General :
K-Meleon Web Browser Forum
Just a few specific questions about cache first:
If I am going to use a RamDisk for disk cache (I reserved 512 mb for one), then why do I still need to set aside some RAM for Memory Cache? The HowTos on here don't recommend shutting it off? I want to make sure that for a boot session, the cache remains (ie: for images, banners, etc) so that they will load faster. And since I'm using a RAM Disk as a disk cache, shouldm't that be fast enough?
Secondly, I find that on cached pages, I still get a lot of hard disk rattling when I browse (what should be) cached images. For those of you using RAM Disk style cache, go to http://www.torontosun.com/sunshinegirl/ and browse through all of today's images. Then go look at them again. I find the disk still rattles each time I change a picture. I would think that if the images were cached in RAM then there should be silence. no? Remember, I do not clear the cache on exit.
And I have blocked advertisements in the privacy section as well.
Looking forward to reesponses on this one.
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Thornhill, Ontario)
Judy,
Others who know more than I will probably jump in here.
I believe that you must have memory cache, but can get along without disk cache (for example on a portable version run off of a USB stick) BUT not the reverse.
512megs for a ram drive is way too big in my experience. Personally I run 8 megs disk cache (which is not a hard drive cache but rather the R:\Temp ramdrive cache) and 8 megs to the memory cache. This handles most everything for me. Have yet to find the need for a larger cache, but I'm not trying to handle gigabyte RAR images or similar.
N
I use the free Gavotte Ramdisk on my XP Home SP3. I have it set to 64MB which is pretty high but it rarely consumes that much mem. I have it formatted to FAT 32 since I can't get it to maintain an NT setting, I don't know if that makes any difference. Since it dumps the mem when the computer is turned on or restarted I usually copy/backup the Temp folder to the Desktop so I can just copy it back to the ramdisk drive. But some times the ramdisk seems to cause instability issues and needs to be clean out. This may be caused by deleting or erasing recycle bin files or coping backed up Temp/cache files to the ramdisk over existing files. I moved the Temporary Internet Files to the ramdisk which seems to greatly increase the performance of IE.
Charlie
~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~
caktus,
Don't know why you would want to save cache files, but agree that could cause instability. Have never tried, so don't know firsthand.
Everything is default settings on my Thinkpad. Sixteen meg FAT ramdrive with 8 megs to IE8 and 8 megs to KM1.6beta. Since I don't want to save cache information, I do not save it to the desktop, but I manage it through the privacy bar. I have that setup to automatically delete the cache upon exiting KM 1.6beta and I have the Cache toggle switch active on the privacy toolbar, so I can delete the cache while browsing too As for IE8, I use the ATF cleaner there to remove all the various temp files, etc., that IE creates. I run IE8 and ATF Cleaner together on an WINX32 batch file:
"C:\Program Files\ATF-Cleaner\IE_ATF.WX"
[IE_ATF.WX]
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"/wait
"C:\Program Files\ATF-Cleaner\ATF-Cleaner.exe"
As for IE8, the ramdrive, in my experience, most definitely increases the speed there and in KM 1.6beta, the ramdrive supercharges an already fast browser and without any glitches, which occasionally seemed to happen in KM 1.54, although I never did track down exactly how it was failing, except sometimes, I would seemingly need to clear the cache and reload a page in that older browser.
N
So here's a couple things that don't seem to make sense.
Most of you seem to empty cache all of the time. But if I'm visiting a site that pretty static, and I wan't it to load likety-split, why wouldn't I want to cache as much as I can so it will load faster from the local source? (thus only updating changes that are slight). It seems 8 mb of cache would be gone through in minutes.
Similarly with memory cache. If I close the browser, all of the memory cache is gone, so I have to reload that all again for the next session if I want that stuff to load locally. Where am I missing the point? How would cache that is quickly cycled through make your browser faster? 8 mb seems like nothing.
In the example I gave (the Sunshine Girl link), if the second and third times I view those images, they should appear quickly without the need for re-download right? With a large cache, wouldn't that effect/benefit last for a longer period of time?
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Thornhill, Ontario)
[/quote]Posted by: caktus
Date: December 10, 2010 03:57AM
I use the free Gavotte Ramdisk on my XP Home SP3. I have it set to 64MB which is pretty high but it rarely consumes that much mem. I have it formatted to FAT 32[/quote]
That's the same RAMDisk app that I used, on WinXP Pro SP3.
If I place all my temp directories there, wouldn't you get crashes on larger zip file extractions or the like, if you only used 100 mb or less?
