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? ----- 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. ----- Thanks to: Bill Rausch Dr. R. Marusyk Pete Chane Shannon V Spires Andy Shiekh ----- Detailed responses: Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 12:48:41 -0800 >From: Bill Rausch 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) 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 --