Ram for the G1 actually be? In the specifications of the G1 are all 192MB Ram
but in fact when testing with any program system information are reported as 92Mb, 100Mb other then gone?
Who can give me an explanation does not? Thank alot.
92 mb is for user usage (and honestly it's about 40 mb when you fully launch your phone).
100 mb is used by Android, GPU etc.
That is actually quite incorrect.
The "missing RAM" is allocated to various pieces of hardware.
For example, if you have a computer (including laptop) with an IGP graphics chip and you go into your bios settings, it usually has somewhere that you can configure the amount of MAIN MEMORY to allocate to the IGP. You would then notice that the total amount of memory available to the operating system is affected by changing this number.
16 MB is allocated to the GPU.
A *HUGE* chunk is allocated to the RADIO.
Some more is allocated to some other things.
A note about the "RADIO"... it isn't really just a RADIO. The MSM7201 chip in the phone actually has TWO ARM PROCESSORS in it. The "user" processor, and the "radio" processor. Each of these processors run different OPERATING SYSTEMS. The USER processor runs Android/Linux, the RADIO processor runs the proprietary radio operating system. These two systems are more-or-less INDEPENDENT with certain links to allow you to transfer data between them in order to communicate on the cell network.
In my opinion, listing the memory allocated to the radio as part of the total RAM is quite dishonest. This is compounded by the fact that their proprietary firmware is SO TERRIBLY FLAWED that it eats up a whole half the RAM of the thing. I am fairly convinced that the firmware developers at HTC must write their firmware in visual basic or some other horribly inefficient trash rather than writing it properly in assembly. There is NO justification for the radio to eat up more than about 8 MB, and yet it eats up nearly 100.
Very helpful explanation of how the phones are working internally. Thank you very much lbcoder!
Sent from my Htcclay's Superfly G1 using XDA App
lbcoder said:
That is actually quite incorrect.
The "missing RAM" is allocated to various pieces of hardware.
For example, if you have a computer (including laptop) with an IGP graphics chip and you go into your bios settings, it usually has somewhere that you can configure the amount of MAIN MEMORY to allocate to the IGP. You would then notice that the total amount of memory available to the operating system is affected by changing this number.
16 MB is allocated to the GPU.
A *HUGE* chunk is allocated to the RADIO.
Some more is allocated to some other things.
A note about the "RADIO"... it isn't really just a RADIO. The MSM7201 chip in the phone actually has TWO ARM PROCESSORS in it. The "user" processor, and the "radio" processor. Each of these processors run different OPERATING SYSTEMS. The USER processor runs Android/Linux, the RADIO processor runs the proprietary radio operating system. These two systems are more-or-less INDEPENDENT with certain links to allow you to transfer data between them in order to communicate on the cell network.
In my opinion, listing the memory allocated to the radio as part of the total RAM is quite dishonest. This is compounded by the fact that their proprietary firmware is SO TERRIBLY FLAWED that it eats up a whole half the RAM of the thing. I am fairly convinced that the firmware developers at HTC must write their firmware in visual basic or some other horribly inefficient trash rather than writing it properly in assembly. There is NO justification for the radio to eat up more than about 8 MB, and yet it eats up nearly 100.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW! Thanks for this bit of really really useful and interesting info! I really didn't know how RAM is divided and just tried to write what I know/think.
SO! It's really interesting. There is not a way to rewrite this radio system? This one itself would free about 90 mb of RAM! It would be greater performance boost as all of this swaps, compcaches and other stuff. I thinks you know what I mean, my english is not so perfect.
raven_raven said:
WOW! Thanks for this bit of really really useful and interesting info! I really didn't know how RAM is divided and just tried to write what I know/think.
SO! It's really interesting. There is not a way to rewrite this radio system? This one itself would free about 90 mb of RAM! It would be greater performance boost as all of this swaps, compcaches and other stuff. I thinks you know what I mean, my english is not so perfect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be the million dollar question, and the problem is that the thing is totally undocumented. And due to its age, it wouldn't make economic sense to reverse engineer it.
The next best option would be to disable the radio altogether. We could certainly write a simple bit of code that does nothing except pass everything off to the main processor. With that, and a little bit of USB MASTER mode and a USB UMTS modem.... might not be as pretty, but it could potentially do the same work, and would free up all the memory lost to the radio.
This is quite fantastic. Too bad that I won't posses coding skills needed to do that in next 15 years .
No one tried to do that? It is really fantstic vision, to free up about 100 mb of RAM! Man, G1 would totally have a second life.
Something tells me that it is impossible or nearly impossible to do this, I mean ppl would sacrifice 3D graphics for 10 mb of RAM (and someone had to write kernel doing that), and yet, when there is 10 times better profit, no one took the challenge.
Very interesting topic. In my opinion programming skills are not really the limiting factor, but documentation and especially architectural documentation of the phone is.
Independently of skills and time, I would not even know where to get the required information. Additionally there is the need for equipment (JTAG, etc.) due to the bricking risks. Unfortunately at the moment I can see only a very few guys here in the forum having that knowledge and most likely they do not have the time to concern about this.
Sent from my Htcclay's Superfly G1 using XDA App
AndDiSa said:
Very interesting topic. In my opinion programming skills are not really the limiting factor, but documentation and especially architectural documentation of the phone is.
