Any reason to use a program like eBoostr?

What can it provide that Superfetch does not?

I noticed a LOT of "Free" RAM after installing 8GB today. eBoostr seems to be caching a lot, but is it just caching the same stuff that Windows is caching?

 

I think that it caches much, much more than superfetch does.

Super/prefetch are never going to fill up 2-3GB of RAM (if you allocate that much).

I just installed 8GB today as well. Lemme guess... newegg 1day sale gskill 39.99?

I'm currently giving eboostr about 3GB, for the fun of it.

 

Nah, I picked up 50 dollar 8GB at J&R next to me.

I can't get eBoostr to fill up more than 2GB. And Superfetch fills up about the same...

I kinda feel like the two of them are overlapping and just caching the same stuff.

 

Hmmm... possible.

I do wonder about the caching of programs that are already set to run at startup. Any opinions?

 

Congrats on your upgrade Hungry Man.

Perhaps this is the time to try the demo for PerfectCache where you can tell it how much memory to allocate for caching

 

I think it's slightly more aggressive... there just aren't a ton of reviews. But I've heard someone say that programs open a few seconds faster, such as photoshop.

EDIT: Raptor88 I'll give that a try. I do like that eBoostr lets you choose programs for it to prioritize though.

Hm... to be honest I don't think either of them is making a ton of difference. I feel like they're just caching what superfetch has already cached.

I just wish I could see waht Superfetch caches.

 

Eh, I think that they're just caching the same things that Windows caches redundantly. They both have their features that separate them from Superfetch but I don't really think it's worth paying for.

EDIT: Perhaps it makes more sense to disable superfetch and use a program like eBoostr? Though I'm inclined to trust Windows.

 

My one gripe about PerfectCache though, is that they don't provide enough documentation, or a user guide of what are the best ways to achieve the maximum performance out of their program.

As discussed earlier, I noticed a substantial improvement in loading times of programs, but still wasn't sure if this program was really worth shelling out $55 USD for, only when I ran the benchmarks (PCMARK, Passmark, and Nova Bench, was I able to find a huge improvement that eliminated all my doubts )

I'm definitely gonna keep using PerfectCache from now on.

 

I dislike the UI for perfectcache and it gives virtually no information. eBoostr provides a list of your cached files, how much of your cache is in use, and a ratio of cache hits.

Perhaps I'll continue to use eBoostr. Think I should disable superfetch then?

 

Negative, do not disable anything, I have noticed disabling stuff usually breaks other things.

If it was vital to disable Superfetch for eboostr to work properly, it would have done it automatically.

What I would do if I were you, just to be on the safe side, is to send ebooster's support team asking them if keeping superfetch enabled causes any conflicts or better to leave it alone.

Just my opinion

 

Ditto, I disliked its UI too, too basic as if an amateur programmer wrote it.

But I am very pleased with the figures that I posted earlier about the results, otherwise I would've refunded it trust me

I allocated 4 GB of RAM to PerfectCache, leaving me with 4 GB to play with! My system has never been snappier to be honest.

 

eBoostr is made for primarily for XP though even if it supports other OS's.

And yeah, I think I'm gonna email them about it. I have 2.8GB of cache to them right now. Time to work on filling it up.

http://beta.eboostr.com/forum/topic/superfetch relevant article

edit: REading lots of great info on eBoostr.

"Previously cached files remain in the cache until more popular files move them out. eBoostr updated the cache once per hour if the PC is in idle mode. You can also trigger a cache update by clicking on the "Build cache now" button. The complete cache is rebuilt approximately every 1-2 days. HINT: To completely rebuild the cache manually hold down the ALT key while clicking the "Build cache now" button."

 

That's nice, very good for a free program really.

 

Not free. 40 dollars.

You should give it a look. The application priority list, power save mode, exclude list, cache viewer, and general UI are very nice.

"You can safely use eBoostr with ReadyBoost and SuperFetch features enabled to get more performance."

 

Ohh, ok, well too late for me man. As you are aware, that I've already purchased PerfectCache for $55 USD and have had good results after benchmarking before / after. I guess they are both good alternatives to the basic superfetch.

