Using an SD card instead of ROM - JAMin, XDA Neo, S200 General

As most of you probably know, the ROM of our PDA devices has a limited number of times it can be written to. This theoretical limit is roughly <1 million times. With Windows Mobile 5.0, the ROM of our devices is not only used to store the OS but also some of the more permanent information so that it doesn't get deleted should the battery run out.
I have read that this limit can be reached if the device is used intensely on a daily basis (http://www.eten-users.net/topic70 ) especially for web browsing.
My question is simple : in order to not use up the ROM capital of my Qtek ROM which to my knowledge can't really be changed, can I tell WM5 to use my SD card instead? Is there a program that allows you to do systematically do this? Is there a way of estimating the miles/kilometers of usage left the ROM?
Thanks
D.D.

I haven't really heard about this but there might be an option to store the browser's cache on SD. This would reduce considerably the amount of data that is written in the inbuilt Flash RAM (not ROM).

I read on a M$ blog that they "spread out" the read/writes to avoid this problem. The WM5 code is written to not keep using the same area of memory so that it does not "wear out" too soon. This way your device memory should last for years.
Found the blog entry - it's here: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2006/06/07/621132.aspx

you can put anything related to the browser onto the SD
no option I'm afraid, you have to edit the registry. Search the forum for the keys.

See the wizard thread for a list of keys to change. I used the Mobile registry editor http://www.breaksoft.com/Blog/Utilities/2005/1/Mobile_Registry_Editor.aspx as it does it via Activesync, nothing to install on either device or PC.
There is also a util which will change the path to the SD card for you. I did it manually as I wanted to select the path on my SD card, all done and working lovely.