Independently of skills and time, I would not even know where to get the required information. Additionally there is the need for equipment (JTAG, etc.) due to the bricking risks. Unfortunately at the moment I can see only a very few guys here in the forum having that knowledge and most likely they do not have the time to concern about this.
Sent from my Htcclay's Superfly G1 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No... it really is just programming skills. The part of the radio that we would be messing with is the code run on the ARM4 (I think its a 4... might be a 5), and just long enough to hand off to the ARM6. THAT part is very well documented. What isn't documented is the actual radio circuit and how to interface with that from the ARM4.
We're talking literally about just a few lines of assembly and throwing redboot at the ARM6 instead of the SPL.
Related
I just installed the JM2 firmware, and was surprised to see a new Samsung widget task manager (which is actually really good! =O).
However, once I opened the task manager and went to the 'Summary' tab, the RAM information lists it out of 326mb. For example, at the moment it's showing 258mb out of 326mb used...
Is there some separate ram locked away? As I thought the Galaxy S had 512mb...
So anyone know what the deal is with the 326mb listed instead of 512mb?
Need Froyo to address 512mb.
Next time, please use the search button. It's startin to be a pain to write this over and over again (and not just me.)
The device was taken apart to bits countless times, it does contain 512MB RAM.
Why can't you see it all? the software doesn't show it. YET. Remember that the original JF3 firmware only showd 256.
Pika007 said:
Next time, please use the search button. It's startin to be a pain to write this over and over again (and not just me.)
The device was taken apart to bits countless times, it does contain 512MB RAM.
Why can't you see it all? the software doesn't show it. YET. Remember that the original JF3 firmware only showd 256.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, apologies.
So does that mean currently the Galaxy S isn't actually using all its RAM due to the firmware not allowing it? Kind of strange, didn't know there was anything preventing the use of it at all since the Desire and Nexus One were happy enough with 512mb on Eclair.
Two queries though in relation to Pikas post -
I believe that this issue was uncovered over on GSM Arena. I think Samsung at the time assured everybody that the odd RAM results was just a firmware bug that would be resolved on release products.
So we have a release product where there are still problems with the memory and GPS.
Secondly, I thought it was the kernel that limits the memory to 256 through a Himem flag? Why is then that people are now seeing 326 and not 256? Is it a half way fix? Has the kernel changed?
Your question is not dumb at all.
No phone depends on Froyo to use more than 256mb of RAM.
Even if our phone have 512MB of Ram, we probably won't have so much available.
Many phone always have some ram used by the radio hardware.
I don't know if Samsung will be able to reduce radio (GSM, 3G etc) memory usage.
326MB is maybe the maximum we will get.
I bet we'll see 386-400~ after froyo.
The system is more memory efficient.
If it says 512 it should display 512.
The problem is that when you open the task manager it displays 258/386. I thought it was using the remaining RAM for VIDEO. If its not, then we should see a 512 no matter how much the OS consume. It can even be 500/512 but it should say 512.
I hope Samsung fixes this soon as they sold me a phone with no working LEDs and less RAM??!!
darcjrt said:
I hope Samsung fixes this soon as they sold me a phone with no working LEDs and less RAM??!!
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Click to collapse
My sgs has working LEDs. The screen and the menu/back buttons. If yours are not working, the phone is broken.
Sent with my Personal Dis-organizer GT-I9000
What's wrong with 326mb ram my hero at most shows around 110 and I'm on froyo not to forget
MacaronyMax said:
What's wrong with 326mb ram my hero at most shows around 110 and I'm on froyo not to forget
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not the prob. In Samsung's task manager it's showing the entire phone has a MAXIMUM of 326mb RAM, and obviously much less free.
On Advanced Task Killer I usually have between 70-140mb free, not that much different from my old Hero.
As has been pointed out this may be due to the Galaxy S's use of 2 different types of RAM, with 128mb OneRAM. I can only assume this is dedicated to video.
This would then make sense for the 326mb RAM listed in most applications, with the extra 60mb or so locked away for Android (326mb + 128mb + Android reserved = 512mb).
Still kind of weird how Samsung has made the phone...I was trying my friend's new desire and it listed in Advanced Task Killer as usually having about 240mb free while mine had 100mb free.
I posted originally at [Q] Amount of RAM? under Galaxy S I9000 Q&A , but I guess its relevant to this post as well.
There is new information to indicate that perhaps Galaxy S doesn't have 512MB of RAM after all. Click on the above link .
Samsung Open-Source may hold the key..
Samsung have released the kernel source code for the GT-I9000, and it helps a little bit with trying to decipher what's going on.
From what I can tell, based on specs and previous posts, the SGS has 384MB of -normal- RAM, and 128MB of "OneDRAM".
OneDRAM is a dual-port memory, which means that multiple chips can be connected to it, and using it at the same time. For example, the phone main CPU and a graphics co-processor could both be sharing this memory and using it to communicate with each other. For more details on what OneDRAM is, I recommend trying google.
From what I can tell, the OneDRAM is used for a few things such as video memory, shared communication buffers with the phone hardware etc.