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Thornhill, Ontario)
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2010 07:23AM by Jody Thornton.
... message deleted, figured out the answers to my earlier questions ... just had to spend more time figuring things out.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2010 09:57PM by duffy98.
Judy,
In the old days, KM was slower on this exact same computer. Now with KM 1.6 beta,
and the ram drive, I always tell KM to load fresh, not read from the cache. Even on this aging P3 with 768Megs Ram, KM runs faster than any other browser I have (I don't run Chrome, but hear it is fast). So the short answer is I like to have a fresh page, not a refresh from cache, but that is a personal decision.
I don't see much if any penalty on images I load up, but I will look for larger images to see if I see a problem.
P.S. I double-checked the Sunshine images and did not see any problem. Since it is a ram drive and not the disk drive, I expect no problems in speed or churning.
N
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2010 06:37AM by ndebord.
when you exit km ( or any browser) it copies the memory cache to the disk cache. also, it copies memory cache to disk cache whenever memory starts getting full.
the default settings of most browsers will compare an identifier of each image file to all of the ones in cache ( thats a crc for those techinical people) it can tell if the file has changed since the last fetch, if so, it gets a fresh copy otherwise, it just loads from cache if it is available. you can change this behavior in the kmeleon prefs. luckily, kmeleon also has a force refresh command ( rt click your refresh button) that removes all doubt, as it forces fresh copies regardless of the page's requested expiration. this is mostly used by me during web development. kmeleon does not seem to cache the webpage itself in the default settings.
Note that flash videos aren't cached at all by the browser, we are talking images here. Other types of video, audio, pdf's, and other formats are downloaded into your temp directory, so they could be called "cached", but they are not part of browser cache since they are handled by plugins or other programs.
even though images are cached, each one must still be checked to see if it changed, this causes a lot of traffic on pages with thousands of small images, even if they are cached. iirc, the check is performed once a day when the image is requested.
if you have a lot of disk chatter, i would expect that you are not using your ramdisk even though you think you are. i don't even have a ramdiskm but with maxed out memory(64M
and disk cache ( 75M) it barely makes a noise. If you have any reasonable amount of memory, max the memory cache. and 75 M is nothing on a disk, so do that as well. i doubt you will need a ramdisk. note that you can not put more than 75M, even on a ramdisk so 512 is a big waste. if your ramdisk is so big that it uses up too much memory, the OS will start to use the swap file ( the exact opposite of a RAM disk) to move your overflowing memory onto disk. this causes A LOT of disk activity. i think that's what you got.
to summarize, max out your mem and disk cache. forget about ramdisk. get the fasterfox plugin and increase your http sockets if you have a broadband connection. also go to speedguide.com and make sure your receive window is tuned to your connection speed. if this is screwed up, it can make a big difference. good luck.
oh yeah, almost forgot, I wouldn't use your real name and address. Just post your first name or get a stupid handle like the rest of us. you're making us feel paranoid by being so trusting on the net.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2010 09:54AM by snuz2.
General discussion about K-Meleon
Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
Jody Thornton
Date: December 09, 2010 01:28AM
Just a few specific questions about cache first:
If I am going to use a RamDisk for disk cache (I reserved 512 mb for one), then why do I still need to set aside some RAM for Memory Cache? The HowTos on here don't recommend shutting it off? I want to make sure that for a boot session, the cache remains (ie: for images, banners, etc) so that they will load faster. And since I'm using a RAM Disk as a disk cache, shouldm't that be fast enough?
Secondly, I find that on cached pages, I still get a lot of hard disk rattling when I browse (what should be) cached images. For those of you using RAM Disk style cache, go to http://www.torontosun.com/sunshinegirl/ and browse through all of today's images. Then go look at them again. I find the disk still rattles each time I change a picture. I would think that if the images were cached in RAM then there should be silence. no? Remember, I do not clear the cache on exit.
And I have blocked advertisements in the privacy section as well.
Looking forward to reesponses on this one.
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Thornhill, Ontario)
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: December 09, 2010 03:19AM
Quote
Jody Thornton
Just a few specific questions about cache first:
If I am going to use a RamDisk for disk cache (I reserved 512 mb for one), then why do I still need to set aside some RAM for Memory Cache? The HowTos on here don't recommend shutting it off? I want to make sure that for a boot session, the cache remains (ie: for images, banners, etc) so that they will load faster. And since I'm using a RAM Disk as a disk cache, shouldm't that be fast enough?
