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<font face="Benguiat Bk BT"><font color="#006600">Mario,</font></font>
<br><font face="Benguiat Bk BT"><font color="#006600">thanks for your detailed
email. But unless you have an <b><i>extremely</i></b> slow system,
I think you're letting yourself in for a lot of headaches. If you
have QP2, you don't need to scan your <b><i>entire</i></b> database.
Many of the stocks in the QP2 database are low volume and haven't even
been classified by IRL. If you know what you're looking for, you
can whittle those 9,000 stocks to maybe 2,000 using QP2 fundamental scans.
That means a scan should only take about 5 minutes, at most. This
is hardly worth the time installing, configuring and debugging VRAMDISK.
Because VRAMDISK is only $10 and is at version 1.1, it may just have a
few bugs.</font></font>
<p><font face="Benguiat Bk BT"><font color="#006600">Since you are using
Virtual, it should be easy for you to filter out symbols in QP2 which meet
your criteria and place them into your Virtual folders. I'm glad
VRAMDISK is working for you. However, you need to keep in mind that
the reason why you are downloading QP2 everyday is not to debug software,
it is to find buying opportunities in stocks. Because technical analysis
is such a large field and both QP2 and Metastock are so powerful, it will
take some time for you to become expert at all three. Still, isn't
it worth it when you start trading in realtime making all that <b><i>cash</i></b>? </font></font><img SRC="cid:part1.37A04836.A5966210@xxxxxxxxxx"; height=16 width=16 align=ABSBOTTOM>
<p><font face="Benguiat Bk BT"><font color="#006600">Could you tell me
what CPU, memory, motherboard type, and HDD type/capacity you have?</font></font>
<p><font face="Benguiat Bk BT"><font color="#006600">Daniel.</font></font>
<br>
<br>
<p>Mario Fortier wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE> Hi Daniel,
<p>Technically your comments are right when talking about the conventional
way of doing for Ram Disk. But things may have change a little bit since
the university (I'm just joking ;->)
<p>The tool I did suggest makes your life easier (VRAMDISK). You may want
to have a second look to the link I provided in my first e-mail:
<p>1) There is no need to designate a drive letter. The Virtual Ram Disk
is in fact a directory map to your hard disk.
<br> Example: You tell to the VRAMDISK tool that
any access to C:\QP2MEM directory should be done in memory! This is done
by
<br>
using their VRAMDIRVE icon found in the Control Panel.
<br>
So to fill up the memory you simply do copy everything in C:\QP2DATA into
C:\QP2MEM.
<br> I found the idea pretty neat as it save the
troubles about the drive letters shifting around.
<p>2) I hear you when you are talking about the time required to copy from
the HDD to the Ram Disk. This is what I call the "initial setup time"
in my first e-mail. But if you need to perform more than one scan, it automatically
justify to use a RamDisk. The second scan will be performed with database
access performance INCREDIBLY faster (assuming your whole database fits
in memory).
<br> Now, about the overhead for the initial setup,
when you do a scan of the database (without the RamDisk), you have to READ
all the database on your HDD anyway. So, when you use the Ramdisk solution,
the added overhead is only in fact the WRITING in memory of the database
and the READING from memory of the database with the first search performed.
You understand that this is not as huge as you state. Again, the second
search automatically justify the RamDisk because of the incredible speedup.
<br>I understand that if someone never perform more than one search per
day, there is no need to consider a Ram Disk.
<p>3) There is no need to play with the registry. And yes, you can simply
change the configuration of QP2 for looking at the map Ram Disk Folder
instead of your usual database folder. Once changed, you just have
to launch the scan program and it will correctly pick up the actual configuration
(no need to reboot). After your scans, you can change it back to your usual
database folder (and be ready for the next daily update!)
<p>4) I did not understood why you are talking about the time for copying
between partition... that's not really related to a HDD/RamDisk copy.
