Database Users

MDAPro Just a few questions?

Forgive me for not really being able to search deeply into this matter, I've seen threads detailing updating with the JasJar ROM or an amalgamation of the the MDA/O2 ROM.
1) I have 43.72mb total storage and 47.93mb Program storage. This results in 91.65mb total storage??? Right, at 128megs where has 40mbs gone? I have pretty much the exact same set up on the MDA3 yet the two figures more or less add up to 128mb. Can someone confirm these figures with me?
2) Is there a new ROM coming out and soon? I'm not one to complain if results are going to happen, but the memory issue is a biggy to me as there is one more program I want to install on the thing and I doubt there will be enough free memory.
3) Software, I'm sure there was a better suite of software on the MDA3 when that came out. Okay time consuming it may be but sometimes I do like to run Messenger when I'm on the train - where has it gone? And if Microsoft think I'm going to pay £10.99 more for that feature they can go swivel. I followed a thread that said it's included in Windows - it's not on the MDA Pro.
I really love the design of the thing but the software just seems to be a joke. Where do I start? I have posted the MDA3 for sale on Ebay and I want to honour that sale, but I also want a device that replaces my MDA3 100%.
This includes getting TomTom 5 to work with my BT GPS receiver!!!

1. Sorry not sure about the memory
2. I havent heard of a new T-mobile ROM being available and they never seemed to work on any updates for the MDAiii
3. The software suite was better - I miss my messenger too and like you I am reluctant to pay microsoft a tenner! The backup software isnt avialbel either which is an arse.
4. Good luck with TT5 I had to upgrade my co-pilot to get it to work on new os.

If at all possible could anyone with the MDAPro and the carrier ROM please do a memory check on theirs to compare with mine?
If you're not sure how to do it - Start/Settings/System/Memory, I just need the total figures for Storage and Program

I have the same memory CONFIG as you have stated!

In WM5 you have separate ROM & RAM configuration unlike WM2k3...
So here's how ur memory is split up -
1. RAM 64MB
Out of 64 megs of RAM, you loose roughly 17MB on internal allocation. For the device to run perfectly it has various fixed RAM permanently allocated (DMA buffers (for ur cameras etc.), kernel level memory allocation, GSM memory, video memory, mem swap space, cache etc.). This total memory fixed can vary from device to device, and each company can tweak it accordingly. Eventually, the OS has roughly 47MB for use. Now again, when WM5 powers up, it again consumes around 17megs of RAM, giving you 30-32 megs of ram to use for your programs or apps!
2. ROM 128MB (permanent storage)
This is divided into the following -
a. OS install: This is where WM5 related files etc. gets stored. This is a total of 64Megs
b. Extended ROM: This is used by maufacturers to store their customizations etc. Another 20megs allocated for this
c. User storage: This is the space available for you to install programs, and for windows to bloat Thats 43megs that you find!
Hope this clears out
Cheers,
San

Thanks for you response having had an XDA for some time and then the MDA I was just quite suprised to see a Memory low warning message so quickly as I never saw one on the MDA3. I wanted to confirm that I wasn't having memory issues.

ROM question

I have the tmobile MDA USA version. I am supposed to have 128 MB ROM. My device shows only 47.46 MB total storage 34.15 in use, and 13.32 free. I have SPB pocket plus, Avantgo, Agenda Fusion, and SK tools in main memory. Not many things want to go on the storage card. I am new to WM5, but I have had 3 Ipaqs so I am not a total rookie. Where is my storage, and whats hogging it up?

bandersnatch said:
I have the tmobile MDA USA version. I am supposed to have 128 MB ROM. My device shows only 47.46 MB total storage 34.15 in use, and 13.32 free. I have SPB pocket plus, Avantgo, Agenda Fusion, and SK tools in main memory. Not many things want to go on the storage card. I am new to WM5, but I have had 3 Ipaqs so I am not a total rookie. Where is my storage, and whats hogging it up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the marketing blurb never said you'd have 128MB free memory. you have to account for the OS and registry plus all installed apps.