Secondly, I find that on cached pages, I still get a lot of hard disk rattling when I browse (what should be) cached images. For those of you using RAM Disk style cache, go to http://www.torontosun.com/sunshinegirl/ and browse through all of today's images. Then go look at them again. I find the disk still rattles each time I change a picture. I would think that if the images were cached in RAM then there should be silence. no? Remember, I do not clear the cache on exit.
And I have blocked advertisements in the privacy section as well.
Looking forward to reesponses on this one.
Judy,
Others who know more than I will probably jump in here.
I believe that you must have memory cache, but can get along without disk cache (for example on a portable version run off of a USB stick) BUT not the reverse.
512megs for a ram drive is way too big in my experience. Personally I run 8 megs disk cache (which is not a hard drive cache but rather the R:\Temp ramdrive cache) and 8 megs to the memory cache. This handles most everything for me. Have yet to find the need for a larger cache, but I'm not trying to handle gigabyte RAR images or similar.
N
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
caktus
Date: December 09, 2010 08:57PM
I use the free Gavotte Ramdisk on my XP Home SP3. I have it set to 64MB which is pretty high but it rarely consumes that much mem. I have it formatted to FAT 32 since I can't get it to maintain an NT setting, I don't know if that makes any difference. Since it dumps the mem when the computer is turned on or restarted I usually copy/backup the Temp folder to the Desktop so I can just copy it back to the ramdisk drive. But some times the ramdisk seems to cause instability issues and needs to be clean out. This may be caused by deleting or erasing recycle bin files or coping backed up Temp/cache files to the ramdisk over existing files. I moved the Temporary Internet Files to the ramdisk which seems to greatly increase the performance of IE.
Charlie
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: December 10, 2010 03:47AM
caktus,
Quote
caktus
I use the free Gavotte Ramdisk on my XP Home SP3. I have it set to 64MB which is pretty high but it rarely consumes that much mem. I have it formatted to FAT 32 since I can't get it to maintain an NT setting, I don't know if that makes any difference. Since it dumps the mem when the computer is turned on or restarted I usually copy/backup the Temp folder to the Desktop so I can just copy it back to the ramdisk drive. But some times the ramdisk seems to cause instability issues and needs to be clean out. This may be caused by deleting or erasing recycle bin files or coping backed up Temp/cache files to the ramdisk over existing files. I moved the Temporary Internet Files to the ramdisk which seems to greatly increase the performance of IE.
Don't know why you would want to save cache files, but agree that could cause instability. Have never tried, so don't know firsthand.
Everything is default settings on my Thinkpad. Sixteen meg FAT ramdrive with 8 megs to IE8 and 8 megs to KM1.6beta. Since I don't want to save cache information, I do not save it to the desktop, but I manage it through the privacy bar. I have that setup to automatically delete the cache upon exiting KM 1.6beta and I have the Cache toggle switch active on the privacy toolbar, so I can delete the cache while browsing too As for IE8, I use the ATF cleaner there to remove all the various temp files, etc., that IE creates. I run IE8 and ATF Cleaner together on an WINX32 batch file:
"C:\Program Files\ATF-Cleaner\IE_ATF.WX"
[IE_ATF.WX]
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"/wait
"C:\Program Files\ATF-Cleaner\ATF-Cleaner.exe"
As for IE8, the ramdrive, in my experience, most definitely increases the speed there and in KM 1.6beta, the ramdrive supercharges an already fast browser and without any glitches, which occasionally seemed to happen in KM 1.54, although I never did track down exactly how it was failing, except sometimes, I would seemingly need to clear the cache and reload a page in that older browser.
N
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
Jody Thornton
Date: December 11, 2010 07:16AM
So here's a couple things that don't seem to make sense.
Most of you seem to empty cache all of the time. But if I'm visiting a site that pretty static, and I wan't it to load likety-split, why wouldn't I want to cache as much as I can so it will load faster from the local source? (thus only updating changes that are slight). It seems 8 mb of cache would be gone through in minutes.
Similarly with memory cache. If I close the browser, all of the memory cache is gone, so I have to reload that all again for the next session if I want that stuff to load locally. Where am I missing the point? How would cache that is quickly cycled through make your browser faster? 8 mb seems like nothing.
In the example I gave (the Sunshine Girl link), if the second and third times I view those images, they should appear quickly without the need for re-download right? With a large cache, wouldn't that effect/benefit last for a longer period of time?