Related

compare WM03 and WM05: many problems and limitations

Dear All
I am very disattisfied from WM05 compares to my (XDA) WM03. I wish you can share some suggestions and advices.
PROBLEMS with Wizard T-mobile Vario (=Qteck 9100) and Windows Mobile 2005, version 2.17WWE:
1. Memory limitations:
Only 47 MB of Storage and only 44 MB for Program! Total 91MB
At startup, after hard reset, even with pressing soft reset within 3 secs, you have no more that 25MB of storage and 30MB of Program, very little!
It should be 128MB ram to 64MB rom, totale 192MB
Not only we are missing 101MB, what is worst is that the new OS don't let you allocate RAM or ROM
In my case some application (for example Chinese fonts) are heavy (8MB) and cannot be installed on mini-SD card. Simply you cannot choose, they install in main memory.
After a minium batch of required software are installed I end up with a super slow machine, with just 11MB Storage memory and 16MB Program memory
2. Memory cannot be re-allocated
I would be more that glad to get rid of most native applications (like intellidial, skype, etc). But it seems NOT possible.
Nobody was able to cook External ROM
3. TotalCommander
Even cooking external rom, what benefit?
By using TotalCommander it seems that cab istalled to external rom are very little in size.
So my question again: where is all the 192 memory gone? Who uses it, which programs? How can the OS be so large?
4. MS Contacts Problem
If you filter by using categories, the filter is NOT retained!
In wm03 it was (until next software reset, of course).
I mean if you filter using "business" categories, then you (without soft resetting) make calls, or do something else, at next time the filter is gone. You must re-select it
5. Installing application with Active Sync
Very funny: I have tested all my apps and they are ALL compatible with WM05. Also the software house confirmed to me.
Now look at Spb Backup V1.1.2. It is compatible to wm05, right?
Or Lingvosoft dictionaries 2006
Or Slovoed Dictionaries 2006
These sfw are fully compatible and in fact no problem with them.
But if you run low in memory (for example Storage free 15MB and Program free 16MB, like now) what happens is:
5.1 either the program install and then NOTHING appears in startup memu. Simply they are not there, even if no error messages appear.
or
5.2 the desktop active synct installation sees that your internal memory is too short and ask you where to install. You choose STORAGE CARD and INVARIABLY AFTER INSTALLATION THE RESULT IS: INSTALLATION IS UNSYCCESFUL!
Then you can free memory or erase previous software: YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO INSTALL THE FAILED APPS ANYMORE!, UNTIL YOU MAKE A FRESH HARD RESET.
After a fresh hard reset the application can be installaed without problem!
CONCLUSION: IF ACTIVE SYNC ASKS YOU WHERE TO INSTALL, THEN SURELY THE INSTALLATION WILL ABORT.
5.3 Active sync DOES not ask where to install the application.
The installation completes and then a message says: installation unsuccessful, because it WAS NOT digitally signed!?!
If this is the case, NO WAY to install the application, until next HARD RESET
After hard reset, the application may install and work flawlessy!
6. Installing application from mini-SD card
I tried with TomTom 5.21
Don't even start!
7. Zone Alarm
I still have to shut down Zone Alarm 6.1.744 in order to Active Sync to sync with Wizard. No way to accept the virtual LAN network. Do you know a solution?
8. OmapClock
how yo make omapclock to retain the new speed (say 240MHz)?
Sometime it will retain. Sometime after few minutes the speed reverts to 180MHz. I did not make any soft reset in between.
Please let me have your suggestions on some of these strange behaviours
Thanks and waiting
saulo866
any suggestions? Any solutions to these problems I mentioned?
I am c0nsidering to sell out my Wizard with WINDOWS MOBILE 2005, and look for an older WM03 model
Thanks a lot
Saulo
Memory problems: The whole concept of Storage and Program memory is removed in WM5, so most of your moans about memory are not valid when applied to WM5 - especially the part about allocating memory between storage and programs. Basically, now you have RAM, and Storage space - they are seperate, and unrelated. I suggest you read up on this major change in WM5.
4. True - a minor niggle though, in my opinion.
5. When I install by ActiveSync, I do not get asked by AS where I want to install the program (that's a WM03 thing) - I get asked by the device where I want to install it - and it either installs it in \Program Files or \Storage Card\Program Files - which is a major benefit, because before, if I wanted to install to Storage Card, it would often install just in the root of the card, which was invariably messy.
My suggestion to you is to keep a good chunk of your phone storage free so that the .cab files can be copied to the phone in the first place, from there you can decide where to install the program to. I can't believe you have that many programs filling up your phone storage that can't be moved to the storage card.
6. TomTom is a pile of nonsense, which was obviously programmed by idiots. It requires a number of hard-coded paths to be present. Install it to your phone, and the maps to the card, and leave it as it is, and you'll have no problems.
7. Add the ActiveSync network to your Trusted Zone, and make sure the 3 ActiveSync programs have full control in the Program Control section. See the MS website for more info.
8. Dare I say it, RTFM. There is a MASSIVE thread on OmapClock, where I'm sure you downloaded the program from in the first place. Try reading it before asking the same question that's been asked numerous times before.
saulo866 said:
8. OmapClock
how yo make omapclock to retain the new speed (say 240MHz)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search for "SmartSKey". Freeware. Works great together with OmapClock and does what you want. By switching the device on, it works with e.g. 252 MHz. Switching off = fallback to lower MHz. Great piece of software!
thanks to all for your kind ideas...
Any more suggestions?
Saulo
I suggest you sell your WM5 device and go back to WM2003. It seems most of your issues aren't really issues. I agree, RTFM.
Does anyone know how to:
1. make CC and BCC fields appear in TEXT messages? (SMS)
I found no hint in help file...
2. How to make filter on categories persistent? At the moment when you select filter, on, say, BUSINESS or FRIENDS, the filter disappear after you change focus on aother apps
Thanks and waiting
Saulo866

can u use sd card for program memory?

