XXHighEnd

Hi,

This is the batch file I have written to allow 2 ramdrives. As Peter mentionned, my scope was quite too narrow and it could bring inconveniences as it could bring benefits.

This is assuming that one has installed Imdisk prior to anything that will follow...

I will do 3 things:
- Post the batch file as an attachment
- Print it in the next post with some precisions. It will be possible to "copy" and "paste" it as desired.
- Post my recommendations, adjusted to Peter's warnings (I hope).

First the attachment...

As you will see when unzipped, it does not carry the right extension. You need to remove the "NEW" from the ".batNEW" to have it workable. I did that to allow me to send it through email, since it was blocked...

Alain
(Date format is yyyy/mm/dd)
2013/09/02: The following has been changed in the batch file:
- Replaced "512m" (512MB) to "3g" (3GB) for XXHE and XXdata drive.
- The compressed batch file is XXRamDrv20130902.zip

2013/09/03::
- Added a line that starts XXHE (from the ramdrive)
- The compressed batch file is XXRamDrv20130903.zip

NOTE: for the moment, I leave all the versions as they evolve, but this will surely change.

Now the printing...
(Shown here is the revised version 2013/09/03)

(start of the batch file) --------------------------------
@ECHO OFF
rem Creation of the "B:\" drive for playback ramdisk
rem Replace the number "2" in the "-s 2g" with a lower or higher value if desired
rem "2g" means 2GB of ramdisk
IMDISK -a -m B: -s 2g -o hd,rem -p "/fs:exfat /q /A:2m /y"

rem Creation of the folder "xxplay" in playback ramdisk drive
MD B:\xxplay

rem remove the word "REM" from the following line if you do not want any ramdisk for XXHE
rem EXIT

rem Creation of the "A:\" drive for XXHE and XXData ramdisk
rem After the "-s ", what follows is the size of the ramdisk
rem "m" after a number means amount of MB (Megabytes) of ramdisk
rem "g" after a number means amount of GB (Gigabytes) of ramdisk
IMDISK -a -m A: -s 3g -o hd,rem -p "/fs:exfat /q /a:512 /y"

rem -- At the right of the "=" in the following lines:
rem -- Specify the source drive where XXHE is located (JUST a LETTER)
SET XXDRIVE=C
rem -- Specify the XXHE directory to copy FROM (no "\" to begin or end)
SET XXHE=XXHighEnd-09-z9

rem Copying the content of physical XXHighEnd and XXData in ramdrive
XCOPY %XXDRIVE%:\%XXHE% A:\%XXHE%\ /E /Q /Y
XCOPY %XXDRIVE%:\XXdata A:\XXdata\ /E /Q /Y

START A:\%XXHE%\XXHighEnd.exe
(end of the batch file) ---------------------------------

This batch file creates 2 ramdrives:
- One for the playback (drive B:) = 2GB of ramdrive space
- One for XXHE and XXData (drive A:) = 3GB of ramdrive space

I have put emphasis on 5 parameters:

A) There are 2 lines that begin with "IMDISK". The bold parameter indicate the size of the ramdrive.
"2g" means 2GB
"3g" means 3GB

B) REM EXIT
If someone does not want to go further than creating a ramdrive for the playback drive, just remove the word "REM ". This will simply exit the batch file without doing what follows that line.

C) The paremeters in RED colour indicate where you specify the information needed to copy XXHE from your hard drive into ramdisk.
"C" is the letter of the hard drive where XXHighEnd and XXdata are located. If "C" is not the correct letter of the drive, you replace it with the right hard drive letter (D, E, R, Z...). Only one letter of course !
"XXHighEnd-09-z9" points to the directory of that hard drive that will be copied into ramdrive. For the moment, only this exact name will be copied into ramdrive.
For the moment, I will leave this suggestion: do not allow spaces in the title of the folder... "XXHE version 9" would not work, but "XXHEversion9" will...

