need help config to better support new webcam

[Brian]

Although I have sufficient system resources to support my new webcam's
advertised Sys. Reqmts, it seems that when I use the webcam, the hard
drive spins super fast and really strains my computer.

I was told that by one person that he deals with this issue by using "a
ramdisk whenever I'm using my
webcam app. I have all of the program's temporary files save to the
ramdisk (computer memory) instead of the physical hard disk, to avoid
the wear and tear you are speaking of."

I have not been able to get further info about this. I believe I
understand what he's doing conceptually, but do not know how to go
configuring my computer or cam to do it. (If this is truly is a good
answer short of buying an even more sooped-up PC).

I'm on WinXP Pro Svc Pak 2. The web cam is Logitech QuickCam® Orbit
MP. I do not have access to my own computer at the moment to provide
the resources, but they are way over the webcam's reqmts. I edit video
software on this machine so I have lots of extra RAM and HD space.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Paul]

Although I have sufficient system resources to support my new webcam's
advertised Sys. Reqmts, it seems that when I use the webcam, the hard
drive spins super fast and really strains my computer.

I was told that by one person that he deals with this issue by using "a
ramdisk whenever I'm using my
webcam app. I have all of the program's temporary files save to the
ramdisk (computer memory) instead of the physical hard disk, to avoid
the wear and tear you are speaking of."

I have not been able to get further info about this. I believe I
understand what he's doing conceptually, but do not know how to go
configuring my computer or cam to do it. (If this is truly is a good
answer short of buying an even more sooped-up PC).

I'm on WinXP Pro Svc Pak 2. The web cam is Logitech QuickCam® Orbit
MP. I do not have access to my own computer at the moment to provide
the resources, but they are way over the webcam's reqmts. I edit video
software on this machine so I have lots of extra RAM and HD space.

Thanks,
Brian

This is as much a function of crappy software, as anything else.
Perhaps some third party app will do a better job ?

If a video capture devices captures a stream in a compressed
format, then the compressed data is written to disk (because
you wanted capture), and then the compressed data is read off
the disk (because you want preview at the same time), then the
disk head will be flying around a lot. Some software continues
to write to disk, even if you have not requested capture, and
that busted implementation could be responsible for what you
are seeing.

A RAM Disk is fine, as long as you are not actually capturing.
If indeed it was a few very small temporary files, then a RAM Disk
might decouple operations for the program. But some better written
software is likely to do as much for you, as messing around with
a RAM Disk.

There are a couple free RAM Disk programs. But it has been
years since I've used them. Some are based on some prototype
Microsoft code, and had limits as to the size of the RAM
Disk. For example, I set up a 100MB RAM Disk on a 1GB
of RAM machine, to do some network file serving tests.
So there are some free programs to do it.

HTH,
Paul