hi, I'd like to know if you can use the sd card and say partition it so that you can make your xda exec device use the storage on it as programe memory so it speeds the device up. this really is a fab device, but it really lacks the memory capacity that I had on a blue angel.
I have a 1gb sd card and don't mind loosing any storage space to accomplish this. if there isn't a way, can someone try and find a reg tweek for this....
anyway, I leave it with you...
cheers.
joey jojo
I think this is something which should be taken as a clue by developers who make programs such as Memaid, Pocket Mechanic, etc and include this as a a feature. Maybe the concept will be something similar to the Virtual Memory on a regular windows pc.
You are absolutely right, I too really miss the shortage of program memory. I can never open a really complicated web page with lots of images in Netfront before I get the dreadful warning that I have run out of program memory.
I hope some developer picks this up and incorporates this as a feature. I am sure this will increase his sales many many times.
Regards
you can put your internet explorer's cache on the sd-card...
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Cache]
change cache from '\windows\profiles\guest\temporari internet files' to '\SD_MMCard' to achieve this...
however you'll notice that it only slows your device incredibly down if your SD-Card is not set up right
see also http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=50301
There is just no way a third party program can add this. On the windows mobile team blog, there's a post from a few months back talking about doing virtual mem on the SD card, and basically, it's just not in the OS and won't be until at least WM6, and third-party programs can't do it.
JasperJanssen said:
There is just no way a third party program can add this. On the windows mobile team blog, there's a post from a few months back talking about doing virtual mem on the SD card, and basically, it's just not in the OS and won't be until at least WM6, and third-party programs can't do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those are very disappointing news...
Speaking of memory management and the OS itself..I really wonder during the development of WM5, did they try to come up with a better OS, or just building up upon WM2003.
Reason why I say this is my Universal crashed yesterday, and a look into the "Memory" panel in the Settings showed the OLD memory management screen along with the sliders and all... :lol:
Looks like the developers got lazy and just placed a panel on top of the old one :lol:
Ehh.. You guys want to be buying new SD cards every third month?
Flash memory like the SD cards have only a limited number of write operations before they fail.
Using them for storage is good, because you don't write to the cards that much.
Using them as memory would totally screw up the card in a rather short time.
And, I think using SD card for program memory would result in a slower application, because of the read/write speed of the SD compared to the RAM..
--- EDIT ---
3 months is just a figure of speach..
I have no idea of how much time it would take before failure occurs..
It would probably result in slower and slower performance, because some sectors would be worn out faster than others..
What you say about the writes before failure is right, but when you are faced with a £300 PDA that has the same amount of RAM as my little finger, you have to do something.
SD cards are cheap enough these days, and money grows on trees. I'd rather be able to leave programs open and not worry about how much it will slow the machine down to have more that three big apps running than I would be about coughing up for a new SD card every 3 months.
I have seen a 4GB card on Ebay for less than £80, Tescos sell 1GB for £30 these days.
The great thing about Tescos is their guarantee. You buy the card, write it to death, take it back for a full refund, no questions asked.

New reg-hack: MemHack. Pre-Alpha.