There are a few places that hint at where this memory may be going, the first of which is the kernel configuration:
CONFIG_ANDROID_PMEM_MEMSIZE_PMEM = 16384
CONFIG_ANDROID_PMEM_MEMSIZE_PMEM_GPU1=8192
CONFIG_ANDROID_PMEM_MEMSIZE_PMEM_ADSP=1800
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_FIMC0=12288
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_FIMC1=1024
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_FIMC2=12288
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_MFC0=32768
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_MFC1=32768
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_TEXSTREAM=10240
=> These parameters describe approx 128MB of space that is being reserved at boot time for the GPU, DSP, Camera(s), and communicating with the phone hardware.
I'm not sure yet whether all of that memory comes out of OneDRAM or not (I haven't spent too long looking into it, and I'm not really much of a kernel guy).. however, it seems that linux-2.6.29/arch/arm/plat-s5pc11x/bootmem.c might offer a few more hints as to where it goes, if anybody's keen to look.
I seem to have gotten a little bit off-track, but basically, it seems that yes, the phone does have 512MB of RAM. It's just that some of it appears to be "locked away" for special use before anything else can get at it. This is probably because the coprocessor(s?) require blocks of contiguous physical memory, and achieving that would not be able to be guaranteed if standard memory allocation techniques were used. Maybe someone with more of a clue than I can help fill in some more of the blanks with the above...
Regardless, I don't think that the apparent discrepancy is anything to worry about. The SGS is an awesome phone, and that will remain the case whatever the amount of RAM it tells you is "free" (well, within reason I guess). Go and and enjoy it for what it is
Intratech said:
Need Froyo to address 512mb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
False.
With Froyo you'll be getting a total RAM of 304Mb.
You do know that basing a statement from what you see in pre-alpha/alpha firmwares is a really bad idea, right?
gundyman said:
Samsung have released the kernel source code for the GT-I9000, and it helps a little bit with trying to decipher what's going on.
From what I can tell, based on specs and previous posts, the SGS has 384MB of -normal- RAM, and 128MB of "OneDRAM".
OneDRAM is a dual-port memory, which means that multiple chips can be connected to it, and using it at the same time. For example, the phone main CPU and a graphics co-processor could both be sharing this memory and using it to communicate with each other. For more details on what OneDRAM is, I recommend trying google.
From what I can tell, the OneDRAM is used for a few things such as video memory, shared communication buffers with the phone hardware etc.
There are a few places that hint at where this memory may be going, the first of which is the kernel configuration:
CONFIG_ANDROID_PMEM_MEMSIZE_PMEM = 16384
CONFIG_ANDROID_PMEM_MEMSIZE_PMEM_GPU1=8192
CONFIG_ANDROID_PMEM_MEMSIZE_PMEM_ADSP=1800
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_FIMC0=12288
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_FIMC1=1024
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_FIMC2=12288
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_MFC0=32768
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_MFC1=32768
CONFIG_VIDEO_SAMSUNG_MEMSIZE_TEXSTREAM=10240
=> These parameters describe approx 128MB of space that is being reserved at boot time for the GPU, DSP, Camera(s), and communicating with the phone hardware.
I'm not sure yet whether all of that memory comes out of OneDRAM or not (I haven't spent too long looking into it, and I'm not really much of a kernel guy).. however, it seems that linux-2.6.29/arch/arm/plat-s5pc11x/bootmem.c might offer a few more hints as to where it goes, if anybody's keen to look.
I seem to have gotten a little bit off-track, but basically, it seems that yes, the phone does have 512MB of RAM. It's just that some of it appears to be "locked away" for special use before anything else can get at it. This is probably because the coprocessor(s?) require blocks of contiguous physical memory, and achieving that would not be able to be guaranteed if standard memory allocation techniques were used. Maybe someone with more of a clue than I can help fill in some more of the blanks with the above...
Regardless, I don't think that the apparent discrepancy is anything to worry about. The SGS is an awesome phone, and that will remain the case whatever the amount of RAM it tells you is "free" (well, within reason I guess). Go and and enjoy it for what it is
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But, has anyone ACTUALLY confirmed we don't have 512MB of physical ram.. I've seen lots of guessing, but I haven't actually seen any proof yet. So has someone confirmed it by actually checking the hardware..
andrewluecke said:
But, has anyone ACTUALLY confirmed we don't have 512MB of physical ram.. I've seen lots of guessing, but I haven't actually seen any proof yet. So has someone confirmed it by actually checking the hardware..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has anyone actually confirmed that we DO have 512MB ?? I am yet to see any firmware reaching over 384MB, and all the evidence out there suggest otherwise . Samsung says it has 512MB RAM, but they never said all of that memory is available for Applications. So it could very well be 384MB regular RAM (available for Apps and system) while rest is reserved for specialized hardware. Technically that is still 512MB *RAM*, given that manufacturers have a tendency to overstate numbers and specs, I'm not going to take Samsung's word for it...
I hope at least some of that is being used by the OS.
PhoenixFx said:
Has anyone actually confirmed that we DO have 512MB ?? I am yet to see any firmware reaching over 384MB, and all the evidence out there suggest otherwise . Samsung says it has 512MB RAM, but they never said all of that memory is available for Applications. So it could very well be 384MB regular RAM (available for Apps and system) while rest is reserved for specialized hardware. Technically that is still 512MB *RAM*, given that manufacturers have a tendency to overstate numbers and specs, I'm not going to take Samsung's word for it...
I hope at least some of that is being used by the OS.
