means you've got 4GB of data cached, and you cant choose what that data is

Are you really going to benefit? Are you reading/writing small data so often and so fast, that your SSD cant keep up?

 

[PLAfiller]

Man, I had forgotten about this one. There was a time I had played with it, but it was a while back. It all depends of course. If you have decent SSD/ RAM perhaps AV software (if needed), backup software (paid if needed) and you still feel the need to invest into your PC, yeah go for it.

EDIT: what I mean is, I have way more other bases to cover before I even consider splashing cash on this kind of software.

 

[lexluthermiester]

thanks, i have 20gb ram

Ok, try this since you already have the trial version: Set your cache allocation for 8GB. That will leave 12GB for your system, which is a doable amount of RAM. You can always try 4GB as well if your system performance dips.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I have a frakton of spare RAM

In a wooden frame hanging on the wall?

On topic ~
While I was play testing a mod for 7 Days to Die, ram usage topped 27Gb, took a while to load. Those with less than 16gb systems experience really crap performance. Using a tool like this would put that whole thing into the pagefile, could ruin a drive lol.

 

[Vayra86]

Never had any trust in these solutions. It just reeks too much of downloading RAM or 'your computer has 670161 problems we can fix'.

As if the most efficient data management isn't already built into the whole rig as it is...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Aww, i was hoping this would be a good primocache thread.

I have a frakton of spare RAM and played with it, but want to see other peoples thoughts and advice on how best to use it before i pay.

I payed , I don't use it now, simply not worth the effort for a typical home user.
Games didn't all of a sudden fly or load much quicker.

 

[Superzuber]

depends on the use case - just for read cache for SSD probably no, it's good for cache/prefetch on HDD (ofc Windows does that too but with Primocache you have control over it) and great if you need functions like write L2 caching and defer write function

 

[lexluthermiester]

Decided to actually test this rather than rely on past experiences. Testing showed interesting results. See screenshots.
The testing system is one of my Dell T3500s with 12GB of RAM and a Xeon W3680 6core CPU running Windows 11 Build 22000.194. I wanted to use this system as it's the one I've been testing Windows 11 on and has the least amount of RAM of all my desktop type systems.

This is a test on a non-cached partition, which shows the bare drive performance. This acts as a control baseline result. This is what was expected from the drive in question(Seagate 7200RPM HDD).

This is with a 2GB cache. As you can see, there is a marked improvement in read speeds, but not much in write speeds, which were only slightly better.

This is with a 3GB cache. This is where the read speeds bump an even larger margin(more than double). The write speeds went back down to the baseline, not sure why.

This is a 4GB cache. Once again an improvement, but not a big one compared to the 3GB test.

This is with a 6GB cache. This was an interesting improvement. The memory bandwidth of that system is 13GB per second so the cache is approaching the system bandwidth limit.

So I was wrong, this program is not a waste. This software is not like others of this type. However, the testing clearly shows that you need a fair amount of system RAM to use it effectively.

@OctupleGolf001
You should be able to allocate 6GB of your system RAM and not choke your system while taking advantage of what this program has to offer. I'm changing my advice to: Yes, buy it if you will use it alot. Seems to work really well.

@Everyone
I think the pattern in the results is clear here, the more RAM the better, but unlike disk caching programs of the past, a frak-ton of RAM in NOT actually needed. You can get a solid result just using a 2GB cache.

My original recommendation though still stands, the more RAM the better. The advice I'm changing is the bare minimum, which is 12GB. I will say if you're going to use this program on a constant basis, start with 24GB and an 8GB cache. RAM is affordable these days so upgrading if you need to should not be expensive. This program seems to be very efficient and 8GB cache size should provide anyone a great result.

 

[silentbogo]

Primocache is essentially superfetch on steroids. Short-term satisfaction is good (so as "on paper" numbers), but actual daily benefits are highly questionable, especially if you are already running an SSD.
I assume Windows 11 only feels snappier only because they fixed preloading algos to account for higher RAM capacities, which means it's another con to buying software which can potentially become obsolete in a couple of months.

 

[BSim500]

Aww, i was hoping this would be a good primocache thread.

I have a frakton of spare RAM and played with it, but want to see other peoples thoughts and advice on how best to use it before i pay.

