You Can Run Windows 11 (Tiny11) from 4GB VRAM of a GPU

Windows 11 brings many new features but almost no anyone uses them all at once. For some users, some functions are bloated. As a result, the famous lightweight edition of Windows 11 – Tiny11 appears. This Windows 11 Lite OS not only casts off the aforementioned bloat but also lowers the system requirements to make it can run on low-end PCs.

According to reports, Tiny11 can run 200MB of RAM, which is impressive. Recently, the developer of Tiny11 – NTDEV offers another magic way to install Windows 11 – you can run Windows 11 virtual machine in GPU memory.

Tiny11 Can Run on a GPU with 4 GB VRAM

Instead of using conventional RAM like a normal user, Windows 11 Tiny Edition can be installed in VRAM on the graphics card in a special way and work well. This completely bypasses your hard drive and the limitations of traditional storage methods, which is a huge breakthrough.

The new project tests on a laptop with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card that has 4GB VRAM. The developer creates a RAM drive with 3550MB to run Tiny11 virtual machine using the GpuRamDrive utility.

After a test using CrystalDiskMark, the virtual drive in the VRAM of the GPU can deliver sequential reads and writes up to 1,960 MB/s and 2,497 MB/s. The storage performance comes out spectacular although it is somewhat inferior to the typical PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD.

Of course, like any other RAM drive, data stored in VRAM isn’t saved in a persistent state. Once the Windows OS restarts, all the data will be gone.

To sum up, Tiny11 is a good way for people who don’t have the PC hardware required for the standard Windows 11 OS but want to experience Windows 11’s UI and some features.

If you are interested in how to run Windows 11 from VRAM, let’s get started by following the guide below.

Guide: How to Run Tiny11 on GPU

It is not hard to run Tiny11 from a video card. This involves two simple ways – create a RAM drive on the graphics card and create a virtual machine. Let’s see what you should do.

Move 1: Create a RAM Drive on GPU

To do this thing, you can seek help from the tool called GpuRamDrive which can be got from GitHub.

Step 1: Just visit the website https://github.com/prsyahmi/GpuRamDrive, then tap on the release, and then click GpuRamDrive-v04.zip from Assets. After getting this .zip file, extract all the content from it with WinRAR, WinZip, or 7-Zip.

Step 2: After the decompression, double-click on the GpuRamDrive-cuda_x64.exe file to run it on your PC.

Step 3: Type 3550 in the Memory Size field and click Mount. Then, you can see the virtual drive in File Explorer.

Step 4: Then, copy the vram11.vhd file you have created to the virtual drive.

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Move 2: Create a Virtual Machine

NTDEV uses Hyper-V Manager to run Windows 11 virtual machine in GPU memory. See how to create the Tiny11 VM:

Step 1: Launch Hyper-V Manager on your PC.

Step 2: Click New > Virtual Machine, name the VM vram11, and continue the configurations.

Step 3: Under the Connect Virtual Hard Disk tab, choose Use an existing virtual hard disk. Then, choose vram11.vhd from the RAM drive to continue.

Step 4: Then, make some advanced settings, for example, disable checkpoints and uncheck Backup (volume shadow copy) under Integration Services. Then, run the virtual machine of Tiny11.

If you want to clearly know how to run Windows 11 from VRAM, you can see this video from NTDEV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1TRyd7oM1A. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment to this developer.

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