XXHighEnd

Ultimate Audio Playback => Your thoughts about the Sound Quality => Topic started by: Scroobius on November 25, 2015, 07:26:58 pm



Title: W10 10074 & IMDISK
Post by: Scroobius on November 25, 2015, 07:26:58 pm
I had not used IMDISK (RAMDISK) since W8. No particular reason, I just did not bother with it after one particular install as, with the setup I had then, it was not making a noticeable improvement.

But yesterday I noticed Peter's post that he was using SFS 0.09 which I then tried (I had been using 2). It sounded dreadful a real hard edge to the sound which was very unpleasant.

So then I loaded IMDISK. Immediately the system just worked great on SFS 0.09. It must be W10 10074 that has made the difference because I have not this system working well at such a low SFS before.

The sound is now significantly smoother but more dynamic - another step forward and an unexpected one.

Paul


Title: Re: W10 10074 & IMDISK
Post by: PeterSt on November 26, 2015, 09:37:36 am
Hi Paul,

If you notice very obvious differences between SFS settings *and* between no RAMDisk vs RAMDisk, then it is totally clear : this is the file system (which *is* crucial - I know).

So notice that the SFS determines the frequency and amount of disk I/O. No such thing with a RAMDisk, although it is simulated (and with that implies some overhead with its own characteristics).

Side note but again crucial :
When we work with the OS booted from RAM it will still be so that the "disk" as such is emulated (the OS still thinks it runs from disk) but at a leaner level. In this case we don't use a RAMDisk (like IMDisk) so we could say that another layer has been removed (which thus is only partly true because of the now general layer).

And all this relates to the SFS because that's originally about "DISK I/O".

Lastly, the day I wrote about my SFS of 0.09, this was just after day 1 of retrying 10074. Already the second day I changed it to 0.12 because I thought the sound was a tad too far away. And that helped. You may like to try it too.

Peter


Title: Re: W10 10074 & IMDISK
Post by: Scroobius on November 26, 2015, 10:11:02 pm
Quote
If you notice very obvious differences between SFS settings *and* between no RAMDisk vs RAMDisk.........

Not quite what I was trying to say - actually there was not that much difference (if any) between no RAMDISK and RAMDISK at SFS=2 (say) but at very low SFS there was a big difference so I guess that indicates that with RAMDISK the "emulated disk" access was working much better than real disk access (actually SSD access in this case).

Anyway all this will be irrelevant when I get my "XX RAMHDD".

Paul