Windows 2000/XP
This is especially useful for older benches that use a lot of disk access – back in the day when HDDs were the only option it allowed for dramatic speedup in larger samples of SuperPi (4M and above). Combined with Windows XP, NTFS and memory tweaks. it gives great efficiency.
The procedure is as follows (assuming you’re on Windows 2000/XP):
- Download ERAM package to your PC from link.
- Unzip the package.
- Use 'Add new Hardware’ wizard to add a new device: say it’s connected choose to install from the drivers on the PC point it to the folder from step 2
- Go to folder where you unzipped the package in step 2 and run .bat file to set Windows driver startup properties.
- Open Control Panel applet and adjust the RAMDrive letter and size – for SuperPi 32M you need around 300 MB. Set type to External and then….
- Adjust MAXMEM either via msconfig.exe or by directly editing c:\boot.ini – for 32M you have to experiment a bit, usually values between 590 and 640 work best.
- Reboot.
- After OS comes back again, your RAMDrive should be ready to use.
- (Optional, but improves quality of life a lot) Create a startup task that will copy your SuperPi binaries to the newly created RAMDrive.
Windows 7/10/11(RAMDISK AWE)
- Open Group Policy Editor – Win+R > gpedit.msc
- Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment
- Click on „Lock pages in memory” and Add User or group
Done! Now you can run SPI32M with RAMDISK AWE