Using the program 'Android System' I noticed the dashboard shows a MAX of 325MB with X amount FREE. I understand there is some overhead for Video etc but 187MB?! I don’t think so... My next thought was that 2.1 only supports X amount of RAM and that when 2.2 comes out we will see closer to the full 512MB. Does anyone know if this is the case? Thanks in advance!
It has 512, but the phone is unable to use it all at present. The 2.2 update will come with a kernal update, which will allow full use of all 512mb. Unless some enterprising developers gets there first with a custom ROM...
It is interesting you report 325mb of RAM. I was fairly certain the 2.6.29 Kernal was limited to 256.
I can only see 199 with all the tools I have tried, but I don't know exactly how much is dedicated to the OS.
In 2.2 the phone is supposed to be able to use all 512... which means we will probably see 400 max available for programs.
Physically it has 512MB of RAM, but the system doesnt recognize all of it under 2.1
\It will be recognized in 2.2
Thanks for the info guys!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Dareoth said:
It is interesting you report 325mb of RAM. I was fairly certain the 2.6.29 Kernal was limited to 256.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
interesting, he reported 325 and joey reported 199
each around 58 lower than what the system would recognize (256 or 384)
so is it possible that the system uses about 58mb and there is some setting or secret firmware allowing him to recognize more?
I have the stock JF6 ROM... Nothing special just a few mods nothing RAM related. I just checked it again; 325MB. Are you guys using the 'Android System Info' app, maybe it/mine is reporting incorrectly!? Any ideas?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Since this is a Linux system you can get the real info from /proc/meminfo.
MemTotal ~ 325MB as reported by the 2.6.29 kernel. As others have reported Froyo should see all 512. From http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html
2.6.32 kernel upgrade
HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB
SDIO scheduling and BT improvements
Code:
# cat /proc/meminfo
cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 333336 kB
MemFree: 3408 kB
Buffers: 372 kB
Cached: 63816 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 130364 kB
Inactive: 146516 kB
Active(anon): 106464 kB
Inactive(anon): 106684 kB
Active(file): 23900 kB
Inactive(file): 39832 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 212704 kB
Mapped: 35116 kB
Slab: 12040 kB
SReclaimable: 2388 kB
SUnreclaim: 9652 kB
PageTables: 14684 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 166668 kB
Committed_AS: 9151572 kB
VmallocTotal: 286720 kB
VmallocUsed: 88084 kB
VmallocChunk: 178180 kB
ctalbot said:
Since this is a Linux system you can get the real info from /proc/meminfo.
MemTotal ~ 325MB as reported by the 2.6.29 kernel. As others have reported Froyo should see all 512. From http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html
2.6.32 kernel upgrade
HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB
SDIO scheduling and BT improvements
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I pulled up /proc/meminfo and get 333336 as well...
I wonder why the "running processes" app only shows a total of 199?
Just thought I'd try to resurrect this thread instead of starting another...
I've been doing a little googling, and I found on one of the original Korean teardowns of a GT-i9000 (intl. version of our Galaxy S). Link is here.
It would appear (at least based on their teardown) that the Galaxy S DOES NOT in fact have 512 MB of DDR memory. It does have a total of 512 MB of "RAM", just that 384 MB is DDR RAM, and the last 128 MB is OneNAND memory. Plus an extra 512 MB of non-storage NAND (aka, ROM in the traditional sense).
I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the OneNAND is somehow being used for radio and GPU, and the DDR is the "RAM" we see in Android. But it would seem clear from every teardown I could find, that the Galaxy S does not have 512 MB of DDR like we expect it too. Not nessecarily a good or a bad thing, it may just be that Samsung decided to design the Galaxy S a little bit differently than other current smartphones. I'm betting that the OneNAND is assigned and controlled entirely by the radio, and is already being used way before the Android kernel even gets going. Either way, until I see someone actually address all 512 MB of RAM with a kernel, I'm going to assume that there isn't actually 512 MB of DDR RAM in the thing.
People can feel free to disagree, but I think this is a reasonable solution for why Samsung claims that the Galaxy S has 512 MB of "RAM", but also why we are seeing significantly less user-addressable RAM from within Android. They are just being slightly deceptive by calling the OneNAND flash memory "RAM".
Thanks for trying to bring this post back! I agree with you, from every teardown and some gathered info; The captivate only has 384MB of OS RAM. (and that RAM may even be shared with the video) Kinda BS if you ask me; its like saying my PC has 9.5GB of RAM. Rather than stating that I have 8GB of OS RAM and 1.5GB of video RAM. Oh well... Please correct me if I am wrong!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Question: Why on Earth DOESN'T this device use all 512MB from teh get-go?
