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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.
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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
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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..
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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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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 ??
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.
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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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
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.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
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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.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
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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!
My phone shows ive around 120 to 140 ram is that enough so that the phone functions smothly without laggings? And i wanna know what free ram u guys have while using ur phone ....
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
I mean total memory free***
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
Around 100MB +/- 50 free is nominal, I guess.
The way I understand it:
It's going to vary quite a bit, depending on what your doing, number of additional serviced installed, etc. But generally speaking, Android is a very different animal compared to -- say -- Windows. Free RAM doesn't really have an affect on performance, it's just RAM that's not being exploited. There are several parameters that tell the OS how much RAM should be free in a number of different circumstances, also when and how often to kill other services. i.e. As RAM usage increases, apps and services with increasingly higher priorities will be killed to free up RAM. So like if you run Angry Birds, you may start with 100MB free which will drop down to say 70 maybe even 50, but after a few minutes of running, the OS begins to try to free up memory to get it back to what ever the desired free RAM is set to. So after a few minutes, your RAM may go all the way back up to 100MB. Where Windows would just start to pound away at a page file on the hard drive, Android will start to kill applications then eventually kill lower priority services in order to free up the RAM it needs.
So basically every time you run a RAM heavy program, Android will start to kill the previously used programs (settings screen, browser, facebook, whatever), as they are now deemed lower priority. It's always fighting to maintain a certain about of RAM.
I have an average of about 150mb on the latest CyangenMod build (not ICS). However once I start up my phone and run the auto kill after about 10 minutes, I can have 200+ (sometimes as high as 250).
Bobbar said it well in terms of how much you need. To be honest, when I was on the stock rom, I would sometimes have less than 70mb free, yet my phone still wouldn't lag much. You can help with any launcher lag by disabling desktop animations and such.
I'm generally in the range of 60 - 90 MB free RAM at any given moment. My D3 does not lag at all. What you are reporting is absolutely fine.
My first phone regularly reported 25 - 40 MB free RAM at any given moment. Android runs fine on the D3 - it's best not to spend too much time worrying about it, IMO.
If you have a bunch of RAM free all the time it just means you're losing out on multitasking. Some people tweak their OOM values and such so that they have copious amounts of free RAM, this is not necessarily a good thing. IMO
Android aggressively pre-loads applications into memory. The most ideal situation is actually higher memory usage - as most apps don't need ridiculous amounts of memory to operate, and more apps cached in memory means faster launch times for those specific apps.
If you have a bunch of apps not closing and lagging your phone then try Auto killer.
Sent from my XT862 using XDA App
I've got 240MB free at any given moment with stock ROM and doesn't lag at all.
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
It just blows me away how much these manufacturers charge for phones these days. Seems like we're just getting into the same kind of specs 'arms race' that people have been going through on their PCs for a while now, just so they can try to make more money. That's pretty sad, considering I have a fine experience with the D3 and G2x.
BenSWoodruff said:
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
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1 gig of RAM would be a great thing, for instance for running GNU/Linux in chroot, which I do...
The prob is the Droid 3 doesn't have anywhere near enough total RAM, not to speak of free RAM.
BenSWoodruff said:
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
It just blows me away how much these manufacturers charge for phones these days. Seems like we're just getting into the same kind of specs 'arms race' that people have been going through on their PCs for a while now, just so they can try to make more money. That's pretty sad, considering I have a fine experience with the D3 and G2x.
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Some.of.the Phones with 1gig ram have the lapdock, it docks with a keyboard/screen to be a pseudo laptop. When docked half the ram is set aside for the lapdock
Sent from my XT860 using xda premium
BenSWoodruff said:
So, not to get off topic, what exactly do all these newer phones need 1GB of RAM for? Just to load up more apps into memory? I get it, it should make them load up faster...but is it necessary on Android?
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Well, Android has gotten fatter, for one. Another would be Motos Webtop.
