These are great instructions!!! Thanks so much for posting in-depth details for everyone! I will be trying out your methods as well.
How do you create an NTFS hard link to various drive paths? I follow everything else, but I've never heard of NTFS hard links.
Could you please provide some details on this. I've also linked to your post on the OP as I think others will find your technique very very useful.

"mklink" is what you are looking for . . .

So here is what I do
Copy my C:\Oblivion\Data\ to the Z:\ (the ram drive) (using windows exploder or robocopy or whatever you want)
Rename the folder to "Od" or whatever you feel like naming it.
Delete the folder C:\Oblivion\Data\
Create a directory Junction from C:\Oblivion\Data\ to Z:\Od
Proper syntax from the command line would be -

mklink /J "C:\Oblivion\Data\" "Z:\Od\"

You will now have a folder "C:\Oblivion\Data" that looks like a normal folder in that location except the contents of that folder are physically located on the Ram Drive!

-dan


Edit: I am using Dataram RAMDisk - I can't tell you what version from here at work, but I haven't updated since I got it about a year ago. I tried a bunch of different programs that were free then bought the licence because this one had the best UI (for me at least). I have had a couple of image file corruptions over the past year, but no problems other than that. Note, it takes a while to move 11 GB of data from disk to RAM so your computer will start up significantly slower when you have it enabled.

umm I am a moron today . . .
You can't use /J across drives only /D links
Syntax should have been

mklink /D "C:\Oblivion\Data\" "Z:\Od\"

sorry if that caused anyone confusion . . .

-dan

I hadn't tried it yet as I'm still at work, but I will be soon!!! Thanks again for the follow up

I did some experimentation with RAMdisk last few days which I thought might interest people. I only have 4GB of RAM on my PC (64bit Windows 7) so it wasn't feasable for me to copy much of my meshes or textures to RAM (25+ GB fromlots of graphic improvement mods and large quest mods). However from a post I read somewhere, one source of stuttering is loading the distantLOD files. These files are all small, but I had like 12000 of them in the data\distantLOD directory, so I guess wading through them all causes Oblivion to stutter. To check this, I simply deleted all files in this directory (don't worry they can be regenerated with TES4LODGEN); I saw 2 effects: (1) Major FPS improvement, at the expense of objects popping up in the near distance, and (2) way less noticeable stutter effect when crossing cell boundaries (often my stutters were accompanied by a crash, such crashes seemed to reduce dramatically)

So with this in mind I made a small RAMDisk (only 40MB). I moved the distantLOD directory to it, then made a symbolic link from the original directory to the new one on the RAMdisk so Oblivion could find it. I found that stuttering and crashing did indeed reduce noticably for me (though crashes haven't been completely eliminated). In combination with Oblivion Stutter Remover, I now enjoy much longer periods of gameplay between crashes.

Regarding performance, I didn't notice any increase in FPS using the small RAMdisk. However, my experiment with deleteing all the distantLOD files opened my eyes to what a huge FPS drain it is to render the VWD objects. I implemented some of the tips from the readme file that comes with Arthmoor's RAEVWD mod (in particular, reducing uGridDistantCount to 18 and disabling Better Cities VWD.esp); now I enjoy much better FPS performance at very small cost to game beauty, and the use of the RAMdisk has improved stuttering and reduced the crashes. In summary, even a small RAMdisk has made a huge difference to my enjoyment of the game.

More detailed instructions:
1. Download RAMdisk (link in opening post)
2. Use Ramdisk utility to start an unformatted 40MB drive (mklink command won't work with FAT formatted drives)
3. Go to Computer Management (via Control Panel Administrative Tools)
4. Go to Storage->Disk Management
5. Click on the visual representation of the new disk
6. Right click to create a simple volume
7. Accept the maximum size
8. Assign the drive letter R:
9. Quick format as NTFS with volume label MyRamDisk (no file and folder compression)
--> MyRamDisk (R:) will now be available in explorer
10. Regenerate your distantLOD folder if necessary with TES4LODGEN (make sure your load order has been finalised before this step)
11. Move the DistantLOD folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\oblivion\Data\ to R:
(non-Steam users substitute the appropriate path to your oblivion data directory. And keep a backup of this directory somewhere so you can redo this step if you restart your RAMdisk)
12. In a command prompt window (for Windows 7 need to run this command window as administrator) type
mklink /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\oblivion\Data\DistantLOD" R:\DistantLOD
13. Run Oblivion and check stuttering has improved (hopefully this does indeed work for others the way it worked for me)
14. Once satisfied, return to the RAMdisk utility, make an image, and set it to load this image at startup. Since its a small RAMdisk the creation time is hardly noticable during Windows startup.

Thanks far327 and Mahjers! I forgot how to find the disk manager and didn't know you could make NTFS volumes with RAMDisk this way. RAMDisk works well for Minecraft servers too.

I believe credit is due to kandiedan as well.

Yeah and to anyone who said anything really. mklink is something I didnt know about until recently, they are less used and less available tools for regular users but very useful.

Doing the DistandLOD folder seems like it would be the best use of this software all around. With OSR, the only stutter I ever see anymore is from loading LOD data at cell borders. Having 65MB of it probably isn't helping that. Nice thing is, since it's not dozens of GB worth of stuff, nearly everyone could spare a 100MB chunk to shift this folder to. Even 32 bit users.

Thanks all for this post and clear instructions- even a dolt like me could follow!

Everyone should use this, and it's free!

I know this is bumping un-necessarily, but this deserves attention...

Everytime I create a new RAMDisk, the free space in that disk is limited to 57.7 MB - I tried creating a disk of 65 MB, then 80 MB, but no diffeence, the 22 or so MB gets eaten up by myesterious forces. ANy clues?

My DistantLOD folder is 65 MB, so I need at least that space...

Would this program work on a Win7 32bit with 3gb of ram?Could I get any benefit?

Modern OSes - Windows 7 included - do an intelligent file caching. What it means? All free RAM is used to map disk data on RAM. if any app requires the RAM, it is instantly freed for the program. If it is idling, the system puts it to better use by caching disk data.
Back in the Windows 98 days, and XP to a lesses extent, RAM disks made some sense in this regard, for specific circumstances.
If you have at the very least 8GB of RAM *MAYBE* you can get a little less stuttering (low fps) when data is being loaded from the disk if you use a RAM disk, but then you are dedicating it just to the game, making it unavailable to other stuff.
You also need to leave at least 2GB free for the OS, so I think fo a game like skyrim, you'd need 12 GB or more to make a meaningful RAMdisk, and it would only help teh low frame rates.
It would not be persistent too. Unless the program has a facility to preload a disk image (which I very much doubt), you'd have to copy your data every time you reboot.
And it would only help the low lows of frame rates. Hmmm that's soooo much trouble for so little (questionable) benefit.
If you want to get rid of the low lows in the frame rate, by all means get an SSD if you have the money. If you get higher highs, get a better video card. If you are still on a HDD, a dedicated drive for the games (separate from the OS drive) and defragging also help...
If you gan get 12GB+ of RAM in your system, I bet you can also get one of those (SSD or video card).

Good luck anyway!

I have a program called RAMDisk on my Windows 3.1 laptop...does that count?

Yes, but that automated intelligence is not comparable to dedicating a RAM disk to a specific set of files prior to their use. It is contradictory to argue both A) that Windows file caching makes RAMDisk obsolete, AND that an SSD provides improvement over a disc HDD.

Depending on how much RAM you an spare, placing key parts of your Oblivion install into a RAM disk can and does provide performance improvement (increased load times, reduced stuttering) beyond even what an SSD delivers.