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Thornhill, Ontario)
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
Jody Thornton
Date: December 11, 2010 07:18AM
[/quote]Posted by: caktus
Date: December 10, 2010 03:57AM
I use the free Gavotte Ramdisk on my XP Home SP3. I have it set to 64MB which is pretty high but it rarely consumes that much mem. I have it formatted to FAT 32[/quote]
That's the same RAMDisk app that I used, on WinXP Pro SP3.
If I place all my temp directories there, wouldn't you get crashes on larger zip file extractions or the like, if you only used 100 mb or less?
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Thornhill, Ontario)
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2010 07:23AM by Jody Thornton.
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
duffy98
Date: December 11, 2010 03:35PM
... message deleted, figured out the answers to my earlier questions ... just had to spend more time figuring things out.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2010 09:57PM by duffy98.
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: December 13, 2010 06:34AM
Quote
Jody Thornton
So here's a couple things that don't seem to make sense.
Most of you seem to empty cache all of the time. But if I'm visiting a site that pretty static, and I wan't it to load likety-split, why wouldn't I want to cache as much as I can so it will load faster from the local source? (thus only updating changes that are slight). It seems 8 mb of cache would be gone through in minutes.
Similarly with memory cache. If I close the browser, all of the memory cache is gone, so I have to reload that all again for the next session if I want that stuff to load locally. Where am I missing the point? How would cache that is quickly cycled through make your browser faster? 8 mb seems like nothing.
In the example I gave (the Sunshine Girl link), if the second and third times I view those images, they should appear quickly without the need for re-download right? With a large cache, wouldn't that effect/benefit last for a longer period of time?
Judy,
In the old days, KM was slower on this exact same computer. Now with KM 1.6 beta,
and the ram drive, I always tell KM to load fresh, not read from the cache. Even on this aging P3 with 768Megs Ram, KM runs faster than any other browser I have (I don't run Chrome, but hear it is fast). So the short answer is I like to have a fresh page, not a refresh from cache, but that is a personal decision.
I don't see much if any penalty on images I load up, but I will look for larger images to see if I see a problem.
P.S. I double-checked the Sunshine images and did not see any problem. Since it is a ram drive and not the disk drive, I expect no problems in speed or churning.
N
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2010 06:37AM by ndebord.
Re: Specific Items Regarding Cache and RamDisk
Posted by:
snuz2
Date: December 15, 2010 09:42AM
when you exit km ( or any browser) it copies the memory cache to the disk cache. also, it copies memory cache to disk cache whenever memory starts getting full.
the default settings of most browsers will compare an identifier of each image file to all of the ones in cache ( thats a crc for those techinical people) it can tell if the file has changed since the last fetch, if so, it gets a fresh copy otherwise, it just loads from cache if it is available. you can change this behavior in the kmeleon prefs. luckily, kmeleon also has a force refresh command ( rt click your refresh button) that removes all doubt, as it forces fresh copies regardless of the page's requested expiration. this is mostly used by me during web development. kmeleon does not seem to cache the webpage itself in the default settings.
Note that flash videos aren't cached at all by the browser, we are talking images here. Other types of video, audio, pdf's, and other formats are downloaded into your temp directory, so they could be called "cached", but they are not part of browser cache since they are handled by plugins or other programs.
even though images are cached, each one must still be checked to see if it changed, this causes a lot of traffic on pages with thousands of small images, even if they are cached. iirc, the check is performed once a day when the image is requested.
if you have a lot of disk chatter, i would expect that you are not using your ramdisk even though you think you are. i don't even have a ramdiskm but with maxed out memory(64M
and disk cache ( 75M) it barely makes a noise. If you have any reasonable amount of memory, max the memory cache. and 75 M is nothing on a disk, so do that as well. i doubt you will need a ramdisk. note that you can not put more than 75M, even on a ramdisk so 512 is a big waste. if your ramdisk is so big that it uses up too much memory, the OS will start to use the swap file ( the exact opposite of a RAM disk) to move your overflowing memory onto disk. this causes A LOT of disk activity. i think that's what you got.
to summarize, max out your mem and disk cache. forget about ramdisk. get the fasterfox plugin and increase your http sockets if you have a broadband connection. also go to speedguide.com and make sure your receive window is tuned to your connection speed. if this is screwed up, it can make a big difference. good luck.
oh yeah, almost forgot, I wouldn't use your real name and address. Just post your first name or get a stupid handle like the rest of us. you're making us feel paranoid by being so trusting on the net.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2010 09:54AM by snuz2.
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