I fiddled around with my wm6'd hx4700 (thanks kuzuhara!) and a registry editor and found a way to make it regard SD as ram and xip from it.
This renders my device to achieve usage smooth enough i allow myself to reffer to the device as a mini-umpc^_^
For SD only atm, miniSD may or may not work depending on your devices driver. No MMC for the time being.
I sooooo hope this isn't old news
Here's to me not ****ing any of your devices up, it worked wonders for me.
P.S
IMPORTANT!
Delete the Program Files folder and reset again once you see the SD's been renamed to Program Files2.
On the next boot it'll mount as Program Files and everything will load from it.
Excuse me, my brains are stuck in google translator mode
4.11.2007
It seems i was rather in the wrong and am taking a whole new direction.
One which involves reading more carefully before i charge head into the guts of windows embedded.
Will take me a while until next post, and it might become hx4700 exclusive, but i promise you some cool stuff to come yet.
Anybody wanting to make their SD into Program Files to save space,
just start resco reg editor and change hklm\System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory\Folder: Program Files.
(Originally is SD Card).
You can also try messing with it, making it into diffenent sys folders, just be careful
Mine is currently application cache (Volatile) and [email protected] Files.
(Running sweet with what i got to with the enablement of complete graphics accelaration, except for a minor hang up when returning from sleep).
Sooooooooooo...
ONLY DOWNLOAD AND APPLY THE CURRENT PATCH IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR'E DOING AND WANT TO GIVE BEATING ME TO IT A SHOT!
I'm hoping for a next release in a day, but not necessarily of this project but of an off-chute.
BTW, is it just me or is WM real *nix like?^^
anyone tried this ?
ranasrule said:
anyone tried this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Downloaded, but waiting to see what others think.
Want to know what it does to the SD card and device as the readme does say to move the devices contents of its program files folder to the sd card?????
downloaded it too. but i notice its his forst post.
Lol... it's my first post, sorry..
All it does is make the device call the card drive "Program Files" and set a swap file that's used as most device memory (don't worry, it's faster than most none-nand flash). i had to leave a small buffer in device memory though.
The memory file is unallocated, so just don't forget to leave 528MB free at all times.
Re-read the original post
It is and will be updated with periodic updates should they come.
I've been using it for 72 hours now.
It takes the odd reset to free up memory, but nothing worst than what we had before.
well if all thing got wrong.. anyway to revert it back?.. well ofcourse hard reset is one of it. uhmm.. lets put hardreset aside first..
well.. cant wait to test this.. i made a whole backup of my registry so if thing went wrong.. ill just restore the registry backup..
Good point doube_ofour.
Just export the StorageManager registry key before applying the changes, and if worst comes to worst restore your backed up original.
So, anybody else installed and can connect to tell the tale?
DuperMan said:
So, anybody else installed and can connect to tell the tale?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made a cab with the regs and installed it But I'm still experimenting .. Nothing bad happened so far how do i know the device is faster ?!! how did you measured your device's speed ?
So let me get this straight -- it will use the microSD in my TyTN as RAM -- the icky sticky stuff I run out of because internet explorer, pocket player, and spb mobile shell grab it all for themselves?
Is there any way to specify how much of the SD card is used as RAM -- since I don't really need 1 GB of RAM on my device.
I saw your post about 558 MB free but didn't quite understand it. You also said you need the odd softreset to free memory? but why would you need to free up a few MB when you have access to hundreds?
But thanks for sharing with the community -- if this really does work out well for us, that's pretty freaking amazing.
@DuperMan
Does this hack simply make our "Storage Card" transform into "Program Files"?.. Thats it?.. cant see any speed improvement.. besides my memory usage increased by that means my device will perform slow..
My "Program Memory and Storage Memory" Stays the same as 47mb total on both memory..
Exactly Ragart!
Only it's set to use miniSD, i think you'd have to mess with it a little to make it work on miniSD... if response is good i'll make a mini version.
Remember - It's only been tested on wm6 hx4700!
double_ofour said:
@DuperMan
Does this hack simply make our "Storage Card" transform into "Program Files"?.. Thats it?.. cant see any speed improvement.. besides my memory usage increased by that means my device will perform slow..
My "Program Memory and Storage Memory" Stays the same as 47mb total on both memory..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in my case my program memory decreased by something around 10mb ! and I can't see any improvement in speed too ...
miniSD, hmm? Well that's the slightly-larger brother of my 1GB MicroSD. So I guess I'll just watch the thread and see others' reactions before I try anything (though I do have fullbackups)
Thanks for the quick response. So how much RAM does your hx4700 'have' now? and did you set it to 558 extra for a reason? Just curious questions from a person who doesn't understand the intricacies of reg editing
@doube_ofour:
Use it for a while, constant usage should be smoother. Did you free the space up by deleting the old Program Files as well?
Use it to surf for a while, multiple windows style, and you'll notice the difference.
Also, don't be mean to my hack Don't load it to spite, wait for each app to load and keep on starting apps without (majorly) worrying about a system crash.
@hma4:
The age old method of feel
It doesn't boost anything per say, but your device shouldn't be as compaction ridden as it was, so less mem degradation over time=more time between resets under heavy work loads. and i mean heavy. also, multi-tasking is MUCH more usable.
@ragart:
I set it to have a 512Mb paging area on the SD, plus 512kb in main for caching and another 16Mb for caching on SD, so that's a total of 528.5Mb overall mem, 16.5Mb cache and half a gig paging (good for them internet chaches etc..
i check on the registry that u have made in ur reg hack. seems like all the folders etc is the same even for a miniSD card ... so do u think it will work on miniSD too?