<p>5) Another unconventional approach by the VRAMDISK software is that
they allowed to put in the RAM DISK more data than your physical memory
can handle. The trick is they are writing the exceeding files into the
Hard Disk. Of course, you have absolutely no speed gain when acccessing
that exceeding data (and that makes the setup time definitly longuer).
Now, if that exceeding data represent only (let's say) 20% of your database,
there is still 80% of your database in memory enjoying a full speedup...
all this transparently to the application software (QP2 Scan) who simply
logically continue to access only ONE mapped folder !
<p>Conclusion, as you can see, that application does a good job and it
is well integrated under Win95/Win98 (except the documentation and the
marketing is really poor. The installation program is done using
a DOS batch file... but considering your background you won't be affraid
by this :->).
<p>The only problem I found up to now is it seems that database exceeding
329 MB does not work well when it comes time to copy into RamDisk. I did
not investigate more than that, I did simply reduced the size of my database.
<p>\Mario
<p>Daniel Martinez wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE> Mario,
<br>I thought about the RAM disk option. When I was going to the
university, I used the DOS RAM disk to compile my programs because the
computer was so slow. However, it would be difficult to use a RAM
disk in Windows 9x. Stock database programs, such as QP2, expect
to see its database in a certain drive/partition and folder. Even
if you were to figure out which files to copy to RAM disk, you still would
have to modify the QP2 Registry settings. Perhaps you could use the
QP2 configuration program and move the database to the RAM disk.
You would have to wait for your HDD to copy over 200 MB's to RAM disk.
Also, if you create a RAM disk, you probably also have to assign it a drive
letter. That means you would have to modify your Registry and numerous
other files so that, at minimum, your CD-ROM driver letter increases by
one. Because I use PartitionMagic, I have already gone through this
process several times and it is never simple.
<p>Even something as simple as moving an application's folder to another
partition can be time consuming. There have been many times when
I was forced to use Norton Utilities Disk Editor (DOS) to modify the app's
configuration files. This usually involved changing every instance
of the drive letter in each file.
<p>Daniel.
<br>
<p>Mario Fortier wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE> Daniel Martinez wrote:<<text removed>>
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>3. <b><font color="#CC0000">If you want to
do the absolute fastest stock database searches you possibly can</font></b>,
then there is only 1 hard drive solution for you: SCSI/UW2.
Buy a motherboard with it built in. The P6SBU
at $320 would be a good choice. For a SCSI/UW2 hard drive, expect
to pay at least $340 USD for an IBM
9.1GB U2W at <a href="http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/prod/9esprod.htm";>7200
RPM</a> and $600 for <a href="http://www.direct.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce/CategoryDisplay?cgrfnbr=2000202&cgmenbr=1&cntry=840&lang=en_US";>10K
RPM</a>. If you cannot afford the premium, buy the new $330 <a href="http://www.wdc.com/products/drives/18000rtl.htm";>Western
Digital 18GB UATA/66 at 66MB/sec and 7200 RPM</a> and a 66MB capable motherboard.
COMPUSA had this HD on sale for $270 with some other free hardware.
The best BX chipset based motherboard is the <a href="http://www.abit.com.tw/html/bx6r2.htm";>ABIT
BX6 2.0</a>. It should also be 66MB/sec HDD capable.</blockquote>
That's a very well documented e-mail Daniel :->
<p>Now, when it comes to the fastest database searches someone may consider
to copy the database in a Virtual RAM Disk...
<br>A couple of things to keep in mind:
<p>- You have to consider that it takes a while to initially copy the full
database to the RAM disk, but assuming you are making more than one consecutive
search, it is worth the initial setup time.
<p>- Of course, you need plenty of memory or a small database....
<p>- If your database is too large for your physical memory, you may consider
an interesting alternative: VRamDir.
<br> http://www.users.uswest.net/~jzhong/vramdir.htm
<br> As your needs will vary I suggest to simply experiment
and see by yourself.
<p>I understand that this is not an universal solution, but some may found
that trick practical and applicable to their needs.
<p>\Mario</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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