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Click to collapse
I've never read where Samsung says they've used 512MB RAM, I've only read where people claim they've said (aka nothing official). So, we aren't even taking Samsung's word, we are taking a 3rd party's on the manufacturer's non-binding, private word is.
@
It's just that some of it appears to be "locked away" for special use before anything else can get at it.
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Click to collapse
Obviously, I'd prefer 512MB plus this 128 locked away separate, but this sounds like an elegant solution if correct. Also, it goes a long way to explain how the SGS can be pretty snappy in areas like gaming while maybe keeping other vital parts open and smooth like the 3G radio.
*EDIT* I'm reading now that new pressers have released more official information on newer Galaxy S models, still I've googled for them and even gone to Samsung site, still haven't viewed anything with my own eyes from Samsung.
Well, that's my point.. The problem I'm seeing is that I've seen quotes for OneNand and OneDRAM in many places, but it is based on random diagrams for other phones, or rumors... I'm simply interested in knowing the truth, but am growing increasingly concerned by the growing number of claims about this phone, which are being repeated, but after some research, many I've found seem to be based on information which isn't actually proof (and often, seems to be based on stuff such as "I heard the SGS has...".
As I said, SEMC was running around claiming it was OneNand (which isn't even RAM), using claims which I've never seen proven. OneDRAM seems more likely, and it would mean we basically have 512MB of RAM (oneDRAM seems as though it would be usable for normal RAM too), but I'd still like to know for sure..
alovell83 said:
I've never read where Samsung says they've used 512MB RAM, I've only read where people claim they've said (aka nothing official). So, we aren't even taking Samsung's word, we are taking a 3rd party's on the manufacturer's non-binding, private word is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung Captivate (scroll down to Memory section), is that enough proof for Samsung's claim ??
Now that the lag fixes have made strong progress and Froyo's source is almost here, there's one final thing that can be fixed about the SGS: compared to other phones, it's got quite a bit of less USABLE RAM.
Luckily, a cool dev in the i9000 forum has been messing with the kernel and figuring out how to free up more RAM. He's at 356 MB freed up (non-stable) thus far, and about 340 MB stable. This is up from 304 MB by default!!
Take a look if you haven't already. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=816229
Thanks to all devs for their hard-work, and I hope this helps you out in some way.
this requires board configuration files which are only available in source, not useful to us until we have source.
has anyone figured out if the 200 some odd megs of missing RAM are used by the GPU? Or does it have its own dedicated RAM?
Kaik541 said:
this requires board configuration files which are only available in source, not useful to us until we have source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you're saying we need the Captivate source files specifically? Because it works just fine for i9000 SGS.
gunnyman said:
has anyone figured out if the 200 some odd megs of missing RAM are used by the GPU? Or does it have its own dedicated RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thread details some of it. Apparently Samsung's programmers were lazy and it dedicates quite a bit of RAM for GPU purposes (but doesn't dynamically allocate it based on usage... so that RAM just sits there useless when you're not doing video-intensive applications) and some of it is also for the radio/modem.
Disgustipated said:
So you're saying we need the Captivate source files specifically? Because it works just fine for i9000 SGS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, unless you know how to make a captivate froyo kernel without sources and aren't sharing (don't point to xcalibur's kernel, that's an i9000 kernel, not a captivate one)
Still interesting stuff though. Looks like we'll be able to recover at least 20-30 MB of RAM from the GPU. Perhaps more once it gets sorted where each and every drop of that original 512 MB is going.
Would be cool if that is what CM6 was waiting for....
that would yield huge performance increases i'd imagine.
iamamp3pimp said:
Would be cool if that is what CM6 was waiting for....
that would yield huge performance increases i'd imagine.
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Click to collapse
No it would not, having 140-150MB up from 120-130MB free RAM while sitting on your home screen and running your applications will NOT give your a huge or otherwise performance increase. FREE RAM means it's not being used! this is not a desktop where it uses a lot of swap when running on a low RAM system. the hardware on these devices NEED the alloted RAM to operate correctly. Samsung was not simply "lazy" mess around with the kernel and free up a few more MB RAM and you might find a few VERY RAM intensive applications that perhaps run smoother or what ever but then you are reducing performance of all the hardware features that make your device so nice, I.E the Camera, Radios, GPU. the effort is not worth any possible tiny free RAM boost you might get. why does everyone care so much about the free RAM anyway. I know a LOT of folks are going to jump in here now and ramble on about how it's a big deal and how samsung screwed it up or whatnot, but making those hardware features dynamicly allot RAM would mean that the kernel would have to some VERY efficient prioritizing of hardware/software RAM usage in order to have the device run currently in whole. It makes more sense to me to just do what they did and lock the amount of RAM to those hardware features that would allow them to best operate without your phone radio not working right or your camera not being able to record in 720 because you forgot you had some application open in the background and RAM prioritizing isn't as perfect as it should be. the device runs FINE! Also so this isn't confusing to anyone who might think that I think we want to make the RAM dynamic, I understand it'sstatic thing but the same things apply, those hardware features would just be stock without the correct ammount of RAM all the time.
I've seen a lot of discussion on various Android/Droid forums on the web over the past month or two about the Bionic, and it having 512MB of RAM. A lot of people don't seem to mind, and some people have even said it doesn't matter because it's DDR2, which is faster than regular DDR.