PhrProfess said:
Question: Why on Earth DOESN'T this device use all 512MB from teh get-go?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that is the question isn't it? Perhaps as time goes by devs will be able to recover (or perhaps reallocate) even more of that RAM towards OS use. Seems sort of unlikely to recover the OneNAND though, as it's probably controlled by mostly proprietary low-level code.
My thoughts are still that the kernels for ALL the galaxy variants are designed to support the 384 megs of ram that the fascinate has. Yes, the fascinate only has 384 megs of ram( as per the Samsung website). We may have 512 physical ram but the cookie cutter kernel is only using 384. This would have saved Samsung some QA time-- or maybe that kernel mad the most stable memory allocation configuration.
ipxnsv said:
My thoughts are still that the kernels for ALL the galaxy variants are designed to support the 384 megs of ram that the fascinate has. Yes, the fascinate only has 384 megs of ram( as per the Samsung website). We may have 512 physical ram but the cookie cutter kernel is only using 384. This would have saved Samsung some QA time-- or maybe that kernel mad the most stable memory allocation configuration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, probably not though. Why would Samsung design their "cookie cutter kernel" based on one of the least popular design variants? That wouldn't really make much sense from a efficiency standpoint would it?
Either way, I think this has more to do with the physical hardware on board than the way the kernel is addressing it. If anything, I think Verizon didn't want to perpetuate the lie that Samsung has had going with all the other carriers, and just decided to fess up that the Galaxy S only has 384 MB of traditional DDR RAM.
Shammyh said:
Yea, probably not though. Why would Samsung design their "cookie cutter kernel" based on one of the least popular design variants? That wouldn't really make much sense from a efficiency standpoint would it?
Either way, I think this has more to do with the physical hardware on board than the way the kernel is addressing it. If anything, I think Verizon didn't want to perpetuate the lie that Samsung has had going with all the other carriers, and just decided to fess up that the Galaxy S only has 384 MB of traditional DDR RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because ALL variants have AT-LEAST 384 megs of ram. Easier going down, than up.
Verizon has crippled thier devices in the past; the htc touch pro... The verizon version has 192MB vs 288MB for the ATT version, also the verizon version has no accelerometer. Kinda off subject there but anyways, I still wish we knew more about how the memory is being allocated on the captivate!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Shammyh said:
Just thought I'd try to resurrect this thread instead of starting another...
I've been doing a little googling, and I found on one of the original Korean teardowns of a GT-i9000 (intl. version of our Galaxy S). Link is here.
It would appear (at least based on their teardown) that the Galaxy S DOES NOT in fact have 512 MB of DDR memory. It does have a total of 512 MB of "RAM", just that 384 MB is DDR RAM, and the last 128 MB is OneNAND memory. Plus an extra 512 MB of non-storage NAND (aka, ROM in the traditional sense).
I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the OneNAND is somehow being used for radio and GPU, and the DDR is the "RAM" we see in Android. But it would seem clear from every teardown I could find, that the Galaxy S does not have 512 MB of DDR like we expect it too. Not nessecarily a good or a bad thing, it may just be that Samsung decided to design the Galaxy S a little bit differently than other current smartphones. I'm betting that the OneNAND is assigned and controlled entirely by the radio, and is already being used way before the Android kernel even gets going. Either way, until I see someone actually address all 512 MB of RAM with a kernel, I'm going to assume that there isn't actually 512 MB of DDR RAM in the thing.
People can feel free to disagree, but I think this is a reasonable solution for why Samsung claims that the Galaxy S has 512 MB of "RAM", but also why we are seeing significantly less user-addressable RAM from within Android. They are just being slightly deceptive by calling the OneNAND flash memory "RAM".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Galaxy S has the c111a application processor (hummingbird), which includes... 4Gb NAND + 3Gb DDR + 1Gb OneNAND.
I don't know exactly how that's divvied up, but it does have 512MB there for RAM.
384 sounds like no gingerbread for us
XGX5309 said:
The Galaxy S has the c111a application processor (hummingbird), which includes... 4Gb NAND + 3Gb DDR + 1Gb OneNAND.
I don't know exactly how that's divvied up, but it does have 512MB there for RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's my point exactly. 512 MB ROM, 384 MB DDR RAM, and 128 MB OneNAND.
OneNAND != DDR.
Related
My friend just got his phone from unlocked mobiles, i am still waiting for mine from Handtec... argh... but i just got him to check how much free memory he had from looking at advanced task killer and he only had 37MB free!!? Got him to kill everything and he only got about 130MB free in total.
