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activetk/vramdisk

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

★ 116RustAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · hard

TLDR

A Windows app that mounts part of your GPU's video memory as a disk drive, letting you use GPU speed for compression and hashing on those files.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((VRAMDISK))
    What it does
      Mounts VRAM as a disk
      GPU accelerated file ops
      Data clears on unmount
    Tech stack
      Rust
      Tauri
      CUDA and WinFsp
    Use cases
      Fast scratch storage
      GPU file compression
      Hash computation
    Audience
      Windows developers
      NVIDIA GPU owners

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Create extremely fast, temporary scratch storage backed by GPU memory.

USE CASE 2

Compress files directly on the GPU using the optional nvCOMP integration.

USE CASE 3

Compute hash values for files stored on the VRAM disk using GPU parallelism.

USE CASE 4

Experiment with using GPU memory as general-purpose file storage.

What is it built with?

RustTauriCUDAWinFsp

How does it compare?

activetk/vramdiskrightnow-ai/autoyarlabs/hyperspace-db
Stars116116113
LanguageRustRustRust
Setup difficultyhardhardhard
Complexity4/54/55/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 30min

Requires Windows, a compatible NVIDIA GPU, and installing the WinFsp filesystem driver before mounting a drive.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

VRAMDISK is a Windows application that lets you turn a portion of your graphics card's video memory, known as VRAM, into a mountable disk drive that appears alongside your normal drives. Instead of storing files on your hard drive or SSD, they are held in an object-storage-style layout inside the GPU's own memory, which means the GPU's fast parallel processing can be used directly on the files stored there, for example to compress them, calculate hash values, or encode them. Everything stored on the drive disappears once you unmount it or close the application, since it never leaves the GPU's memory. To use it, your computer needs Windows 10 or 11 and an NVIDIA graphics card newer than the Maxwell generation, with CUDA 12.8 support. Setup involves installing a filesystem driver called WinFsp, downloading the prebuilt release archive, and then running the included program, where you pick which GPU to use, choose a drive letter or folder to mount it to, set a size, and click mount. An optional extra step lets you install NVIDIA's nvCOMP runtime, which unlocks a file compression feature that runs directly on the GPU once the drive is mounted. The README also lists fixes for two common Windows errors people may hit during setup, involving missing Visual C++ or WebView2 runtime components. Building the project from source requires a Visual Studio developer environment, and the app itself is built with Tauri, combining a Rust backend with a web-based interface, installed and built through a couple of PowerShell scripts. The author points anyone wanting deeper technical details on the internal design to a separate development notes file, suggesting it is meant to be read by an AI assistant rather than a person. The project is released under the MIT license, which allows free use and modification, including for commercial purposes. This suits Windows users with a compatible NVIDIA GPU who want extremely fast, temporary storage for tasks like scratch space during heavy computation, or who are curious about using GPU memory and parallel processing for everyday file operations like compression and hashing.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Walk me through installing WinFsp and mounting my first VRAM disk.
Prompt 2
Explain how VRAMDISK uses GPU parallelism to compress files with nvCOMP.
Prompt 3
Help me fix the missing VCRUNTIME140.dll error when running vramdisk.exe.
Prompt 4
Show me how to build VRAMDISK from source using the PowerShell build scripts.

Frequently asked questions

What is vramdisk?

A Windows app that mounts part of your GPU's video memory as a disk drive, letting you use GPU speed for compression and hashing on those files.

What language is vramdisk written in?

Mainly Rust. The stack also includes Rust, Tauri, CUDA.

What license does vramdisk use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is vramdisk to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is vramdisk for?

Mainly developer.

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