Well, 512MB of RAM is not enough for a dual-core phone you plan to use for 2 years or more. Here's why, in a rather lengthy post that I also put on MyDroidWorld the other night. I've been on the XDA forums for a long time, though I don't post very frequently and I'm curious to see what people will think of my admittedly long post. So, here is why I think people should think long and hard about whether to buy the Bionic when it does come out, assuming it still ships with 512MB of RAM.
Caching.
Ok - let me explain. The single most important factor in performance of a computer is having enough RAM. When a computer runs out of RAM, it starts to use what's called a page file. It's basically a file on your hard drive that acts as additional RAM. Now, DDR3-1600 speed RAM transfers data at 12.8 gigabytes per second. Phenomenally fast. It also has a reaction time of around 5 nanoseconds, also ridiculously fast. When your operating system has to start using the page file because the physical RAM is full, the performance hit is EXTRAORDINARY. Even the best hard disk drives (not counting SSDs) like the latest Raptor from Western Digital cap out at around 155 megabytes per second for reading and writing, and it has a peak latency of 7 milliseconds for reaction time. 1 nanosecond is 1 million milliseconds, which makes the DDR3 RAM over a MILLION times faster reacting than the hard drive, and the transfer rate of the RAM over 80 times faster than the transfer rate of the hard drive.
In real-world terms, it's like you're talking about an ant versus a Porsche 911 Turbo. Most old computers that have long pauses or hang for several seconds doing even basic tasks, it's because they don't have enough RAM and it's caching stuff between the hard drive and the RAM.
Now, whenever Android runs out of RAM, (same with any operating system) it has to start using its page file, which means it starts using this monstrously slow flash memory as RAM. It's like merging onto a freeway that is gridlocked with traffic when you were going hundreds of miles per hour. The flash memory is a lot slower than the Raptor hard drive for data transfer rates, but it has a read time a lot faster; the best-performing ones are generally under 1 microsecond. 1 microsecond is a thousand times slower than 1 nanosecond. The write times are closer to hard drives, though; generally less than 1 millisecond, so like 10x faster than a hard drive but still 100,000 times slower reaction time to writing data than the RAM is.
What this means is, when your permanent storage is flash-based, it has a much faster reaction time than a hard drive but it's still dog-slow compared to RAM; so when Android runs out of RAM, it caches to the page file on the flash memory, and you'll have the same slowdown effect as you do on an old POS computer, but it's not as noticeable because flash memory reacts faster than disk-based hard drives.
The point of all of this is that, 1GB of DDR1 memory on a phone is FAR better than 512MB of DDR2 memory. The 1GB will prevent you from hitting that metaphorical brick wall of caching data to your flash memory when the 512MB won't. We already use 400MB, or more, of our 512MB of RAM on our existing phones just by turning it on and having a couple of widgets/services in the background above & beyond the stock ones. How do you expect to take advantage significantly higher-end applications and games, which also means (for games, primarily) that they take up more RAM, as well?
You can't have higher-quality graphics without needing more RAM, so when that new version of Angry Birds comes out this fall or something that requires two cores and looks amazing, but uses 250MB of RAM to run instead of the 80MB or whatever the regular one uses now, what do you think has to happen? That's right. Android has to cache that much extra data to your flash memory so it can unload it from the RAM, freeing the necessary space to load Angry Birds HD. This causes more of a delay as it's writing data, and will cause extra choppiness, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is that, as resolutions increase, so do the texture sizes for all applications and widgets that you use, assuming they support the new resolution. More size needed, which takes up more space in RAM.
Don't be fooled. When truly good and proper dual-core benchmarks come out, 1GB RAM dual-core phones will spank their 512MB RAM dual-core brethren for real-world performance in games, and other high-memory applications. Also, excessive caching greatly increases the chance of flash memory going bad. Not a common occurrence if it was fine when shipped, but still something to think about.
So, in summary, even though the performance hit from caching to flash memory isn't as bad as caching to hard disk drives, it's still a tremendous slowdown and it will matter for dual-core phones way more than for single-core ones. The average amount of RAM installed on dual-core desktop computers from Dell/HP/etc. was significantly higher than what the average was for the previous single-core generations were, and there are reasons for that. Primarily, the same reasons I just outlined. In simple terms, faster processors can do more things, which necessarily requires more RAM.
Sorry for the wall of text, I tried to be more concise but it kind of got away from me. I'm not buying a Bionic because it has 512MB of RAM. After owning it a year, it'll be having performance issues on top-end dual-core-required games that run just fine on phones like the Atrix.
I'm sorry because I know this is probably going to come across the wrong way, but WOW, you spent a lot of time writing that up, and too much time for me to read it alll, especially considering Motorola has pulled back on the Bionic and it's receiving "enhancements". I guess what I'm saying is why all the speculation/conjecture until we know the revised specs? Maybe it'll land with 8GB of DDR 6 RAM.
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
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I disagree that ram is the single most important factor of performance of a computer.
hard drives are the biggest bottleneck in a computer. this is why I use a vertex 3 ssd.
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gemro311 said:
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I concur, really hope VZW pushes for a premier device
I disagree. Android isn't expanding as an OS at some breakneck pace and 512MB is definitely suitable for the near future. 1GB is absolutely not necessary for great performance in a phone. RAM is a bottleneck, but it is not something that magically allows for better performance if the device isn't hitting the pagefile anyway.