Can other people check theirs to see, because its looking like the same problem that happened with the nexus one where only 256MB of the 512MB RAM was available to use, until they upgrade it to Froyo 2.2 or change the kernal to allow for Hi Mem support.
rubbish if they havent sorted this!
anyone?
ya.. its the same because of the limitation in 2.6.29 kernel not the phone. More reason to bug Samsung to upgrade to froyo or root the device
Yeah i don't think they've fixed it, ,my phone only reports about over 100 meg free.
where do you go to see memory available?
122m Avail. memory using adv task killer.
bugger, i thought they would have at least sorted out the kernal to support himem. if XDA developers can do it for android 2.1 then why cant samsung! very lame and annoying as I have seen my friends phone slow down quite a few times now.
I flashed froyo JPD + voodoo lagfix and my RAM manger shows
191 / 304 MB.
I choosed level 1 and 2 and clean memory, now it is using 144 MB.
I guess it is supposed to show 512 MB.
If I kill everything, 142M free (stock JVK). I used to be able to get ~170M free with JPY...
I'm of the, sometimes controversial, opinion that unused RAM is wasted RAM though and don't really care how much is free - as long there's no lag!
Valeo said:
I'm of the, sometimes controversial, opinion that unused RAM is wasted RAM though and don't really care how much is free - as long there's no lag!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have same opinion. We will never see 512mb ram available, as someones may think..we HAVE 512mb ram, but due technical issues, it won't be all usable for us..and as a linux based system, it's good to have mem full as possible. Generally speaking...
There is many topics about ram in xda..with lots of information..
sent from my i9000 w/ xda premium
209\329, jvk
As far as i can remember, we don't see the whole 512 mb RAM (or at least 400+) because of PowerVR GPU, which reserves a lot of ram for itself.
I read the i9000 cpu c111A datasheet,
c111A include 4Gb NAND + 3Gb DDR + 1Gb OneNAND.
it's means 384M ddr + 128M OneNAND.
why everyone says:512M RAM?
what's the OneNand?
Samsung says 512MB RAM. Where'd you hear it has OneNand?
I doubt Samsung would confuse Nand and RAM.
from here:
/attachment.php?attachmentid=403851&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1284870007
There are already few threads about this issue. No one really knows exactly how much actual RAM there is for programs. There are conflicting reports, for example Samsung themselves say there is 384MB of RAM in Fascinate (Galaxy S for Verizon US), and then in some of their other Galaxy S variants they say 512MB of RAM. For me it seems like 384MB is what is actually available for programs (since Android OS is reporting 384MB, and so far no firmware has reported anything above that), rest is either used by the system or hardware devices (GPU perhaps ??).
It has 512mb of ram. 128mb is set aside for ram disk purposes (Lord knows why). The other 64~ is probably reserved for telephony.
I think a major portion of the ram is dedicated for video ram. and of course dma buffers for camera and other hardware sensors or components (GPS, radio etc)
so...we can at the most expect around 360megs available at most in any rom to come.
It's advertised with 512mb of RAM so why not? The rest of the RAM you don't get to use it probably reserved by the system. What would be the point in having a phone that doesn't phone someone cause your low on RAM.
sionyboy said:
It has 512mb of ram. 128mb is set aside for ram disk purposes (Lord knows why). The other 64~ is probably reserved for telephony.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THat's the rumor on the epic 4G, but did anyone actually determine it was the same on the galaxy S?
Yeah, there was a thread on the development board where RyanZA and others went through some of the code and found some similarities between the two.
on the specs, it says GS1 has 512mb of RAM. I know android OS takes space phone it self blah blah so we only get to use 3xx mb of RAM. but then usually half (if not more) of the 3xx mb of RAM is already filled!
before, (back in eclair & froyo days) android 2.3 will allow us to utilize ALL 512mb but ****, now even more RAM is in use..
also
someone told me Nexus S who has exact same specs as GS, can use ALL 512mb...
so is there a way to use all 512mb of RAM? or at least more than 329mb?
joonair said:
on the specs, it says GS1 has 512mb of RAM. I know android OS takes space phone it self blah blah so we only get to use 3xx mb of RAM. but then usually half (if not more) of the 3xx mb of RAM is already filled!
before, (back in eclair & froyo days) android 2.3 will allow us to utilize ALL 512mb but ****, now even more RAM is in use..
also
someone told me Nexus S who has exact same specs as GS, can use ALL 512mb...
so is there a way to use all 512mb of RAM? or at least more than 329mb?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do use all the RAM, Android users shouldn't be worried about RAM as it is good to be used... Now Samsung's excuse for updating the GS1 to ICS is bull. but the reason you get 329 MB of RAM is because that 183 MB of RAM is for the system and cannot be given to the user. There are some kernels that offer like 344 MB of RAM(for Froyo), but that is it. No more, no less. Can't change it! Sorry bud.