I tried a 16-24GB RAMDisk on a 32GB RAM system, and quite honestly it isn't worth it for general gaming. My findings:-

1. If you switch your computer off every night then you're basically going to have to "install" / copy the game over anyway every day. Total loading time = copy time from HDD/SSD to RAMdisk + the time when you start the game from the RAMDisk + the extra "human time" you spend setting it up is actually longer than just running it off an SSD.

2. Exponentially depreciating gains. An 80% reduction from say 75s (5,400rpm HDD) to 15s (SSD) feels huge. But a further 5% reduction from 15s (SSD) to 14.3s (RAMDisk) is not noticeable in the real world, especially when 11s of both involves unskippable intro movies, epilepsy warnings, etc, or CPU bottlenecked decompressing data files. I have one smallish 1.6GB game (Quantum Conundrum) that takes 34s to load on a 5,400rpm HDD and yet still 29-30s on a RAMDisk / SSD. Why? It's an endless string of intro movies you can't skip. RAMDisks won't help with this stuff.

3. Whenever you access any file, you're loading it into the Windows file cache anyway. So when you copy a file from SSD to RAMDisk, you're actually making two copies : 1. RAMDisk and 2. Windows file cache. And the first place Windows looks is the latter. So for many games you're not actually starting it from the RAMDisk but the cache. If you have a lot of RAM (16-32GB) and your game only uses say 6GB, then Windows will be holding it all in RAM anyway even without a RAMDisk even if you made a "null" file copy or simply "read" the files some other way, eg, MD5-ing the game folder will cache a game into RAM (Windows File Cache) even without a RAMDisk.

4. Games are getting larger than RAMDisks can handle faster than RAM is coming down in price. With +50-100GB game installs becoming more common, it's already getting pretty ridiculous and expensive to buy 64-128GB RAM to try and keep up with the "rat race" vs buying an increasingly cheap 2TB SSD.

Bottom line : If you never reboot your system, play only the same small game over & over, day after day, can't afford a large SSD yet simultaneously happen to have +32GB of expensive RAM lying around unused there's probably some value in RAMDisks to some people. For most people, however, there isn't. Overall, I decided a 2TB SSD was a better investment than RAMDisk-ing 32GB RAM and a whole lot less fiddling about "pre-loading" every time I rebooted / shut down / wanted to play something else. The only real practical use I found for a RAMDisk was a 1GB web browser cache for heavy daily browsing sessions, and even then most of that benefit was less about speed and more about reducing SSD defragmentation / maximising PE cycles.

Edit: I know Primocache works differently than a pure RAMDisk (most commonly / recently accessed based algorithm) but the same principle applies - if you play only the same small games over & over and perhaps have a fast boot SSD + a large secondary HDD, it may increase the speed of games loaded from the latter. But if you play a variety of games (especially larger ones), then whatever the algorithm decided to cache / pre-load yesterday may not be what you want to play today and it's no different to loading from an SSD directly.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Primocache is essentially superfetch on steroids.

No, this seems to be something else entirely. The caching is on RAM not on disk like SuperFetch is.

Short-term satisfaction is good (so as "on paper" numbers), but actual daily benefits are highly questionable

I have not done any long term tests, but I predict that there is something tangible to gain.

especially if you are already running an SSD.

This I doubt, but it can be tested just as easily on the same system which has an SSD installed. I'd be willing to run tests with that drive if requested.

I assume Windows 11 only feels snappier only because they fixed preloading algos to account for higher RAM capacities, which means it's another con to buying software which can potentially become obsolete in a couple of months.

Those are a few assumptions. Time will tell.

I tried a 16-24GB RAMDisk on a 32GB RAM system, and quite honestly it isn't worth it for general gaming. My findings:-

That is because your configuration was flawed. If you have 32GB of RAM and you set a 16GB or 24GB cache, your system performance will tank as a result. The rest of your points are invalid as they are based on your experience with a flawed configuration. Try an 8GB or 12GB cache and let us know how it goes.

 

[silentbogo]

No, this seems to be something else entirely. The caching is on RAM not on disk like SuperFetch is.