The way that Android manages applications will allow 512MB phones to be relevant for some time. The Bionic will be a solid phone for the next year, but there will always be something bigger and better next year. Phones aren't future-proof.
I was just checking out this thread and wanted to say maybe the reason that the atrix comes with 1gb of ram is because of the extra contraption that you can buy along with. It looks like a netbook but is not very well performing and who would even care to rely on it for anything I don't know.
gemro311 said:
I'm hoping Motorola gives Verizon a phone that is higher end than the Atrix. Afterall Verizon has done much more than ATT in the way of supporting Moto..when they needed it. Anxious to see what Big Red winds up with.
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I certainly hope Motorola makes the required improvements, but you also need to keep in mind Verizon approves and in many if not all cases specs the phones they want. They chose the specs, they had to live with the specs. I think once they saw what was coming they figured it was no longer premiere and wanted changes made.
Regardless of why its been pulled back the fact that it was is good, but if its going to take 4-5 months to get it out the door they should have just scrapped it altogether.
E30kid said:
I disagree. Android isn't expanding as an OS at some breakneck pace and 512MB is definitely suitable for the near future. 1GB is absolutely not necessary for great performance in a phone. RAM is a bottleneck, but it is not something that magically allows for better performance if the device isn't hitting the pagefile anyway.
The way that Android manages applications will allow 512MB phones to be relevant for some time. The Bionic will be a solid phone for the next year, but there will always be something bigger and better next year. Phones aren't future-proof.
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Well, wait for Ice Cream and we'll see. Since the future Android version will also run in tablets, it is likely that it will have huge memory requirements.
By the way, my Acer Liquid A1 can't be officially upgraded to Froyo because it only has 256Mb. Later Liquid models with 512Mb are upgradeable. At the time I bought it, 512Mb seemed unnecessary because the Nexus One operating system only supported 256Mb, having the other 256Mb wasted. This was only 12 months ago...
galaxyjeff said:
I was just checking out this thread and wanted to say maybe the reason that the atrix comes with 1gb of ram is because of the extra contraption that you can buy along with. It looks like a netbook but is not very well performing and who would even care to rely on it for anything I don't know.
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I think you are on to something here. I think I read somewhere that the atrix only uses 512 mb when not connected to the dock. I have the inspire which has 768 mb, and I came from the captivate which was 512 mb, and I done know if is the ram or what but this phone performs way better than the captivate. Even when I bought the inspire, right out the box stock, preformed much better than a captivate overclocked with an ext4 filesystem kernel. Not that this is empirical evidence, but hey.
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cryptiq said:
I'm sorry because I know this is probably going to come across the wrong way, but WOW, you spent a lot of time writing that up, and too much time for me to read it alll, especially considering Motorola has pulled back on the Bionic and it's receiving "enhancements". I guess what I'm saying is why all the speculation/conjecture until we know the revised specs? Maybe it'll land with 8GB of DDR 6 RAM.
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I lol'd. But seriously 512 MB of RAM is more than enough... It's a PHONE not a high end desktop system. I play tons of games on my x2 and with alot of crap in the backround open, and I notice zero performance hits. If you are spending all day monitoring your RAM on your phone and trying to measure FPS loss, load time differences, etc. I suggest that you try to pick up a new hobby ASAP, OCDing will be the end of you. Best of luck!
Edit: I wouldn't worry about it either! Bionic probably won't come out anyways, and if it does, another phone with 1GB to satisfy your OCD probably will be out by then.
As of now, I feel ALL future top tier smart phones need to come equipped with at least 1GB of DDR2. The G2x, for example, will most likely have issues running a custom ice cream rom. And people will be upset.. especially after putting up with all of the other various problems that particular phone has.
OP, I don't agree entirely with your explanation of the use of caching by the OS - for all 3 major computer OSes, no matter how much excess RAM you have, they will start caching data to the hard drive, whether you like it or not. Obviously if you run out of RAM, it has to do so, but it'll even do it long before you've hit that cap - just because it determines an application has gone "inactive". Now I haven't read up on Android enough to know whether this is 100% true for it, too, but considering it's running a linux kernel, I would imagine so. So just like the 8GB of RAM in my desktop doesn't necessarily help for everyday computing needs, 1GB vs 512mb on the Bionic may not make a huge difference.
raptordrew said:
OP, I don't agree entirely with your explanation of the use of caching by the OS - for all 3 major computer OSes, no matter how much excess RAM you have, they will start caching data to the hard drive, whether you like it or not. Obviously if you run out of RAM, it has to do so, but it'll even do it long before you've hit that cap - just because it determines an application has gone "inactive". Now I haven't read up on Android enough to know whether this is 100% true for it, too, but considering it's running a linux kernel, I would imagine so. So just like the 8GB of RAM in my desktop doesn't necessarily help for everyday computing needs, 1GB vs 512mb on the Bionic may not make a huge difference.