2013/09/03:
Implemented from Anthony's idea about starting XXHE at user's login, the following line has been added to allow the start of XXHE from the batch file:
START A:\%XXHE%\XXHighEnd.exe
If you don not want this line to execute, simply insert a "rem" at the beginning of this line:
rem START A:\%XXHE%\XXHighEnd.exe

Alain
Edit: Every line that begins with "rem" is a comment line. It does nothing.
Edit2: Please read the 3rd post to complete these informations.

Now some notes...

- The more you increase the capacity of your ramdisk(s), the less RAM you have available for the OS and the XXHE processes... It is a trade-off...
- Peter's post in another thread really has to be read to understand that what I wrote is not invariable forever. There will be modifications to come, like what Peter wrote about XXdata and that I am unsure of... If Peter mentions that XXdata should not be copied, then you can remove the following line from the batch file:
XCOPY %XXDRIVE%:\XXdata A:\XXdata\ /E /Q /Y
XXdata will not be copied, but you will then need to specify "C:\XXdata" in XXHE settings (the physical XXHighEnd that sits on your hard drive, not the one in the ramdrive).
- You need to specify the playback drive. Notice that I have taken the liberty to create a folder in the playback drive. It should be written like this: "B:\xxdrive\"
- You should ensure that the "Copy to xx-drive by standard" is turned OFF.
- If you want to modify something permanently, I suggest that you do so with the physical XXHE, then reboot the computer. This will prevent unwanted error messages...
- If you modify the batch file and want to restart it, you should reboot your system first
- Of course, it is necessary to execute the batch file each time you reboot (for the moment). When you reboot, the ramdrive(s) disappear since RAM if emptied from its contents each time.
- 2013/09/02: After doing some tests, I advice to define your ramdrives in Gigabytes (1g, 2g, 3g, etc)  instead of Megabytes (MB). Some values work, some others don't. If this happens, a windows will pop and ask to format a drive, confirming something is not right.

You can of course create 2 shortcuts:
- One that points on the batch file
- One that points on the copied (in ramdrive) XXHighEnd.exe file the first time. Of course, to do this, you need at least the first time to execute the batch file (to create this shortcut)...

I should point out that if something seems to be wrong and you are unsure it could be about the ramdrive, I would suggest that you reboot and try to re create this situation with the physical XXHE drive. This will help separate ramdrive related situations with situations that would otherwise not happen...

Remember to read what Peter posted prior to this. If there are contradictions, please report them. I did this post quite fast and will modify it with fellows comments, suggestions and corrections.

Regards,

Alain

2013/09/03: for the moment the window that appears when the batch file is executing displays a lot of lines (quite rapidly), but I will make it more "silent" soon (will display a lot less) and maybe into a file (for support).

Oh... And I am not always in front of my PC ;) It could take time for me to answer questions. I believe Peter will monitor this thread from time to time, but I hope it will not put a burden on him...

I have been a programmer in another life, so I can do a few things, but while I did this for me first and now hope it could help our community, I will count on you to help me to resolve the different problems that could occur. So be patient please :)

And of course, Peter will have the last word :)

Regards,

Alain

Thanks Alain. As I said your software works beautifully well and I´m sure that this ramdisk contributes greatly to the good sound I have now. So far I haven´t had any problem with the sizes provided originally by Alain although, to tell the truth, I only charge one album at a time (flac or wav). Anyway, following Peter advise I´m going to increase the sizes of both ramdisks to 3Gb for the XXHE drive and 10Gb for the Playback Drive, that leaves 11Gb for XXHighEnd that should be enough, now I´m using again 24Gb of Ram.
I encourage other people to try it even if it is just for SQ, in my case it is better than ever as I say. Of course I do understand the point of view of Peter and, as you said Alain, the last word belongs to him.

Again I´d like to thank Alain publicly for his helpful work.

Best regards,
Juan

Great thanks Alain. And congrats on your achievement. Your efforts are not in vain now ...
(I know how much time Alain spent on it to get it flexible and right)

Peter

Alain, thanks for posting this.  I will try it out in the coming days.