The more memory you have, the more apps you can have stored in it at any one time. Devices with small amounts of RAM (256 or so) may only be able run one major app at a time. But once you get into the 512 - 1GB+ range, users can freely switch between several heavy apps without them getting killed to free RAM. So you could switch between Angry Birds, then the browser, then YouTube or Email and Messaging without having to relaunch any of them.
So manufacturers tossing in more and more RAM does end up being a pretty good selling point.
It just blows me away how much these manufacturers charge for phones these days. Seems like we're just getting into the same kind of specs 'arms race' that people have been going through on their PCs for a while now, just so they can try to make more money. That's pretty sad, considering I have a fine experience with the D3 and G2x.
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Just looks at how powerful these devices are compared to just a few years ago. The innovation and power is increasing at an almost logarithmic rate. The price for a high-end smart phone has remained about the same, but the rate at which they are being cycled for newer, faster devices is crazy. So, in this sense, it may be accurate to compare it to PCs. But, it's only us enthusiasts that really feel the hit to the pocket book, because we always want to be on the bleeding edge. And most users, average users, will stay with the same device for a long time, they don't feel the same 'pain' as the enthusiasts group.
Back in 2005, before the iPhone and all that stuff, a smart would cost you almost $700 and it came with a steaming, stinking pile of Windows Mobile. We have it so good these days.
I have around 200MB at boot (CM7).
Yes, that should be enough RAM to use most apps without lagging. That's about what I had with stock, and I rarely ran out.
aman321 said:
My phone shows ive around 120 to 140 ram is that enough so that the phone functions smothly without laggings? And i wanna know what free ram u guys have while using ur phone ....
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
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512mb it's a little down for me... because i like multitasking and for example if you download something from a web page, using opera mobile or stock browser and you open facebook's app while you listening music (poweramp or winamp) it will kill your internet browser (cancel your download) due to your less ram avaible.
A great solution for us would be if we can enable a swap on our droids but it seems to be difficult (or imposible due to our locked bootloaders)... but if somoene is interested here is a link to the current topic http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1407671
With swap enabled our device will move to virtual memory our background apps leaving free ram to our current app.
I know there are 512MB RAM in Droid 3, in addition to 16G internal storage. However, I don't know what go to the RAM. Are the bloatware going to take part of it, or they are simply stored in the 16G internal storage? What about the OS?
Hope I can get some insights on this. Thanks.
i dont understand. your post sounds as if you think programs are installed on the RAM. they arent. RAM is random access memory, programs arent stored on here, they use RAM to run commands. The 16gb is what your programs will be installed to
Not all 512MB will show as total memory its around 370-380 I think that is because the graphics use some of the RAM. Some bloatware will preload into the RAM as well as some of your apps. But when RAM is needed for the program you are currently running lower priority apps preloaded will close. So even if you see bloatware running in the background it cannot take away RAM when you need it.
The 16GB is flash memory for installing programs, etc. Android is not like older versions of Windows Mobile where apps were installed directly to the RAM so the 16GB of memory and the 512MB of RAM are for two totally different tasks.
Thank you.
After I posted the question, I did some research on google. Basically your replies are pretty in line with what other say. The 512MB RAM is used when running program, and OS too. Motorola says there is a 1.5 secured storage space in the phone. I guess that is where the app are stored physically. When being run, the app will be loaded into RAM.
Yes, the sum of used RAM and free is less than 512MB. I guess the difference goes to the OS and graphics. That's what I learn after posting the question. If there is anything you think might help understand these terms, please share.
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
newshook said:
Thank you.
After I posted the question, I did some research on google. Basically your replies are pretty in line with what other say. The 512MB RAM is used when running program, and OS too. Motorola says there is a 1.5 secured storage space in the phone. I guess that is where the app are stored physically. When being run, the app will be loaded into RAM.
Yes, the sum of used RAM and free is less than 512MB. I guess the difference goes to the OS and graphics. That's what I learn after posting the question. If there is anything you think might help understand these terms, please share.
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
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The ram is memory, the internal storage (both the 16gig and the secured partition/the 1.5 gig) are hard drives