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i beg to differ
my captivate; even though its a single core...is still quite capable at most everyday tasks...only thing lacking is the RAM
my phone will slow to a crawl after entering twitter, switching to pulse and then going back to my homescreen....
not to mention my launcher keeps getting killed by android as it keeps running out of RAM
droid_does said:
i beg to differ
my captivate; even though its a single core...is still quite capable at most everyday tasks...only thing lacking is the RAM
my phone will slow to a crawl after entering twitter, switching to pulse and then going back to my homescreen....
not to mention my launcher keeps getting killed by android as it keeps running out of RAM
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I have to lol at this one. Absolutely none of those issues have to do with amount of RAM. In fact the launcher problem has nothing to do with RAM at all.
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While I appreciate other people who have the same amount of passion for phones as I do, I just have two words to say about anyone saying phones with 512 mb ram will not get Ice Cream Sandwich. Nexus S.
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mb02 said:
I have to lol at this one. Absolutely none of those issues have to do with amount of RAM. In fact the launcher problem has nothing to do with RAM at all.
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it does as android keeps killing it to free up more RAM to use......
droid_does said:
it does as android keeps killing it to free up more RAM to use......
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Yea the task manager is killing the apps to keep ram freed up, as in stopping unused processes etc. That's just the aggressive working of the management software that would run just the same if you even had 8GB of ram.
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timothymilla said:
While I appreciate other people who have the same amount of passion for phones as I do, I just have two words to say about anyone saying phones with 512 mb ram will not get Ice Cream Sandwich. Nexus S.
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Remember when everyone thought Gingerbread would require a 1GHz processor as a system requirement, which was later debunked?
http://www.talkandroid.com/23041-so...ngerbread-update-due-to-1ghz-cpu-requirement/
Nobody can say what will and will not get updated for sure, although I will venture to say that it's HIGHLY likely the Nexus S will be getting 2.4, you're right.
zetsumeikuro said:
I lol'd. But seriously 512 MB of RAM is more than enough... It's a PHONE not a high end desktop system. I play tons of games on my x2 and with alot of crap in the backround open, and I notice zero performance hits. If you are spending all day monitoring your RAM on your phone and trying to measure FPS loss, load time differences, etc. I suggest that you try to pick up a new hobby ASAP, OCDing will be the end of you. Best of luck!
Edit: I wouldn't worry about it either! Bionic probably won't come out anyways, and if it does, another phone with 1GB to satisfy your OCD probably will be out by then.
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512 mb is not enough for a dual core 4G phone it just isnt. the thunderbolt has 768 mb and its only single core and 4G and let me tell you it would be way faster with the 1024 mb of ram i cant imagine how laggy the bionic would be if you start doing anything with it! the 512 ram will be ate up in no time! i sure hope verizon reconsiders and adds more ram or i probably wont use this device as my daily phone either keep the thunderbolt with more ram which is sad cause it has been out for awhile now and the droid x also has 512 ram and it has been out for a year and they cant make improvements?? and they are going to want $299+++ for this phone ON CONTRACT! it better have more than 512 ram or it aint worth a lick! rip this phone open and put my own ram in it!
i thought the cappy had 512 mb of ram... why do all the roms have like 341? im confused >.< either i looked at 3 faulty spec sheets for the captivate or we arent utilizing the full ram potential for the captivate. would someone explain the truth on this matter to a captivate noob like me?
i could be wrong but i believe the 341 is available to use ram, while the rest is being used by the phone to function.
nehal51086 said:
i could be wrong but i believe the 341 is available to use ram, while the rest is being used by the phone to function.
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that would make sense, but that makes the specs misleading... i traded my HD2 for a cappy because the spec sheet said 512mb of ram and the HD2 only has 411 available to the OS when running android from nand because the rest is dedicated to winmo only (which sucks massively), and i wanted more ram lol, guess i should have looked harder into things, but regardless the captivate is "better" in very many areas, but RAM is literally my deciding factor for so many things lately (like t-mobile with the sensation or sprint with the evo 3d, i would say evo 3d because it has 256mb or so more ram)
This question has been asked and answered several times....
the phone does have 512mb of ram. Like the person above me said the phones os and graphics take up a portion of the ram. All computers and smart phones work the same way.
As a side note android handles ram very well. You don't need to manage it at all by freeing it up. free ram is wasted ram as the os will have to load it back up anyways
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crystalhand said:
This question has been asked and answered several times....
the phone does have 512mb of ram. Like the person above me said the phones os and graphics take up a portion of the ram. All computers and smart phones work the same way.
As a side note android handles ram very well. You don't need to manage it at all by freeing it up. free ram is wasted ram as the os will have to load it back up anyways
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i know this very well, free ram can be considered wasted ram, unless you need 200mb or so free for a tegra class game, but i think android handles ram awesomely to an extent but can be improved by implementing autokiller memory optimizer in a knowledgable and appropriate way that doesnt hurt optimizations android already has in place, zipaligning, increasing the dalvik heap size, etc... can all be done, im not asking about how android handles ram or anything, and im sorry i didnt know the question had been asked several times i am brand new to the captivate today, literally, and was doing not but seeking information i didnt understand or know, thank you for the explaination though i appreciate it, and im glad to know that my new captivate will utilize the left over 171mb of ram for something unlike my HD2 that couldnt access the last 100mb because it was designated to winmo only. i had an idea that was the case and i was just clarifying to myself because i kept reading rom changelogs stating "enabled more ram now 341mb available" or something along the lines of that and thought to myself "there should be more available already" lol
I honestly think 341MB is enough.