Anthony

It was about time I give back some of all I received from all of you no ?  :blush1:

I owe to a lot of people from this community.

Alain

Hi Alain,


Strangely enough this part is dead wrong. You say "replace the 512 with a higher or lower number if desired. This is odd, because the Tutorial (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2695.0) is all about that. Now the default will work out as wrong as it just is. So pleace replace that with 2G at least.
Now people may run into too few memory problems. But that is better than letting things go wrong unnoticed.

Do notice that not many people will be able to fuss around with .bat files. So they will start using it as it is, at least at first (and leave it be when it seems to work, which at first always is so ...).

Peter

Alain,

As you told me by PM ... a definition of 2.4G etc. seems not possible. But what about 2400M ?

Peter

Something I just thought of now, incurred for by a post in here (maybe it was Juan's) :

Indeed it is so that IMDisk needs to be installed under Normal OS. Next though, I found that (maybe by accident at first) the driver program gets removed by XXHighEnd's Minimized OS feature, and if not there then at the start of Unattended Playback. So I thought "OK, nice". However ...

Since the problems regarding the not reporting that the RAMDisk is full and things get overwritten (could even be normal memory as it seems), I am now thinking that this well can be because this driver program is not running. I mean, it seems strange to me that it does not need to. What is it for otherwise ? IIRC it isn't even active when booted into Minimized OS. So how can it all work then ? Is running the .exe sufficient ? Maybe. But maybe not ...
That driver program could be some kind of (protective) watchdog.

Peter

If the amount of memory is the main problem (perhaps not the only one), why not try the Ramdisk if only to see if there is a perceived improvement in SQ? Even if the amount of memory already installed is limited I think it´s worthwhile to test it.
If there is a better SQ then buy more memory to get at least 24Gb or even change the mother board if with the one you have it is not possible. I mean, just if the SQ perceived is noticeable better and you´d like to maintain this SQ. That´s around 300€ in the worst of case, buying an Asrock X79 EXTREME4-M (the one in the XXHE PC) and 16Gb of Ram, thinking that you already have at least 8Gb of Ram. I´m not saying to do it right now, I´m sure that this Ramdisk issue needs more experimentation but if after that the better SQ is consolidated, then to think in buying more memory wouldn´t be a bad idea. JMHO.

Juan

I wrongly assumed here... I will change it and will post as soon as I can.

Alain

Alain and Peter,

Thank-you for the RAMDisk info and batch file.  A little bit of spare time came up today and I could not help myself so I downloaded IMdisk and Alains batch file and set to making a 2.8GB XX ramdisk and a 5GB playback drive using my 16GB of ram.  What do you know, a nice surprise and a I think a general lift in SQ which for me is characterised by a lower noisefloor, the background is more black.  Early days of course, but very promising.

One additional thing that I have done is to add Alain's batch file and a shortcut to XXHE (to the version on the ramdisks) to windows startup so both processes run automatically when the computer boots.  I just press the button to turn the computer on and then XXHE is sitting there running from the RAMDisks.  Nice!!

Cheers,

Anthony

Hi Anthony, would you please let me know how to add the batch file and the XXHE shortcut to the W8 startup?. I knew how to do it in W7 and how to delete files from W8 start up but I can´t find the way to add these files.

Regards,
Juan

PS. Please put your signature whenever is possible, thanks

Hi Juan,

Create a duplicate shortcut on your desktop for the programs that you wish to add to windows startup.  Drag the duplicate icon over the windows start button (in your win7 shell) - don't let go - then hover over "All Programs" - don't let go - hover over the "Start-Up" folder and drop the shortcut in there.

You can enable or disable the startup shortcuts using the "Start-up" tab in Task Manager.

Hope this helps.  There are other ways to do it, but I found this the simplest.

Anthony

Hi Anthony,

I was puzzled at first to find the startup menu, to finally realize that it was available through the Explorer 7 we use with XXHE ;)

But then I was stuck with another problem: How to determine  the order of execution when Windows starts... IOW, specify that the ramdrive batch file needs to start first, then after its completion, then XXHE can start ?

