From: ericb@telecnnct.com (Eric Burger)
Subject: SUMMARY: RAMdoubler vs. OptiMem [S]
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 19:11:41 -0500 (EST)
Original Post:
-----
Anyone have experience with OptiMem? There's been lots of talk
about RAMdoubler (Connectix), but OptiMem (Jump Development) has
been out for a while now.
For that matter, any further incomatibilities found with RAMdoubler?
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The summary:
RAMdoubler works great; only problems found were with MacTCP 1.1.1,
launching and quitting and launching applications QUICKLY in succession,
and applications that take up all of your memory on their own (e.g.
Photoshop).
OptiMem will allow more applications run, but wont't let an individual
application use more RAM than is in the machine.
OTOH, OptiMem does not require a PMMU [not an issue for me, but can be
for you if you have a 68000-based or 68020 sans PMMU machine.
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Thanks to:
Bill Rausch <t9365@cis13.nfuel.com>
Dr. R. Marusyk <rmarusyk@mercury.uah.ualberta.ca>
Pete Chane <pchaneuw@vms2.macc.wisc.edu>
Shannon V Spires <svspire@somnet.sandia.gov>
Andy Shiekh <shiekh@ictp.trieste.it>
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Detailed responses:
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 12:48:41 -0800
>From: Bill Rausch <t9365@cis13.nfuel.com>
To: Eric.Burger@telecnnct.com
Subject: ram doubler
works perfectly on an accelerated IIx and on a IIsi. I hope to try it on my
Q650 soon, but that machine hasn't been rebooted in a couple of weeks because
of some long running jobs. Assume it works fine unless I send you another
message.
We've tried the following programs, in various combinations:
Word, Pagemaker, Canvas, versaterm, many games and utilities, several text
editors
works great, like virtual memory but faster, quieter
----
Bill Rausch, SW Engr 509-375-8773
Numerical Applications, Inc. 509-943-0861
825 Goethals Ave., Suite A 509-375-5147(h)
Richland, WA 99352
wnr@fred.nfuel.com
Lawrence Taylor on golf - I'd rather play in the Super Bowl than
shoot 70, but I'd rather shoot 65 than play in the Super Bowl.
>From: rmarusyk@mercury.uah.ualberta.ca (Dr. R. Marusyk)
Subject: RAM Doubler Conflicts
To: eric.burger@telecnnct.com
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 08:58:54 -0700 (MST)
Re: RAM Doubler incompatibilities
I have found that RAM Doubler, version 1.0.1, is incompatible with
MacTCP, version 1.1, on my IIci/8/240, system 7.1.
When I first loaded RAM Doubler, following the Connectix instructions, I
received a screen message stating that the system was damaged and should
be replaced from the original master disks. Clicking the Restart button
continually gave the same message. I then did a shift-restart with no
problem. I then turned off all the cdevs and sys-extensions with
Start-up Manager, and found that MacTCP and RAM Doubler dont like to
coexist in my system set-up. Ive since repeated the whole exercise (with
back-up disks in hand) and got the same result.
>From: (Pete Chane) <pchaneuw@vms2.macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: RAMdoubler
To: Eric.Burger@telecnnct.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 16:28:52 -0600
Eric,
In response to your Info-Mac post:
I use RAMdoubler on a 660av with 8megs of real RAM. RAMdoubler reports
that I have 16 megs of RAM to address. So far the only problems I have had
is when I quit and launch things so fast (almost simultaneously) so
RAMdoubler cannot reallocate the RAM fast enough and things crash or hang.
Photoshop doesn't work well since it has its own virtual memory mechanism.
I am very surprised at RAMdoubler and I think Connectix has a big hit on
their hands. It is very stable and I use about 15 extensions and I have
lots of commerical and shareware apps and I cannot find a major problem
with RAMdoubler.
Buy it...it has a 30 day MBG!
PETER
PETER CHANE
PCHANEUW@macc.wisc.edu
PCHANE@applelink.apple.com
University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994 Rose Bowl Champions.
Subject: RAMdoubler vs. Optimem
To: Eric.Burger@telecnnct.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 12:08:39 -0700 (MST)
>From: svspire@somnet.sandia.gov (Shannon V Spires)
Eric-
I have been using RAMdoubler for a while now and it seems to
work flawlessly. It essentially is a virtual memory utility
which, instead of paging to/from disk, pages to/from "unused"
RAM areas in your machine. It will page to disk as a last
resort but I've never seen this happen. It depends on a PMMU
in your Mac--thus 68000 Macs and 68020 Macs without a PMMU
chip can't use it. It seems to be compatible with every
application I've tried, although Connectix says some apps
are problematic and they're working on fixes (sorry-I don't
remember which ones.) It is incompatible with virtual memory--
to use RAMDoubler you must turn VM off.
Optimem does not depend on the PMMU, so it could be used with
non-PMMU Macs. I have no experience with Optimem but the
following is what I've been told (by a Connectix person who
is obviously not unbiased): Optimem reuses memory that is
not currently in use by applications--it uses the memory in
the right half of the bar when you do "About this Macintosh".
RAMDoubler does this and also steals from lots of other places
like unused stack space within the app. Since RAMDoubler uses
the PMMU as hardware memory protection, it's safe to do this.
Optimem does it in software and cannot achieve nearly the level
of memory increase that RAMDoubler can. For example, with
RAMDoubler you can run an application that requires 8 Meg even
if you only have 5 Meg of physical RAM. You can't do this with
Optimem. You can simply run _more_ applications than you could
before (my experience with RAMDoubler also indicates that it
works best at letting you run more applications than you could
before, but a single large application may cause significant
thrashing.) But, since Optimem does not require a PMMU, it
will run on older non-PMMU Macs where RAMDoubler will not.
Optimem is (I believe) also more expensive than RAMDoubler, for
what I perceive to be less functionality.
RAMDoubler will not double the size of your RAM disk as yet, but
Connectix is planning a release of Maxima very soon which will
work in conjunction with RAMDoubler to double your RAM disk, as
well as all your other RAM.
Again, take all this with a grain of salt since most of it comes
from the RAMDoubler side of the house.
-Shannon Spires
svspire@sandia.gov
(I have no relationship with any of the companies mentioned except
as a satisfied customer of RAMDoubler.)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 12:38:22 +0100
To: ericb@telecnnct.com
>From: shiekh@ictp.trieste.it (Andy Shiekh)
Subject: RAMdoubler vs. OptiMem [Q]
I like Optimem. It doesn't use a MMU chip, so works on a Plus.
It does not compress in RAM like Ramdoubler, but does implement
dynamical memory allocation.
The idea is great, the implementation only average.
(it uses an internal compatability list)
Andy
_____________________________________________________________________
Anwar Y. Shiekh | I do not feel obliged to believe that the
International Centre for | same God who has endowed us with sense,
Theoretical Physics | reason, and intellect has intended us to
Trieste, Italy | forgo their use.
(shiekh@ictp.trieste.it) | -- Galileo Galilei
_____________________________________________________________________
--
-- Eric William Burger -- Eric.Burger@telecnnct.com --