Using Ram Doubler - Speed Doubler, Ram upgrade.

[Punkyclown]

Hi All,  My Powerbook 1400c has 32 mgs of ram. Is it better to use Ram Doubler than Virtual memory
on the computer?  Also is there an advantage to using Speed Doubler?  Lastly what ram do I need
to upgrade to 64 mgs and where would I get that? 
Appreciate all the input and thanks
Brad Hansen

 

[AlpineRaven]

Yes its good to RAM Doubler to save using the Hard Drive space for the memory and performance reasons as well.

Speed Doubler is good for speed copy or synchronise files difference.

Ive always liked using RAM Doubler in pre-OS9 Macs.

I use Speed Doubler on all systems except 9.2.2 (As it was changed to Copy Doubler). 

Cheers

AP

 

[Macdrone]

Virtual memory and Ram doubler are basically the same thing.  If virtual memory is already there I would not install ram doubler.  Its adding an extention, just bloat imo.  Speed Doubler didnt seem to actually do anything noteworthy.  It didnt actually speed up the computer.

 

[Cory5412]

Speed Doubler is primarily important if you use System 7 on PPC Macs, where what it does mainly is replace the 68k emulation bits that are built into the OS with some more efficient ones. You might not see a difference if you only use native PowerPC apps, and you install all of the other recommended updates, some of which are newer than 7.6.1 itself is, and should be better optimized for PPC.

For my part, I haven't put Speed Doubler on my 1400 yet and it's "fine" (Although: I have a /166, it would make a much bigger difference on the /117) but I should eventually, since there's a few 68k apps I do use on the system.

If you're using Mac OS 8 or newer, you shouldn't strictly need either, although some of the memory management tools might be important, especially if you don't end up getting your hands on a 64 meg RAM upgrade.

One thing that might be worth looking at (which I haven't used before) is RAM Charger, which alleges to manage RAM more efficiently. I haven't used it, but over a few years LEM did a few different articles where they say that it works really well - could be worth trying out.

Also worth noting: At the very least, you should leave the built in virtual memory enabled. Without it, applications will likely end up using more RAM and launching slower.

 

[Gorgonops]

I'd be sort of curious to see benchmarks on several different classic PowerPC macs with SpeedDoubler's 68k emulation installed to see just how much of a difference it makes. In particular I wonder if it makes a huge difference on the 1400, which is essentially a very late model "NuBus" Mac.

Long story short: the original 68k emulator included in the ROMs of the NuBus Power Macs was a simple "interpreting" emulator. The PCI macs introduced a new emulator that used JIT techniques, which made it quite a lot faster, and basically similar to the emulator included with Speed Doubler. (Thereby making the improvement with Speed Doubler significantly less.) What I'm not sure of is if Apple kept using the original emulator on all "NuBus" machines introduced after May 1995 ("NuBus" in quotes because none of those machines actually had physical Nubus slots, with the partial exception of a Duo 2300 in an old dock), the debut date of the PCI Macs, or if the newer emulator was incorporated into the ROMs of at least some of them.

IE, it might be interesting to get actual numbers to see if installing Speed Doubler helps, say, a 5300 more than it does a 1400, given there's a year and change between them but the hardware is still mostly similar.

 

[Punkyclown]

Wow! Thanks for all the great information, I have ordered a 32 mg upgrade sim, but still might use Speed doubler 

afterword.

Brad Hansen

 

[Byrd]

I was under the impression that RAM Doubler can be useful for low RAM equipped Macs running < 8.1, but any OS above that the Apple Virtual Memory system provides exactly the same functionality. Keep in mind that RAM Doubler can and will slow games performance, so ideally try to disable or don't use it at all.   Or do as you're doing, and buy more physical RAM

In the day though RAM Doubler was a killer app, and proved very useful for low RAM equipped Macs (where it was too expensive to upgrade at the time)

Speed Doubler I've never used too much; ideally look out for the proper PPC app or FAT app and avoid emulating 68K on lowly PPC Macs.

JB

 

[slomacuser]

Some interesting benchmarks below:

Performance Boost From Using Speed Doubler 1.X

http://macspeedzone.com/archive/Comparison/sd1.html

Performance Boost From Using SpeedDoubler and RamDoubler Together

http://macspeedzone.com/archive/Comparison/SD%2BRD.html

Performance Boost From Using SpeedDoubler at Various Disk Cache Settings

http://macspeedzone.com/archive/Comparison/SD%2BDC.html



 


Performance at Different Virtual Memory Settings

http://macspeedzone.com/archive/Comparison/VM.html

 

[AlpineRaven]

Interesting results! Good on you showing us this!
Cheers

AP

 

[Byrd]

Looks like it's about 5 - 10% faster emulating 68K on lowly PPCs; worth installing if you must run older code on such machines.

 

[FacnyFreddy]

I've had great success with SpeedDoubler on some stuff in the past. I've never really used RamDoubler.

SpeedDoubler works excellent on my 5300, and even though it has 56MB of RAM, the use of disk cache with the mSATA setup makes it a very nice notebook. Word 6 runs like 2x faster during spell check.

Never bothered with my Pismo's since they have 1GB.

NOTE: After upgrading the CPU to a 500MHz G4, the Pismos saw little/if-any bennefit to speed doubler. I also run 9.2.2 on them and have never looked bak.