I found a solution, but how did you do it ?

Regards,

Alain

Alain, I just added them in the order that I want them to execute, so I put the batch file in first, then I did XXHE.  On my system it looks like both the batch file and XXHE are starting together, but if we really wanted to make sure the batch executed first we could just start XXHE from the batch file.

Anthony

Yes, that is the way I did it finally, but then I ran into another problem... The window showing the batch file execution was staying on the desktop... So I looked and found the "START" command.

START A:\xxhighend-09-a9\xxhighend.exe

I put it at the end of the batch file and all is good :)

Now I wonder why I need to connect to the PC for it to really start... Maybe putting it in the public startup menu would do the trick ?

Alain
Edit: In fact it is logical to start only when the user access the PC, but I will do a few other tests to see with Public (Default User)...
Edit2: It does not change a thing to put the batch file in Public (Default User), except maybe it will start when the first user of the Widows session logs in...

I think your way is more elegant than mine Alain, so I will change my BAT file accordingly.

Anthony

Thank you Paul.

Notice that your line about XXData is wrong; it does not comply to advised settings, and now you will LOOSE your settings because of it. So, notice the advice about C:\XXData\ to be in Settings for XX Data folder (and not \XXData\).

Also it is better to not attch .bat files, because people might run them as such (instead of save). So better Zip them.

Regards,
Peter

Ah Peter OK - have removed post - before I always just let XX do its default thing with XXData and it worked OK - maybe now its time to read the instructions ha ha. Will check later.

Cheers

Paul

All, just a small notice :

The next version of XXHighEnd will save the (changed) Settings data automatically to the normal permanent storage location (folder) of XXHighEnd. So, no matter XXHighEnd was started from the RAMDisk folder and Settings are normally stored in there, they now will also be stored on disk and you won't notice a thing of it (apart from you will not loose your changes because you forgot to apply them to the "disk location version").

All IOW, there will be no need anymore for anything that I can see to write back the RAMDisk data to permanent storage by means of user procedure (which actually is the biggest pain at using RAMDisks, a bit depending on the type though).

Peter

Am getting ready to run Alain's batch file but am wondering if it automatically creates a copy of XX in one of the RAMDiscs or do I do that manually after the RAMDiscs have been created? If it creates a copy of XX on one drive automatically does XX have to be in a particular folder before I run the batch file? If, on the other hand, I have to create the XX copy manually, do I just copy/paste my current XX folder into the RAMDrive? Hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance.

Brian,

I didn't look at the latest version of the batch file, but it sure is meant to copy the XXHighEnd stuff in there. But, open it for "Edit" (see rightclick on it) and you will see a folder name which resembles the XXHighEnd storage location. If that is not yours, just change it to yours in there and save it. This is all quite harmless and the worst which can happen is that XXHighEnd won't be in there. But you will find that out soon enough.

Btw, as I know by now, click on your drive letter from Explorer to see the "Floppy" drives A: and B: in the right hand part of the screen. That will be the RAMDisks once created and you can just look in them.

Good luck !
Peter

:oops:

That was meant to be : Click on "Computer" from Explorer ...

Thanks Peter. Looks like I'll actually get to it first thing tomorrow.

Alaine, Peter, et al, batch file worked like a charm. After a good listen, I'll post later about SQ and Q5 in the appropriate thread.

Brian, good !

Notice that the message you will receive regularly because if A-B and changing between XXHE on disk vs on RAMDisk about the necessity to reboot - are actually about restarting of XXHighEnd. So no reboot is necessary at all and the message is just wrong.
May save you some time ...

Peter

Hi Brian,

I hope all will be for the better :) I read a thread on another forum where people seem to discover virtues with a ramdrive, but I really feel we are spoiled to have the playback drive parameter that allows XXHE to take care of the copying process :)

Regards,

Alain