Database Users

Splitting up the memory

Hi there,
In the previous versions of Windows Mobile (e.g. 2003 and 2003SE) it was possible to "split up" the total device memory by yourself.
The available memory is devided into Storage and Program memory. If you needed more storage memory, you could simply use that switch to "steal" some of the program memory to add it to the storage.
Unfortunately Windows Mobile 5.0 is missing this switch, which - I guess - is due to the use of flash memory.
But isn't there still a way to adjust the memory allocation? E.g. by using some of your handy tools...?
Thanks in advance.

I doubt it since for WM5's new system, the actual hardware is changed. Before, storage and program memory both went into RAM, so you could freely choose how much each got. Now storage has ROM, and program memory has RAM. You can't turn ROM into RAM since they are physically different, so you can't move memory from the storage to the program memory...

Qtek 9000 Memory - where is all the memory????

I just bought a Qtek 9000 and noticed that it was considerably slower than my previous Qtek 9090. I am no expert on PDAs but when i looked at the memory allocation it was not clear why i had a Total of 50mb for running programs, and after a hard reset, out of the 50MB total only 27mb were available. Where is all the PDA's memory gone, could someone please explain clearly (for a novice) where did the 128MB RAM and 40MB Storage go ???? Also any ideas on how to make the Qtek 9000 faster and how to free up some of this memory????
Thanks in advance...

avensis said:
I just bought a Qtek 9000 and noticed that it was considerably slower than my previous Qtek 9090. I am no expert on PDAs but when i looked at the memory allocation it was not clear why i had a Total of 50mb for running programs, and after a hard reset, out of the 50MB total only 27mb were available. Where is all the PDA's memory gone, could someone please explain clearly (for a novice) where did the 128MB RAM and 40MB Storage go ???? Also any ideas on how to make the Qtek 9000 faster and how to free up some of this memory????
Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can download DINARSOFT MEMMAID to see what programs are running and how much RAM each is eating (much like WINXP Taskmanager) where you could also terminate the process.
Here you will see why your 50MB RAM is down to 27mb.
And it's 128MB ROM not RAM. this is where the OS ROM is stored. Use Memmaid also and you will see that of this 128MB rom 70MB is for the OS (i thing the windows folder has 70MB worth of files on hard reset), 10MB for the Extended ROM and the rest are displayed in the memory icon as what is left.
I believe this is how the memory is set up. can anyone confirm what i explained above?

Yes, thanks for the info, but is my assumption true that if i have total 128MB ROM of which the 70MB is for the storage of the OS, and the 50 total has 24MB used for running the OS so i have about 26MB left for running my programs??? So really in total the OS is using most of the ROM for storing and running itself???? Rediculous when they advertize 128MB Rom giving the impression that you have a lot of memory for your use when really you don't. The bottom line is that no matter what i have about 26MB memory in total for running my programs. Correct?

Actually My ROM is something like this after a hard reset:
128MB ROM:
1. 70MB OS Image (Read Only files that cannot be deleted)
2. 44MB STORAGE
3. 10MB Extended ROM Image
This is most of it
the 64MB RAM is just what is actually running.
in memory under PROGRAM, it says 50MB. not sure where the other 14MB are but of the 50MB, what is in use are what the programs in Memmaid show as running application with corresponding MB consumed like cprog, gwes, etc.
Hope this cleared things up. Again, this is just my opinion on how the memory is distributed. I may be wrong. No one has verified i'm correct so i don't know.

Install what, where?

have a Qtek 9100 with 48MB internal memory and a 2GB add on card.
which programs & files should i install where?
if i install everything to the add on card, will my programs use the internal storage for program memory?
does it matter?
what is the relation between internal storage and program memory?
thanks for the great forums. i hope to contribute.
Qtek 9100 FR
flashed with WWE ROM 1.6.7.1
2GB Mini-SD from Moby Memory
Voice Command (UK female voice, love it!)