Windows Vista I/O technologies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The only difference is that Superfetch does it automagically without user intervention, while PrimoCache creates a RAM disk(and wastes resources) to do essentially the same thing manually.
Most linux distros do similar thing with preload. The only thing that's kinda beneficial - is user control(e.g. choosing what to preload), other than that - I can't really think of any.

 

[BSim500]

That is because your configuration was flawed. If you have 32GB of RAM and you set a 16GB or 24GB cache, your system performance will tank as a result. The rest of your points are invalid as they are based on your experience with a flawed configuration. Try an 8GB or 12GB cache and let us know how it goes.

I tried all sizes (starting with 2GB) and ended up at 16-24GB (for caching sub 10GB smaller games outright). It can make a huge difference if you're loading from a 5,400rpm HDD and the algorithm gets it right, but vs a fast SSD, it didn't made much difference in the real-world for reasons mentioned. My RAMDisk shows CrystalDiskMark Sequential screenshots of over 12,000MB/s vs only 520MB/s from an MX500 SATA SSD, yet that really doesn't mean games will load 23x faster as games simply don't load like that. In the real world, they'll request a chunk of data, then go through a lot of CPU cycles unpacking it, initialising it, etc, only then request another chunk, etc. It isn't a continuous "sequential" stream at all. "If my SSD is 2,000MB/s and my RAMDisk is 10,000MB/s then that means game load times will fall from 15s to 3s because that's what CrystalDiskMark says" as some believe just doesn't happen in the real world for the same reason the newest P31 NVMe review isn't showing 6x lower load times for games than 2016-era SATA's on the same chart. The theoretical CrystalDiskMark Sequential -> real-world Game Load times never was something that ever scaled linearly, let alone do so to infinity beyond depreciating gains of which fast SSD's are already well into the realms of.

 

[aliceif]

Modern SSDs already use a technology called HMB (Host Memory Buffer) that uses system RAM for performance optimization, even aside from any preloading and caching your OS does for you, so paying money for yet another thing that puts RAM between your Operating System and your SSD seems of marginal use at best.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Windows Vista I/O technologies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The only difference is that Superfetch does it automagically without user intervention, while PrimoCache creates a RAM disk(and wastes resources) to do essentially the same thing manually.
Most linux distros do similar thing with preload. The only thing that's kinda beneficial - is user control(e.g. choosing what to preload), other than that - I can't really think of any.

I tried all sizes (starting with 2GB) and ended up at 16-24GB (for caching sub 10GB smaller games outright). It can make a huge difference if you're loading from a 5,400rpm HDD and the algorithm gets it right, but vs a fast SSD, it didn't made much difference in the real-world for reasons mentioned. My RAMDisk shows CrystalDiskMark Sequential screenshots of over 12,000MB/s vs only 520MB/s from an MX500 SATA SSD, yet that really doesn't mean games will load 23x faster as games simply don't load like that. In the real world, they'll request a chunk of data, then go through a lot of CPU cycles unpacking it, initialising it, etc, only then request another chunk, etc. It isn't a continuous "sequential" stream at all. "If my SSD is 2,000MB/s and my RAMDisk is 10,000MB/s then that means game load times will fall from 15s to 3s because that's what CrystalDiskMark says" as some believe just doesn't happen in the real world for the same reason the newest P31 NVMe review isn't showing 6x lower load times for games than 2016-era SATA's on the same chart. The theoretical CrystalDiskMark Sequential -> real-world Game Load times never was something that ever scaled linearly, let alone do so to infinity beyond depreciating gains of which fast SSD's are already well into the realms of.

I'm not going to argue. Believe what you want.

Moving on...
So after the mention of SSDs, I decided to test the difference. Once again the results were interesting... Same system, just on the Windows 7 installation on an SSD. Here we go..

NonCached partition. Results were as expected.

2GB cache. Once again, the read speeds jumped up dramatically but had a different mix of results from the HDD.

3GB cache. Simply massive improvement! This is effectively my system RAM bandwidth minus processing over-head.

4GB cache. Almost no change from 3GB. Margin of error flucutation kind of thing.

6GB cache. Again, little change VS 3GB.

What can we conclude from this series of results? For one, this program offers a much better performance spread with an SSD VS HDD. The second point is that the performance ceiling is limited by overall system RAM bandwidth, so the faster your system RAM, the better the performance. Third, with an SSD, the need for a large cache seem unnecessary, whereas with an HDD a larger cache is of benefit.

