OS/game on RAM?

[Titanicium]

Hi LTT!

 

I am just sitting around here thinking now and then I came up with this idea (surely been thought of before): Can you run your OS/your favorite game straight of your computers RAM if you just got enough of it? And if this is possible: How exactly is this achieved?

 

I have heard something about it being possible with Virtual machines but I don´t know how much hold there is to this...

 

Thanks for answers and it would be awesome if someone had actually done this at some point to show off!

[delet my acc pls]

You can use RAM as cache to boost load times but storing games and operating systems would be stupid since RAM is cleared everytime the computer gets turned off.

[Titanicium]

You can use RAM as cache to boost load times but storing games and operating systems would be stupid since RAM is cleared everytime the computer gets turned off.

 

Would it work if you never ever turned the computer off?

[Saladin]

Its called a ram disk but you don't want to put your OS on it. The memory wipes when the power goes off. To solve this the information is written to a disk, however this takes a long time thus dramatically slowing down startup/shutdown and if you loose power you are screwed.

[_ASSASSIN_]

Its called a ram disk but you don't want to put your OS on it. The memory wipes when the power goes off. To solve this the information is written to a disk, however this takes a long time thus dramatically slowing down startup/shutdown and if you loose power you are screwed.

basically what I was going to say

[Titanicium]

Its called a ram disk but you don't want to put your OS on it. The memory wipes when the power goes off. To solve this the information is written to a disk, however this takes a long time thus dramatically slowing down startup/shutdown and if you loose power you are screwed.

 

So it´s possible it´s just kind of stupid?...

 

Thanks for the help

[Saladin]

So it´s possible it´s just kind of stupid?...

 

Thanks for the help

You are better off using an SSD (cheaper than buying enough ram to store you OS and you don't have to worry as much about loosing data) and using additional ram as a cache for one of your drives.

[delet my acc pls]

Would it work if you never ever turned the computer off?

Yes but you would need advanced software for It to work and if you got a power short in your house ot went to a LAN you would be screwed

[Saladin]

Yes but you would need advanced software for It to work and if you got a power short in your house ot went to a LAN you would be screwed

Not to mention an ungodly amount of battery backup, and if it crashed you would be screwed to the wall.

[1funnygame]

i'm pretty sure the OS does use the ram to speed itself up but it manages it well enough to know if some parts of the OS don't actually need to be using the ram and when other parts do

[needmorewood]

So it´s possible it´s just kind of stupid?...

 

Thanks for the help

please dont do it

[Saladin]

i'm pretty sure the OS does use the ram to speed itself up but it manages it well enough to know if some parts of the OS don't actually need to be using the ram and when other parts do

Programs store bits of information in the memory (ram) in order to speed up operations (as well as the memory acting as a 'waiting area' for data moving on and off the CPU), that isn't the same as running a full program/operation off the memory (though this can be done), while a ram disk is very cool (I have implemented one in the past) it is very expensive (given that in order to have useful one you need a fairly large volume of memory) and not with out its problems, if  you did have enough memory, you could load a game on the ram disk and speed up loading screens dramatically, you still have to write all the data to and from an HHD at startup/shutdown.

[J-man]

I think Puppy Linux can load right into the memory.  Frugal Install?