Yep... basically, 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
The real issue is that there are program that dislike running from the Storage Card. Write to the developers
( Of course, as the persistent storage is a form of flash memory, I don't see why we're not seeing phones with 512MB or 1GB built-in yet... )

That is kinda what I thought. It came with all the voice dial (which I am liking), and clearvue pdf (which I am not sure I need) bells and whistles. I guess I need to see what I can remove and what I can't. SD support seems to be lacking. I hear you when you say give the developers hell over it, but a lot of it is an OS issue I think.

I don't know if that's true... accessing files, which is pretty much all you need doing, on the MiniSD card is just fine. The only problem that I'm familiar with is that the driver starts after other bits, so any applications that run on startup may have issues. That much might be the OS's fault, but it might be the OEM's fault for putting the driver initialization where it is...

Leave the technical stuff to you guys
If you look at my profile, you will know that as soon as we start getting more than 6 inches deep into the thing, I am gonna start to get in trouble. My OS comment was intuitive and a gut feeling. I have no idea if it is accurate. I kinda understand about the memory, but I am imagining it as physical substance using physical space, etc.

free up program memory

Hi, I really like using emulator on my wizard. But I need around 33MB Program memory free to use one of my favorites. Is there any way to get that kind of program memory free? After a soft reset I have around 27MB free , what can I do to free up about 5 to 6 MB more?
Please someone help me out on this one?
Thanks!

Buy a storage card, thats what they are for.

boboki said:
Buy a storage card, thats what they are for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thnx for you reply, but I'm talking about Program memory, not Storage. I own a 1GB storage card, and I know what they are for

I'd like to know too, I only have 25mb free after soft reset. I'm guessing you don't have any Today screen plug-ins, which gives you 2mb more than I, as I have Pocket MSN, PHM Launch, SmartSKey, OmapClock, and vBar all running. btw, is the program you want to run PocketGBA, because that's the app. I want to free up my program memory for in order to play 32mb carts?

NorrinRadd said:
I'd like to know too, I only have 25mb free after soft reset. I'm guessing you don't have any Today screen plug-ins, which gives you 2mb more than I, as I have Pocket MSN, PHM Launch, SmartSKey, OmapClock, and vBar all running. btw, is the program you want to run PocketGBA, because that's the app. I want to free up my program memory for in order to play 32mb carts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol, yes, that is the app I want the free memory for, nice to see another emu fan.
And yeah, i have to no today-screen plugins loaded. I really hope someone has a solution to this.

I hope so too as well, but so far you have the most free memory of anyone i've seen on the forum. Too bad we can't apply storage extended rom memory to program memory like previous OS'...

yeah, I understand why it's usefull to have the program mem seperate from the storage, but it was pretty cool to be able to increase your program mem with the slider...

But back then all of the memory was the same RAM no matter if it were used for programs or storage, now with persistent storage it's seperate memory and the flash memory is much much slower you wouldn't want to reallocate it like that anyways.

so there isn't a solution for this?

Try running in safemode
Safe mode releases all the plugins and programs to run in memory.
SPPOCKETPLUS have this utility.

More program memory?

Does anyone know how I can get more program memory on my Wizard? I've come to the conclusion that the only way to get zippy program access on the WM5 device is to leave the programs running. Unfortunately I'm always running into "low on memory" conditions. With no software running I have 20 meg free program memory. With my regular suite of tools running I'm down to 4 megs making use of pocket IE limited. I looking for either a software or hardware solution.
Thank you
Richard

i second the question...
is there maybe a way to use the storage card for program memory?

