SuperSpeed and SuperCache will dramatically speed up Dragon
NaturallySpeaking's performance by means of SuperSpeed's patented virtual
disk and disk caching technology. This software, sometimes referred to
as "RamDisk" software, frees Dragon and other disk intensive
applications to operate at high memory speeds by placing program and application
code in RAM.
While system processor and memory speeds have continued
to increase rapidly, application performance is still constrained by slow
disk and I/O speeds. SuperSpeed and SuperCache appear to the application
as standard hard disk drives, yet operate 100 times faster. Similar
to automobile manufacturers who compensated for sluggish engine performance
by installing TurboChargers, SuperSpeed and SuperCache will TurboCharge
your Dragon NaturallySpeaking recognition engine.
How do they work, and how are they different?
SuperSpeed reads data from main memory at maximum speed.
With SuperCache there is a chance that the requested data will not be
in the cache pool stored in main memory. Therefore, SuperSpeed will always
be faster than SuperCache accessing data sets that fit in memory. For
data sets and disk partitions that extend beyond RAM boundaries, SuperCache
will offer a higher performance solution.
(see more detailed descriptions below to determine which product is right
for your system)
Operational Challenges Posed by Dragon NaturallySpeaking
NaturallySpeaking Professional/Med/Legal places a tremendous
burden on system resources due to the size of the program code and user
vocabulary. The need to continually access this data as dictation is taking
place, from a hard drive that is significantly slower then processor speeds,
can result in overall performance degradation. Recognition accuracy, productivity,
audio responsiveness, and command and control execution can be severely
compromised as a result of system latencies and I/O bottlenecks.
Furthermore, as a result of program enhancements incorporated
in Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7.0, such as the Acoustic and Vocabulary Optimizers,
greater stress will be placed upon system resources to execute these program
features concurrently with dictation and command and control. Unlike all
previous versions of Dragon's professional series, version 7.0 continually
writes optimizer files to disc in preparation for periodic optimization
tune-ups. In fact, in significant usage since its release, the Accudata
engineering staff has experienced optimization files in excess of 300MB.
Again, these files are being written to disc continually and concurrently
during each dictation session.
Consequently, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is not only accessing
its relevant data with disk reads, but to satisfy the needs of the optimization
process, it is also writing significant data to disk at the same time.
Given the fact that even at 8ms. hard disk drives are operating 160,000
times slower than processor and memory speeds, this huge disparity can
only result in performance degradation, inefficiencies, and unresponsiveness.
SuperSpeed to the Rescue
SuperSpeed and SuperCache provide Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Professional an operating environment that virtually eliminates the bottlenecks
and latencies caused by sub-performing PC components. Both of these products
also provide a measure of safety by employing proprietary "write
to disk" data protection. The net result is blazing speed and
performance without compromising data security and integrity.
Once installed, SuperSpeed and SuperCache are completely
transparent to all user and system applications. The only difference users
will notice is the increased speed and responsiveness of Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Professional and other disk intensive applications. No further action
by the system manager is required to obtain Super Performance automatically.
SuperSpeed & Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional
SuperSpeed upon boot up, copies an entire disk drive partition
into RAM. All applications and data that reside on that partition will
now execute completely from RAM. The hard drive partition from which this
mirror image was created, serves as a backing disk. This is known as "persistent
disk". Throughout the entire computing session, this relationship
between the hard disk partition and its mirror image residing in RAM is
maintained. Unlike pure RamDisk, which maintains no disk drive relationship,
the SuperSpeed disk drive partition can be configured to continually write
to disk at predetermined, yet safe intervals. SuperSpeed's proprietary
device drivers are designed to handle these disk writes efficiently with
no system degradation.
Because SuperSpeed creates a complete mirror image of a
hard disk partition, adequate RAM is required to compensate for the size
of this hard drive partition as well as the demands of the operating system
and program applications. On a typical Windows 2000 or Windows XP system,
running Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional, RAM requirements would
be no less than 1GB and ideally 1.5GB. Typically, a single dictator using
Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional will require hard disk partition
space of approximately 800MB. (Consult with your Dragon dealer for additional
information on this requirement.)
Given the presence of adequate RAM, SuperSpeed is unquestionably
the most efficient way to run Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional.
During Accudata System's rigorous testing of this software over a two
month period of time, Dragon 7.0 performed with speed, efficiency, and
responsiveness. At no time, even with a substantial interval of time between
audio input, did Dragon not respond acoustically to speech input stimulus.
