Cachecard - Does it need the Ram?

[MrGadget]

When I bought my Tivo, I decided on a Cachecard instead of the Turbonet card as it would significantly improve the speed of the guide data.
And all is good.
Then a friend of mine got a Tivo, cachecard and ram - and his machine started crashing so he removed the ram....
And the guide ran just as well as ever before.
So I tried it - and yes, it seems to hum along... so with you small range of TV channels (by comparison) and limited range of data - is the Ram required for NZ ?
Interested in other users feedback...

[timmy]

The cachecard helps speed up the now playing menu. It does not help the guide data menu (ie live 'tv' grid or 'record by time/channel')...

what size HD do you have and how full is it? - generally past about 160gb of recordings and ur now playing menu starts to slow down a tad without it although results vary. It's surpising it works without the RAM. smart..


TiM

[jaidev]

Yes the cache card is desgined so it can function without the ram.

Has nothing to do with our limited range of channels or data, the main function of the cache card is to cache the tivo database which is 512mb in size, hence the requirement of a 512mb memory module. This caching of the database speeds up the user interface (not guide data), you generally only see an improvement if you have storage capacity over 120GB that is filled up, without the cache card your 'now playing' menu will be sluggish as the data is read from the harddrive. With the cache card, displaying the 'now playing' menu is much faster.

You can direct your friend to the silicon dust forums, offical site for turbonet/cache card/airnet support. (http://www.silicondust.com/forum/)

[MrGadget]

So it may be a while before I find it overly useful - I have a 160GB drive which is maybe 15% user...
I may leave it off in the mean time as it makes the reboots so much faster.
Thanks for the info :)