Sadly, there is no easy way to increase the RAM available AND keep programs "zippy".
My personal solution is, set programs to close (with Pocket Plus or any other similar program) and overclock.

yeah, i am doing the same like romp, but if we can find a way to repartiion the memory of the device to make more available memory for the apps will be great

closing works but not the answer
I had the skey program set to close apps except the ones I specified but truthfully this isn'th the best answer. WM5 progs take to long to initially load so I like to leave them open to have the speedy appearance of a treo650. The list of programs I had set to minimize on close with skey was more than available memory would be able to handle.
I did check on a hardware solution and it appears that on WM5 devices we are out of luck. PPCtechs tried on a few treo 700W's with no luck memory size is hard coded into the OS.
Shame too since I'm almost a convert to this device for hacking reasons. For business use the Palm OS treo's kill WM5 devices and that's shamefull since OS updates have been almost nonexistent. Heck even palm os can use 4 gig cards with fat32.
Anyway different thread i've found enough third party software to make my wizard experience close to the treo's. I must say this though no matter what I have done this is not a one handed use device. it requires the pen too often.
Cheers

Simple questions on memory allocation

It took me a while to realize I'm confused, but it seems I'm confused about Hermes/WM5 memory allocation.
I've been using PocketPC's since PPC2000, there (and in PPC2002, PPC2003) the o/s resides in flash, and RAM is partitioned between storage and program memory. Thus, loading lots of applications to the device reduces the amount of program memory available for actually running programs. Those o/s had a slider to influence the balance of memory allocated.
Since I got my 8525 I've been assuming that it worked the same way, despite the loss of the memory slider. There have always been indications that I was wrong though - I never saw the memory balance shift, and nothing I've done seems to increase the program memory. Even removing several applications from Storage and installing them in Extended ROM didn't help. I'd LIKE to free up more program memory so apps like Mapopolis can use a LOT of it....
My Start->Settings->System->Memory page shows 56.22MB (Total) for Storage and 49.08MB (Total) for Program. When reading about the Samsung "stacked" (aka MCM) processor I realized that none of the variants listed had more than 64MB SDRAM, and 56.22+49.08 > 64!!!
It seems like either "Storage" now equals flash memory (vs volatile RAM in PPC2003 et al.) and/or there's more the 64MB of SDRAM in the Hermes or something. If all 64MB were available I'd expect more Program memory than 49MB....
I'm confused - Can someone explain or point me to an explanation of how the Hermes/WM5 allocates that SDRAM?
TIA,
Richard

Hermes has Samsung KD5657ACA-D090 chip provides 128Mb NAND Flash + 64Mb Mobile SDRAM. See here:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Hermes_HardwareOverview

pof said:
Hermes has Samsung KD5657ACA-D090 chip provides 128Mb NAND Flash + 64Mb Mobile SDRAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks pof! That's the one I thought it was - but I'm even more confused about the allocation of the 64MB now. If all of it goes to Program, how come I only get 49MB? If it gets split, how come Storage + Program is more than 64MB?
Ugh, I'm confused
Richard

rsolomon said:
Thanks pof! That's the one I thought it was - but I'm even more confused about the allocation of the 64MB now. If all of it goes to Program, how come I only get 49MB? If it gets split, how come Storage + Program is more than 64MB?
Ugh, I'm confused
Richard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These sometimes confuses people...
But, the stated "Storage: 56.96" is the 128MB part, in that resides the whole OS, ExtROM etc. So in the end there is only 56.96 available for the system to use, plus the other installed programs that cuts it down to about 30MB free after a clean boot (that's just the way it is thanks to our lovely microsoft programmers <3)
The thing is that when you boot your device, the machine loads the whole OS to the running program memory and allocates some of it to important system files, that's why there is 48.80 total and then there is the rest running programs that take space, and about 30MB is free after clean boot on my device.
That's the way it has been programmed, mobile device programming is alot frustrating than on desktop PCs, so the memory handling is very important.
And don't mix those two when you said "56.22+49.08 > 64!!!", they are two separate memoryes. (56.xx being the 128 part and 49.xx being the 64 part).
Don't ask why microsoft excluded the memory allocation slider, maybe the older devices and OSs were differently programmed (memory handling).