Certified by Microsoft, SuperSpeed is available for the
Windows NT, 2000, XP operating systems.
SuperCache & Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional
Unlike SuperSpeed, SuperCache does not create a mirror image
of an entire hard disk partition. Rather, using its patented and award
winning proprietary caching schematic, SuperCache stores frequently accessed
data in RAM. The size of this cache pool is user configurable. One or
more hard disk partitions can be cached, and statistical benchmarks have
demonstrated that SuperCache is about 98% as efficient as SuperSpeed.
Additionally, collateral benefits of overall system performance affect
all concurrent running applications.
What makes SuperCache so special is that it employs a block
caching technique. Rather than cache an entire file (when your system
might be calling for only a portion of that file) which can contribute
to system inefficiencies, SuperCache will only cache that portion of the
file for which historical demand has been created. Within about 20 minutes
after boot up, SuperCache will establish a cache pool of frequently accessed
data thereby eliminating the need for incessant disk reads. And, similar
to SuperSpeed, data written to disk is completely protected.
Installing SuperCache is completely straightforward and
will not require the need to restructure your hard drive to split off
a separate hard drive partition. However since caching the entire hard
drive partition is SuperCache's operational standard, it is highly recommended
that only your critical transactional data and programs reside on the
cached partition.
SuperCache requires Windows NT 4.0, 2000, and soon WinXPPro.(5/2003)
Testing SuperCache
Similar to SuperSpeed as it is documented above, the engineering
staff at Accudata Systems experienced dramatically improved system performance
running Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 7.0 with SuperCache. To
conduct this test, a separate partition of 2GB was created on which Dragon
NaturallySpeaking 6.0 and 7.0 were installed. SuperCache was then configured
to cache this partition only. Dragon NaturallySpeaking was configured
to load into the systray upon boot up. In the option settings, the "most
accurate" slider bar was set to give Dragon NaturallySpeaking greater
recognition accuracy. None of the options that ScanSoft recommends be
turned off to maximize system performance were in fact turned off. Consequently,
we chose to test the system where the demand load on system resources
would be the greatest.
Test Setup Parameters
The CPU used for testing purposes had the following specifications:
- Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1.7 Ghz
- 768MB RAMBUS DRAM
- IBM Hard drive@5400 rpms
- Windows 2000 Professional
- Applications running concurrently:Opt!® Professional Contact
Manager, Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Image composer, Adobe
Photoshop, P.C. Paint, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and Dragon
NaturallySpeaking Professional 7.0.
- SuperCache2000 Pro configuration: 128MB dedicated to cache, 8KB
page size. (See graphic)
- Task Manager Reports: 330MB of available physical RAM.
- NT caching: turned off.
Test Results
In order to conduct a controlled test, we elected to run
Dragon's Acoustic Optimizer with SuperCache enabled and then subsequently
disabled. Testing was conducted on a number of passes using the exact
file configuration that existed for pass 1.
Although ScanSoft recommends that users run the Acoustic
Optimizer at a time when their computer is idle because of the system
resource demands, Accudata Systems experienced a 30% reduction in time
required to complete this process. Conducting a number of controlled tests
with approximately 300MB of stored acoustical data and SuperCache enabled,
the length of time required to run the Acoustic Optimizer was reduced
from 18 minutes to11 minutes.
Summation
Dragon's overall responsiveness to acoustical input stimuli,
was never compromised during the entire testing process. During the actual
testing there were no discernible system latencies, with both dictation
and command-and-control executing flawlessly and instantaneously. Since
the introduction of Dragon Ver. 5.0 up through the current version, system
responsiveness can, under certain circumstances, be compromised only because
the demand upon system resources by Dragon is significantly greater than
most other applications. This phenomenon is, by no stretch of the imagination,
a program flaw or anomaly, rather simply a function of resource supply
and demand. Witnessed in the graphic below is the efficiency with which
Dragon Pro 7.0 operates using SuperCache. You will note that the blue
bar graph charts the statistical calls upon the cache pool for vocabulary
data during an actual dictation session. At the very beginning of this
dictation session, there was an equal preponderance of disk data reads
as evidenced by a higher spiking of green. This chart represents the dictation
session after approximately 20 minutes, demonstrating a dramatic reduction
in disk reads and a breathtaking escalation in cache hits. At this
point in the dictation session, Dragon is operating, almost exclusively
in a RamDisk environment.
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