I'd just like to share a solution to BaseCamp detailed map viewing and route drawing speed. I used to do this in Google Maps, but Basecamp has gotten much better recently, so it's quicker to do it all in Basecamp once you learn it.
The detailed map can be stored on your local PC as well as your USB-connected device so that you can pan and zoom faster. It installs into a folder like C:\ProgramData\Garmin\Maps. With an SSD C: drive this helps to speed up the map access, but it hogs up valuable SSD space. In another thread, I found you can move the map folder to a rotating D: drive folder and place a link to it in the C: drive folder and Basecamp still works, showing the D: drive folder as the map folder.
This is all great, but my 1TB rotating D: drive makes Basecamp map pan and zoom functions somewhat slow. Enter RamDisk or ASRock's XFast Ram utility - ways to move files or folders into (much faster) RAM. I have 8GB of RAM, so that's big enough to fit the 3.1GB North America map folder and leave plenty for the OS to run. So I ran XFast RAM to create a 3.2GB RAM "R:" drive from my 8GB RAM (leaving 4.8GB available). I copied the map folder to the R: drive and changed the shortcut in the default C: drive to point to the R: drive, and it worked beautifully! I couldn't believe the pan / zoom speed with the millions of details on the map. Now I can plan my long trips much more quickly and efficiently. I verified that pan / zoom speed is limited by processor / RAM / graphics speed only. (My system: ASRock Z87M Extreme4 MB, Intel Core [email protected], 8GB DDR3-1866 RAM, EVGA GTX760 2GB).
There is one catch. If you power down or reboot the PC, RAM is cleared, so the map disappears. If so, I just copy the map folder from D: to R: as before, which takes about 15 seconds on my PC. I rarely have to do this because I usually keep my PC in sleep mode when not in use, so the maps always stay in RAM. (My UPS also prevents short power outage reboots.) So there's no "copy" overhead task unless you shut down or reboot the PC. In my opinion, the map usability increase outweighs this overhead (assuming you have enough RAM available).
Enjoy!