I am very happy you upgraded to 8 GB RAM as 4 GB will really not see any huge benefits using these programs otherwise you'd be left out with no RAM and start using the page file excessively if 50% of your RAM or so goes to these cachine programs

Congrats man

 

Hopefully Windows 8 eliminates the need for 3rd party programs. I prefer to have the OS handle things like this.

 

Word!!!
10

 

Nice to see that I'm accessing RAM so often and the cache isn't even full yet.

 

sweeeeeeeeet

 

That's partly because you're using an HDD. I've got an SSD and my cache fills to 100% immediately. The more full the cache, the more you know eboostr is doing good work. I also have a 160GB 5400RPM HDD with the exact same OS installation on it (for the fun of it). I put eboostr on it last night and the cache only filled up to 37%. After setting a few programs for priority, the cache filled to just over 50%. I think it would have gone to 100% if it could read fast enough from the SSD.

Oh crap! That reminds me. The only reason I even put it on the SSD was so I could do a speed check. Guess what the one thing I forgot to do was?

Hey, Hungry, will you click Help > Speed Check and let me know what numbers you get?

 

I don't see how HDD speed could affect it. I think it's not caching due to me having barely any programs installed and it simply not having enough to cache. Strange that the SSD made the difference.

Ration of 7.810564

Funny that on my old HDD it was 10x that.

 

Yep, my SSD fills the cache every time. It doesn't just fill the cache w/ program files. It will fill it with anything that you use frequently, hence the need to exclude music and videos and what not.

Your ratio must be that because of your XT. My ratio is between 7 and 11, with my SSD reading at 220MB/s and RAM at anywhere from 1500 to 2000MB/s.

 

Hm. Do you have a lot of programs installed? I pretty much have Chrome, Digsby, CCleaner, Mipony, Comodo, Mamutu, Skype,VMWare, Virtualbox. And some games.

It's 64% full. I just don't think there's much left to cache...

 

Oh, I've got plenty of programs installed.

Don't worry. Yours will fill up soon enough, as eboostr learns what you do.

Even browsing the web may end up being faster, as eboostr caches temp and temp internet files.

 

Hm. I'm not sure that it will... I don't think I have 2.8GB of often used files >_<

But maybe! We're at 65% but it only really increases when I open a new program and I've already opened all of the ones that I use often.

 

Disabling Superfetch and allocating another GB to eboostr.

http://beta.eboostr.com/forum/topic/eboostr-and-superfetch

This test shows minor improvements and his ration is lower than mine so I should see just slightly higher. I'm currently hitting my 3072MB cache (92% full) 84~% of the time.

 

Cool!

I'm in the process of letting mine learn my behavior. Part of me wants to exclude certain programs, but I've gathered from the reading that eboostr will naturally push the unused ones out.

This is a fun little experiment.

 

I put eboostr on my XP Pro laptop over a year ago. It was a big improvement on that system. When I upgraded to 7 Pro a few weeks ago I put it back on. My Vaio will only allow up to 4gig of ram according to Sony. I am using eboostr on two flash drives and a memory card and have about 12 gig of cache full. My hdd is only a 5500rpm Samsung so I am seeing faster loading of programs with it.

 

Seems to be working fine so far. I have a fairly high hit ratio. I just wish it could dynamically change like superfetch. The way it is now isn't ideal.

 

Guys! I may be wrong (I doubt ) BUT I think that you are mistaking of understanding what that title says. It DOES NOT show how much cache is filled! It shows how often your laptop uses cache instead of files on HDD.
That is the reason why it increases when you use some program. Because it starts to use cache (because programs is what use oftenly and therefore it is saved in cache). It shows how accurate it chooses files tu put in cache, you see now?

@Hungry man You said you were thinking of using it at the beginning of thread while now you already use it. You use free version or you were so fast to choose it?

 

But it does dynamically change. About every hour, as you are idle, the cache rebuilds itself. If you're running things like bittorrent, then you'll need to manually select build cache. It will update the cache with the newer information and slowly nudge out that which you don't use, or use as much.

