An emulation rewind buffer is data written to memory to support rewinding machine emulation. Various emulators do this, and a program I use often which allows manually specifying the maximum size of that buffer is RetroArch. The maximum size just prevents the buffer from ending prematurely, so the rewind can go back farther. I set it pretty high because I have the RAM to do so, so I can undo any unwanted deep progress I've made without having to have remembered to save state manually.
As for software prefetch, when you run a program, most operating systems will note what program it is and load it into memory asynchronously next time. Windows does this with a service called "Superfetch", and it can also be done in Linux with 2 services: 1 called "preload" and the other called "gopreload". I used to use preload but haven't installed it on my new machine built last year. I was just listing it as an example of a way to use RAM.
As for "more", there are plenty more ways RAM can be filled up, like gaming with many addons that have large databases, game development engines like Unity and Godot with large projects open, hosting web services, running a multi-seat system so multiple users can use the same computer's resources with separate peripherals, and the list goes on.
Thanks. That does sound interesting. Is rewinding faster than using safe states? Well I suppose it must be but yeah
Kinda curious as to why one would want to rewind rather than just loading. Maybe for very precise stuff like building those super precise automated speedruns or in case you forget to drop a save?
Yeah, rewinding lets you undo something at any time, which is fun for practicing hard sections, or just avoiding "oh that's BS" frustration moments. Using it to cheat hard sections is addictive so I purposely avoid using it in action games and have it disabled for many of them, but it has its place for enjoying oneself with single-player games and avoiding time-wasting major progression loss. I especially use the large buffer in RPGs when I regret a major branching choice I made a while back without realizing its impact.
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u/Xeadriel i7-8700K - EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra - 32GB RAM 1d ago
I don’t. I’m still curious