Hi there casemon...
To take your topics one at a time:
Some programs do not like being installed to the add-on card. The majority of the time when I tried to do that it caused more headaches than it was worth. In the reality of things, the concept of additional card storage was for keeping large accessory files such as music or maps so that you didn't have a large volume of data clogging your handheld. This is program-specific, so it is hard to say which ones will let you do that and which ones won't. I even had difficulty storing maps for MS Streets and trips on the SD card, as the program itself (which I installed on the handheld) kept losing the location of the maps.
Your handheld should be keeping tabs of available memory and readjusting storage and program memory as it goes along, however I find them to be a little too conservative with the program memory and usually end up tweaking it myself, which you can do just by moving the slider over a bit.
The relationship between internal storage and program memory is that you have only the alotted memory on board both for storing your programs and running them. The handheld keeps tabs on its memory availability and keeps a portion of it aside just for running programs. However, as I said above, they tend to be a bit too conservative, as I have had programs stall out midway. A quick tune up to the memory slider solves the problem every time.
Hope I was able to answer your questions. Take care.

Bacharette: your post is true for WM2003SE, WM5 works differently. Storage is there for storing apps and data, RAM only for running them and not for storing. In WM5, you can cram all of storage full of apps without effecting your device's RAM. I install most programs in ROM, only apps I seldom use I put on SD. Be aware that today plug-ins do not like to be installed on SD, better put them in your storage ROM. All other apps can go on SD or in ROM, but it makes no difference in your RAM.
The relationship on WM5 between storage and program memory is as follows: all files are stored in ROM, than loaded in RAM and run there till you close them. As long as you do not run too many apps at the same time, your RAM will not fill up very fast. Best advice is to use a taskmanager to really close apps as soon as you are done with them, thereby freeing up RAM.
Because ROM is storage place for apps and data, you will not lose them in case of empty battery.

thanks Bacharette & Koksie, that clears it up for me.
on a related note, another post in this forum is heating up about hacking your ROM to be smaller! check it out here;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=34171&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
haven't tried it yet, but it's interesting. what a great site!
Qtek 9100 FR -flashed with WWE ROM 1.6.7.1
2GB Mini-SD from Moby Memory
Voice Command (UK female voice, love it!)

Memory Allocation

I have a question which puzzles me - perhaps the knowledgeable amongst us can answer it for me.
I have 2 devices, an Orange SPV M2000 (Blue Angel) and an O2 MDA Mini S (Wizard).
When I look at the device info I see this
........................................BA......................Wizard
RAM Size.........................128MB....................64MB
Flash Size..........................32MB....................128MB
Storage Size..................43.26MB.................47.46MB
When I look at the Memory Screen, the BA has 125.77MB main memory showing 62.88MB allocated to Storage and 62.89MB allocated to Program and a slider to alter the split of memory.
When I look at the Memory on the Wizard there is no slider and it shows 44.76MB allocated to Storage and 44.01MB allocated to Program.
Whichever way I look at it I cannot seem to make sense of the figures.
Can someone explain (in simple terms) what these figures mean and why there is such a dramatic difference between the RAM and Flash sizes on these two devices?

First the major difference between Blue Angel and Wizard. Blue Angel stores everything - your programs, data, etc. in RAM. It uses this same RAM for program memory. That's why you get a slider. It's also why, if your battery runs out or your reset it, you lost all your stuff. The Wizard, on the other hand, has memory dedicated for data/settings storage that's like flash memory (so you won't lose your stuff), and different memory for the RAM.
depending on the ROM/ExtRom/Radio Stack, etc. installed there's...
128MB total ROM
of which
44MB is available for storage of applications/user files
the rest is the operating system, extrom, etc.
and
64MB total RAM
of which
49MB is available for running programs/memory
the rest of which is the PIM running in the background, the phone running in the background, the radio stack running in the background, etc. All stuff that either the OEM or Microsoft decided you wouldn't want not running.

Thanks 'Z'.
Now it all makes more sense.