Edit- we always are utilizing all 512 MB of RAM always. And when half of it is filled, that is always going to be there if the phone is turned on as some none system apps and system apps cannot be closed and are needed for the device to function.
I just recently got myself a Samsung Infuse, really like the phone. One thing that really bugs me is that it appears to be the same as my captivate in terms of RAM and ROM space, yet on my Infuse i get access to 452MB RAM yet on my captivate as stated we only get access to 329MB or 344MB.
Why such the huge difference?
Hello running Teamhacksung ICS 15 with ICY GLITCH v14-
I need some help understanding this....I have 2 gb internal storage? 13.03 gb USB storage? 4 gb external micro-sd card? I have 1.85 available Internal 11.74 USB ...all that being said...why is my memory being so taxed? please see attached screenshot
The Captivate has 512 MB of RAM, 16GB of NAND flash memory (partitioned for different parts of the OS), and you have a 4 GB NAND flash Micro SD card.
RAM is different from flash memory or a hard disk. RAM is what your phone uses to run software and hold temporary data for quick access.
Lol because our phones ram sucks.... at best i get ~ 125MB free ram. I avg 40-80 MB with all my widgets and a few apps open.
Edit: that 512MB is a lie... THE CAKE IS A LIE! lol
But thats with all apps running at startup? If you have less apps running shouldnt you have less stress on RAM? Man it sucks someone hasnt developed an app similar to readyboost in I HATE WINDOWS...doesnt it use flash memory as ram? Ok...so with reference to my screenshot my memory usage is normal?
Why do you want free RAM? If it's unused, it's wasted. Another tidbit that no one seems to ever mention is that resources in Android are memory-mapped. If things like images and other binary objects are aligned properly, they will not be copied into RAM at runtime, but read directly from their stored location.
This is true. But android doesn't always manage its memory perfectly. I usually close apps out of habit, but if I let it I can have alot of apps open and I won't notice. Then again I've been using since 2.1 and that REALLY sucked with memory management.
prbassplayer said:
Lol because our phones ram sucks.... at best i get ~ 125MB free ram. I avg 40-80 MB with all my widgets and a few apps open.
Edit: that 512MB is a lie... THE CAKE IS A LIE! lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True. 340MB is free for user space. The rest is for kernel, video, audio buffers, etc.
340MB(Galaxyian) is on big MEM kernels(truly 344MB on others, but he found a way to keep HD recording!) On any stock ROM's it is 329MB available...
Image above says he has closer to 355mb
Sent from my ICS powered Captivate using Tapatalk
Ohh well I was talking about STOCK roms haha well we all know how well MTD ROM's compare to STOCK in performance
prbassplayer said:
Image above says he has closer to 355mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL. That's because 1MB = 1048576 bytes, so 340 x 1MB = 356,515,840
TalenDEV bigmen is 352MB, but no HD recording and I think it messed up HD playback as well. I don't worry about it too much.
I know, was pulling your chain
CuriousTech said:
LOL. That's because 1MB = 1048576 bytes, so 340 x 1MB = 356,515,840
TalenDEV bigmen is 352MB, but no HD recording and I think it messed up HD playback as well. I don't worry about it too much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know I know, was kidding And no it shouldn't mess with playback.
In phone specifications CPU-Z and Antutu say only 1258MB RAM, not 1536MB (1,5Gb)...
It's only me the unluck guy?
donP73 said:
In phone specifications CPU-Z and Antutu say only 1258MB RAM, not 1536MB (1,5Gb)...
It's only me the unluck guy?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine says 1387MB
RaLq said:
Mine says 1387MB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyway, better than mine.
I wrote to Samsung Customer Service and they replied me that a quote of RAM is reserved for OS...
Why - then - we all have different amounts of total RAM?
Mine also says 1258mb. SM-G800F rooted stock Rom
Well first of all, anything related to sizes in computer world is not exact since someone decided that 1mb is 1000kb not 1024kb. So if a device has example 1,5GB ram, it's never really exactly 1,5GB.
Then secondly the system reserves some amount of the ram to use, so a phone will never have 1,5GB free ram if it's marketed having 1,5GB ram.
Edit: Thirdly, you have to compare the ram usage to a same phone with same firmware, settings, apps and updates to get real information.
leripe said:
Well first of all, anything related to sizes in computer world is not exact since someone decided that 1mb is 1000kb not 1024kb. So if a device has example 1,5GB ram, it's never really exactly 1,5GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@leripe: It only applies to data storage devices, not ram.
RAM: 1.5Gb = 1536 Mb = 1572864kb = 1610612736b
DISK: "1.5Gb" ~ 1500000000b ~ 1464844kb ~ 1431Mb < 1,4Gb
But rest is right. Most of the ram is reserved for other hardware, ex GPU.