 

I mean that it doesn't grow/ shrink on its own. If a program suddenly needs 6GB of RAM eBoostr won't let go of it. Superfetch would.

 

Eh, removing it. I think I'll let Windows handle it. If it could dynamically shrink/ grow it would be different.

 

eboostr does use the cache in unused memory instead of your hdd doing so. This is its purpose. It is faster than my hdd and loads my programs quicker.

 

windows by default is doing the same, my free memory is usually pretty low(200MB/3.2G) indicating caching at work.

There may be a bit of more tweaking here and there but given my understanding of cache, nothing ground breaking that worths the extra money and the unknown stability.

 

You can view cache in the resource monitor.

At the moment I'm caching 3092MB and I have 3470MB free. The thing is that I just played Civ5 so it likely cached a lot of that.

Doesn't really matter. I'm just gonna let Windows do its thing. Hopefully Win8 is more customizable and will let me cache more.

 

Some people remind me my grannies who partially still live in Soviet Union in their mind. They will never use credit cards. They are afraid of them like fire. If I say that it is very easy and comfortable they will say that using money is also comfortable and safer and you won't pay extra and etc. And somewhere they are right... You shouldn't read my post very serious because I don't say that you are grannies

Either my Windows had already turned off functions Prefetch and Superfetch (0% chance) and therefore I get so huge boost or you are making a mistake uninstalling it after 2 hours or so.

Besides if you read my previous post then you must understand that if hit rate is 80% then only every fifth file which your computer uses is read by HDD instead of your cache. Even if it would show 50% it would be mean that every 2-nd file is taking from your cache.

Also as I understand Windows will put to cache files after they are used at once after computer's boot. While eBoostr monitores what you need and already has saved cache file after boot.

If you have 8 GB of RAM the I suggest you to use up to 2 GB on it... while I use 1.250 GB of 6 and have great performance boost.


PS I believe anseio get 100% because he set 4 GB of RAM for this cache and when it needs to be refilled it does it in a matter of seconds. More memory set to cache more files are in there and therefore bigger hit rate usage. But it is not straight line about size/hit rate. at some point fact that use added 500MB more to cache doesn't mean that it will increase hit rate as much as it increased when you added 500MB to cache before.

 

eBoostr will do it a bit more aggressively... but I'm fairly certain that eboostr and superfetch were just loading the same things into ram twice.

edit: And I had it installed for over a day. I didn't notice any difference.

 

No, it shows both. It shows you how full the cache is AND how often you hit the cache instead of the HDD. I was hitting the HDD about 40% of the time. But of course we can't tell how that improves over regular superfetch.

 

The only reason to use that software is if you still have XP installed. On Win7 you already have eBoostr built-in the OS, aka Superfetch.

 

That's why I was curious =p the only difference with eboostr is that it has a nice UI (windows should really do this) and it caches more agressively/ immediately.

 

I used to have eBoostr installed on my old laptop since it had XP. After I got Win7 it kind of slowed it down. I was using an older version of eBoostr (version 2 & 3).

 

I think version 4 was designed with Win7 in mind. Supposed to be much better than 3.

 

In mind as in compatible. It can replace superfetch I believe... and it can probably evn give you some performance boosts. But the lack of dynamically changing cache size kills it for me.

 

While it is advantage for me Besides when you said 40% HDD hit you saw it under check speed? This is because program files is not the only thing you use. As Anseio mentioned it caches everything what you use oftenly. Every file unless you put it in exclude list.

 

People. WHEN DO YOU SLEEP?

 

From 2-6pm =p

And I've just created a 1GB RAMDisk, which I've moved my Chrome User_Data folder to. Still has about 340~MB free. Maybe I'll move some other files there.

 

I might switch to Chromium =p I could put my install folder on the RAMCache haha

 

I have 200MB RAMDrive for FF_cache

 

Yeah I've just made 1GB RAMDisk and moved my User_Data (includes cache + pretty much everything else) for Chrome over. Might move some other stuff.