gvoima said:
But, the stated "Storage: 56.96" is the 128MB part, in that resides the whole OS, ExtROM etc. So in the end there is only 56.96 available for the system to use, plus the other installed programs that cuts it down to about 30MB free after a clean boot (that's just the way it is thanks to our lovely microsoft programmers <3)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That much is logical - not all 128MB of the flash is allocated to the file system mounted as "Storage" - clearly some is for Bootloader, Radio, etc.
Are you really saying the OS and user-writable storage share a filesystem? That seems counter-intuitive to me, though presumably there are user-inaccessible flags to prevent over-writing system files. In PPC2003 there was a ROM file system and a RAM filesystem overlaid so they appeared together. You seem to be saying that in WM5 the user filesystem lives in a portion of the flash - unlike a portion of RAM as it did in PPC2000-2003.
gvoima said:
The thing is that when you boot your device, the machine loads the whole OS to the running program memory and allocates some of it to important system files, that's why there is 48.80 total
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you're saying WM5 hides ~16MB worth of RAM usage? Did PPC2003 execute O/S files in place then? I mean I can see that the o/s and running programs would take up space, but it's unclear to me why WM5 would report total memory lower than 64MB in that case.
TIA,
Richard

See also this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=278903

Got it
pof said:
See also this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=278903
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, that's got it - the MSDN blog links (that Lurker0 linked http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1027392) at least squared me away. Lemme see if I can summarize my own questions:
0) Prior to WM5 most of the OS *was* eXecute In Place (XIP) - certainly on the devices I owned. Now most devices do not support XIP for most of the O/S so more RAM is used in general to compensate.
1) Prior to WM5, PocketPC "Storage" *was* in RAM (for user data), with WM5 it's ALL in flash. Thus there's no sense installing to ExtendedROM vs Storage, because you still can't free up any RAM
2) WM5 *does* hide ~15MB of RAM usage - because they want to. So "Program" really is RAM and it's just stupid that reported Total doesn't match physical Total.
I was tainted by my previous PPC exposure I guess. Half the RAM means that Mapopolis for instance will then always be slower on my WM5 device than on my PPC2003 device - half the SDRAM clock speed doesn't help here either (iPAQ 5555 vs Hermes)
Thanks all!
Richard

1. There are still reasons to use Extended ROM instead of the Storage. The Storage is required for many tasks by the OS, it is wise to keep at least some megs of it free. But, as you can read around, not everything is recomennded for installing on a flash card. Here the External ROM can be in help, adding the storage that is always accessible by OS, and is not used by other means.
2. You may call it "hide" but WM5 actually uses it. Well, the way it uses such an amount of RAM makes it hidden from the tools that calculate total available RAM. But that paging pool is a wise solution. For instance, Symbian OS 9.1 phones (S60 3rd edition, UIQ3.0) use RAM uniformly, and, as such, the same 64MB is just not enough for all (OS, built-in apps, user installed apps). WM5, employing the virtual memory, uses RAM a smarter way.

Lurker0 said:
2. You may call it "hide" but WM5 actually uses it. Well, the way it uses such an amount of RAM makes it hidden from the tools that calculate total available RAM. But that paging pool is a wise solution. For instance, Symbian OS 9.1 phones (S60 3rd edition, UIQ3.0) use RAM uniformly, and, as such, the same 64MB is just not enough for all (OS, built-in apps, user installed apps). WM5, employing the virtual memory, uses RAM a smarter way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed - by "hide" I simply meant not reporting it. I'd be fine with MS showing 64MB total with 14MB used - I just got thrown by showing 50MB "Total". I grok their rationale for that reporting choice, I just don't agree
As I alluded above, I have a specific target app which performed well on a PPC2003 system with 128MB of RAM and which is performing much slower on a WM5 system with 64MB RAM. Reducing the app's dataset (maps in this case) brings performance back in line, so I believe I have a memory issue. I'm running an older version of the app due to a bug which is still outstanding against the WM5-certified versions, so I'm likely not getting any help the app COULD be giving the OS. Bummer for me
On the plus side, I've learned a bunch about WM5 memory usage which I didn't know yesterday....
Thanks!
Richard