Sorry to resurrect a somewhat buried thread, but I was doing my research before posting by using the search function -- not bad for a newbie, eh? -- and ran across this thread which directly addresses some questions I've been dealing with, but I'd like to throw some stuff out to see if I understand completely.
As I understand it, the Wizard has 64MB of SDRAM, and 128MB of Flash storage memory, correct? On the developer.cingular.com it says 64MB Flash ROM and 128MB SDRAM which appears to be backwards.
On the device Memory manager after a hard reset and installing the Qtek 9100 customization .cab Storage shows Free 43.75 of 47.46MB and Program shows Free 27.18 of 44.01MB.
As I understand it, "Storage" is refering to the Flash non-volatile memory, and "Program" is referring to RAM, correct?
So this means that of the 128MB of flash memory, ~80MB is hidden, including the customization .cab. Of the 64MB of flash memory, more than half is taken up by OS, radio and other things.
Do I have that right?
Now, one more thing. If I drag a 5MB file onto the device, the storage in use increases 5MB but Program isn't affected. This makes perfect sense.
Syncing, however is a different story. A small test sync of email, contacts, and calendar uses 2.68 Storage memory but 3.7MB of Program memory.
I take it from this that when you sync, it writes the pim info to the flash memory but then also automatically expands it into system memory. Do I understand that correctly?
If I am correct, is there any registry hack or anything that can change this behavior? Would it really slow things down so much if your PIM info had to be taken out of Storage memory? Or am I missing something?
Thanks for any responses.
Gene

I hope no one minds that I bump this, it's been several days.
I'm fairly sure my basic understanding of the situation is correct: contacts etc are loaded into persistent memory (ROM) then loaded into system RAM as well -- I speculate to speed searches and such because RAM is so much faster than Flash memory.
However this has a drawback in that whereas a 64MB RAM-only ppc 2003 device was able to handle >5,000 contacts with ease, on the Wizard it takes almost all of the RAM.
I know it's possible to reduce the amount of RAM (and ROM for that matter) being used by other applications but I'm wondering if anyone has explored or figured out a way to keep the PIM info in ROM (registry hack, perhaps) until it's actually needed, and what the repercussions if any were, ie did it make using the pim info unbearably slow?

I have a question here. Why doesn't HTC put more flash ROM storage (maybe 1GB of flash ROM) into its mobile phone? Then we don't need external SD memory card.

I have a question here. Why doesn't HTC put more flash ROM storage (maybe 1GB of flash ROM) into its mobile phone? Then we don't need external SD memory card.

I'm sure they'll be increasing that in upcoming models. Only reason not to, typically, is to keep cost down a bit - and let the user add as much storage memory as they want; this is under the assumption that anything put on the storage card will work just fine, which is not the case with many applications :|

M600 internal memory not enough.....

Hi there,
I've just become what I thought was a proud owner of an Orange M600. Their May catalogue says it has 128 Mb internal memory, the website says 64Mb. When I check the memory tab, the storage total is 42.55Mb (I've used 38.53), Program total 44.01Mb (used 28.35)
I was going to replace my O2 XDA 2S (Blue Angel) which comes with 128Mb.
Having installed about 4 out of my 7 must-have programs, i'm getting sync errors for out of space. It's a gorgeous phone, but is there ANY way of getting/unlocking more on-board memory, else I guess I'll be returning it.
What have other users done to combat low memory, is it just to install everything on the SD-Card...?
Please help/advise.....
TIA

You need to think of your M600 in PC terms - that is you have a hard disk (storage) and you have RAM (program memory). The storage is just that, for storing programs and data. Program memory is where your programs run and the more memory you have the more programs you can run simultaneously.
You will most likely want to get a storage card and install your applications here thus freeing up some internal storage space. An SD card works just like your storage space, so if you felt like it you could buy a 4GB sd card and have huge amounts of storage space. So far all my applications have installed and run fine from the SD card with the exception of AvantGo, which seems to want to remain in main storage. But generally just install on the SD card.
As for memory, mine is often less than 10MB free, but Windows will close programs automatically to free up additional memory as and when needed. My advice would be to not become obsessed with the memory and just let WM5 do its job, alternatively there are a number of task managers that let you actually close programs and free up memory rather than just minimising them, however, so far for me WM5 is doing a good enough job...

Digger is right. I install everything on Storage Card except the PocketZenPhone today plug-in.
Everything works just fine.
Storage cards are getting cheaper all the time. 8)

Digger, TheBrit
Thanks for your advice. I think you've convinced me to keep the phone. I guess pretty much all other pda phones are on the market at the mo with 64Mb memory, and i do like the sleek look of the M600.
Advice much appreciated...
J