341 MB is alot. But something is taking all that up too. On a fresh boot, half of it is used, and I have 140~170 MB. Its even worse on GB. Most ive gotten is 100 MB free.
So if the half of the 341 plus the mysterious 171 MB that is nowhere to be found, I dont get whats using the other 171 that is not part of the 341. Lol confusing
Same happens to me. Who knows, lol
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I think its the user interface graphics, like scrolling quality is good because that ram is dedicated to things
like that
Sent from cyanogen mod 7
I was just looking at the other thread in this board about someone not wanting to get the Droid Bionic because it'll only come out with 512mb of ram which is supposedly not enough and can slow your phone yadda yadda yadda. Something tells me some of you don't really know how the Android OS really works.
For starters Android is NOT windows.....I repeat, Android is NOT windows. With Windows once the OS runs low on memory the performance of its computers lag heavily and so forth. That is not the case with Android. Android runs on linux and operates differently. For example, I currently own a Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile running on froyo based custom rom for TeamToxic and my memory is literally at 69/337 (free/total memory). If this was a windows os it would be running pretty damn slow and laggy but it's not. In fact its quite the opposite and is running buttery smooth. And the thing is my phone doesn't have a task killer running in the background and its running beautifully. If onesAndroid phone runs slow its not because of memory issues but something else. The link below will explain in detail what really makes ones Android phone run slow or have moments of lag! Enjoy!
Here's a link that better explains how memory management works on Android devices and also shows why I feel 512mb of ram is enough for the Droid Bionic
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6426198
TheAggression said:
I feel 512mb of ram is enough for the Droid Bionic.
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Except its confirmed its coming with 1GB of RAM.
http://www.droid-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/droid-bionic-specs.jpg
Awesome! But I think some users really need to understand how Androids OS really works. Whether its 512 or 1gb, is cool n all but in the end, is the cpu people should worry about and thankfully dual core processors help alleviate that. Thanks though.
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DemoManMLS said:
Except its confirmed its coming with 1GB of RAM.
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Why is it that I cannot go and duplicate this image now? More specifically... why was the information on the MotoDev site available earlier and now it no longer is?
TheAggression said:
For starters Android is NOT windows.....I repeat, Android is NOT windows. With Windows once the OS runs low on memory the performance of its computers lag heavily and so forth. That is not the case with Android. Android runs on linux and operates differently. For example, I currently own a Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile running on froyo based custom rom for TeamToxic and my memory is literally at 69/337 (free/total memory). If this was a windows os it would be running pretty damn slow and laggy but it's not. In fact its quite the opposite and is running buttery smooth. And the thing is my phone doesn't have a task killer running in the background and its running beautifully. If onesAndroid phone runs slow its not because of memory issues but something else. The link below will explain in detail what really makes ones Android phone run slow or have moments of lag! Enjoy!
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Click to collapse
You're right, and you're wrong. Android, indeed, is not Windows, but perhaps I should inform you a bit on how Linux works as well:
Linux utilizes a special partition that one creates called "Swap". Ubuntu's website does a great job explaining this:
Code:
What is swap?
Swap space is the area on a hard disk which is part of the Virtual Memory of your machine, which is a combination of accessible physical memory (RAM) and the swap space. Swap space temporarily holds memory pages that are inactive. Swap space is used when your system decides that it needs physical memory for active processes and there is insufficient unused physical memory available. If the system happens to need more memory resources or space, inactive pages in physical memory are then moved to the swap space therefore freeing up that physical memory for other uses. Note that the access time for swap is slower therefore do not consider it to be a complete replacement for the physical memory. Swap space can be a dedicated swap partition (recommended), a swap file, or a combination of swap partitions and swap files.
All OSs utilize some form of virtual memory from a storage device of some sort. The difference between the OSs is exactly how much virtual memory they are going to need to utilize and at what points they'll need to utilize it.
Android is a very lightweight OS. It has had to be due to its mobile intention and the previous restrictions that Google has had to deal with due to low-spec hardware (500~ MHz / ~256 MB/Ram). Because of this, Android operates on a very low amount of Ram and quite well, in fact.
As far as a memory footprint goes, Android 2.3 has a memory footprint about that of windows 95. When memory gets low (and it indeed can), however, is where Android's biggest failure comes in, in my opinion.
Low speed SD cards are generally what are shipped with the phones. If you don't upgrade to a higher speed SD card *I recommend class 10, personally* then you'll inevitably see this at some point as the hardware needs increase due to developers utilizing higher end hardware.
As soon as the phone has to utilize a virtual memory on a slow SD card, the entire OS comes to a halt. This isn't fault of the OS, or the developers making it. It's a fault of the poor performing storage devices that are shipped with the phones to reduce manufacturing costs. With a class 10 device, there's still a noticeable slow-down when this happens, but rather than coming to a stop, the phone will still operate at a speed that is at least tolerable.
As the above poster said, this is all moot for the moment with the Droid Bionic, as it has 1GB of RAM, and I don't foresee even the greediest developers tapping that vein completely for quite some time. (It would be nice if they did so approximately 2 years from now when those of us who will be purchasing Droid Bionics are getting ready to upgrade once more.)
tl:dr If you think Android doesn't need to utilize a virtual memory source and that makes it faster, remember that windows 95 ran on about 64 MB of RAM at a snappy speed.