I am now very curious how this software actually functions. It seems to have it's own unique caching scheme.

Thinking it's time for a test on a more powerful system with larger data sizes..

EDIT;
More tests done. Tried this on a different system, one with a Xeon E5-2667v2 & 32GB of RAM and an SSD. Once again the results were interesting.

Non-Cached partition.

2GB cache. The boost wasn't the same as the other system's SSD 2GB run. Weird.

3GB cache.

4GB cache.

6GB cache.

8GB cache.

I did 12GB and 16GB runs with little difference.

I'm going to run some benchmarks later just to compare load times. I know of at least one game engine based benchmark that accounts for drive load times. Will post later...

 

[ThrashZone]

thanks, i have 20gb ram

Hi,
If you fill in your system spec's everyone that post on your threads... would already know this and more

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/account/specs

Asus ROG boards come with ramcache included
I've personally never used it some buddies use it mainly for benchmarks and some use it for programs
Vulnerabilities execute through memory so it's a double edged sword feature like virtual machine/ virtualization which I always disable one less security hole.

 

[BSim500]

I'm not going to argue. Believe what you want.

There's nothing to "believe". I literally just tested it (1. Picked a game at random, Mark of the Ninja (and it's the GOG offline installer version so no client running spending time doing DRM checks), 2. Start it from a 5,400rpm HDD then a SATA SSD then a RAMDisk (with a cold boot in-between each to clear the Windows Cache) and 3. Record "time from start click until reaching the main menu":-

A. (5,400rpm HDD) = 12.1s
B. (MX500 SSD) = 3.9s
C. (RamDisk) = 3.8s

^ And that's with the entire game pre-cached (a 100% perfect cache prediction hit rate of a game that completely fits into RAM) vs a slow (by modern standards) SATA SSD. For larger games that won't fit into a RAMDisk, or perhaps playing something else the algorithm hasn't cached, the 3.9 vs 3.8s would be reduced even more as it'll be loading direct from the SSD anyway. As I said, regardless of the Quattuordecillion Yottabytes per FemtoSecond CrystalDiskMark sequential marketing screenshots, real world game load times = depreciating gains...

What can we conclude from this series of results?

That unless you "play" CrystalDiskMark all day long, you're not actually testing anything of real-world substance beyond how CrystalDiskMark specficially can saturate multi GB/s loads in a way normal games / applications don't. (Hint: If you're looking at this software for the purpose of reducing game load times, have you tried testing some actual games)?...

 

[lexluthermiester]

If you fill in your system spec's everyone that post on your threads... would already know this and more
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/account/specs

This is NOT a requirement and not everyone looks.

There's nothing to "believe". I literally just tested it (1. Picked a game at random, Mark of the Ninja (and it's the GOG offline installer version so no client running spending time doing DRM checks), 2. Start it from a 5,400rpm HDD then a SATA SSD then a RAMDisk (with a cold boot in-between each to clear the Windows Cache) and 3. Record "time from start click until reaching the main menu":-

A. (5,400rpm HDD) = 12.1s
B. (MX500 SSD) = 3.9s
C. (RamDisk) = 3.8s

^ And that's with the entire game pre-cached (a 100% perfect cache prediction hit rate of a game that completely fits into RAM) vs a slow (by modern standards) SATA SSD. For larger games that won't fit into a RAMDisk, or perhaps playing something else the algorithm hasn't cached, the 3.9 vs 3.8s would be reduced even more as it'll be loading direct from the SSD anyway. As I said, regardless of the Quattuordecillion Yottabytes per FemtoSecond CrystalDiskMark sequential marketing screenshots, real world game load times = depreciating gains...


That unless you "play" CrystalDiskMark all day long, you're not actually testing anything of real-world substance beyond how CrystalDiskMark specficially can saturate multi GB/s loads in a way normal games / applications don't. (Hint: If you're looking at this software for the purpose of reducing game load times, have you tried testing some actual games)?...

You are missing important context and as I said...

I'm not going to argue.

...so move along.

 

[P4-630]

Should i buy primocache?

Sure if you got the cash for the cache....