MicroSD RAM Hack! WICKED!!

Hey guys,
Go to http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=1466855
this is the original website.
Software you will need:
Phm RegEdit
QUOTE: "Speed up your Metro HTC Mogul with a Micro SD Card I would like to share this hack with my friends that have a smartphone on metro pcs.
I found this hack on a different site, tried it and works great on my mogul (flashed). One way I tested to see if it worked or not was by using Opera mobile. Everytime I surfed the internet on my phone, Opera would pop up saying i was out of memory (I have so many apps installed on my pda) and to close the tabs. It got so annoying that I uninstalled it and have been using PIE since then. Until recently, installed Opera mobile again, and notice the difference with this hack. No more pop ups. I went from site to site and it loaded it up. I notice major speed. I went to sites that had a hard time loading without the pop up warning me. This time, no pop up and fast upload... Now Opera mobile is the best web browser. My phone also has less freezes and boots up very fast after a reset.
I have an Kingston HC 8gb micro sd card and it works great.
As usual, use this tweak at your own risk.
How to use Micro SD card as RAM
1.Open a new folder “Volatile” on the SD card
2. Change the following key, using the registry editor:
from \HKLM\System\Filesys TempPath = \Application Data\Volatile
to \HKLM\System\Filesys TempPath = \Storage Card\Volatile
3. Turn off the pocket pc with the power button for about 30 sec (not soft reset/hard reset).
4. Turn it on again.
What software you can use to edit the registry:
PHM RegEdit (freeware): http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/RegEdit/
Here is also another speed hack if you don't want to use the one up above.
I have applied both tweaks to my phone.
Speed Hack
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\
Changed limit from 16384 to 32768
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\FATFS
Changed - CacheSize to 4096
(NEW!) Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\StorageManager\Filters\f sreplxfilt
Change “ReplStoreCacheSize” dword decimal value to 4096 or 8192
Posted by: Malatesta
Source: http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=127164
This was tested on Sprint HTC Mogul 6800 flashed to metro pcs"
I tried this in my Mogul and it seemed to work with my MicroSD 1GB. I noticed it booted up very fast, but the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta still showed Out of Memory. I guess I'll just have to wait until my 4GB MicroSD comes in from Amazon! There is some speed difference though with both on. No wonder it worked so well on his phone because he had an 8GB MicroSD! Anyways, just wanted to let most of you guys know.. PEACE
I posted this same message on the original thread as well.
This shouldn't work for the fact that it's not giving you additional memory, all "folders" in the phone are part of ROM memory, not RAM, so even tho you point that at your sd card, it's still not giving you back any ram which is what the Moguls lack, I think it's just a coincidence that you see a different in Opera. To prove me wrong, undo this hack, (reboot your phone) check your "free" ram, and then redo the hack reboot, and check it again.
You should see the exact same amount of free ram. And therefore won't gain any benefit.
Another thing, depending on your SD card, some being faster than others, if the SD card memory is slower than the built in ROM memory of the phone, this could actually lead to things being slower. I imagine in your case you have a fast card, and you see speed improvements because of it being able to write faster to the card than your ROM, but not any other benefits.
BTC
WOW
Best registry edit hands down i have about 7 apps open and it isn't lagging or freezing the apps i have open are thumbcal total commander tcpmp palringo calculator skyfire W.V.D. and task manager ... simply amazing and unheard of opening this many things with out lag just wow
hmmm doing some testing now .. will report later.. so far so good.. BTW
the regedit it damm cool..
I have cabbed up all of these tweaks for those of you that don't want to do the registry edits yourself. I have tested it with the emulator and it works great, but install this at your own risk.
Enjoy,
dwizzy130
Now it says I'm using up 10% more RAM than I was using before. Doesn't work for me....placebo? Has anyone else looked at their RAM usage?
Meditato said:
Now it says I'm using up 10% more RAM than I was using before. Doesn't work for me....placebo? Has anyone else looked at their RAM usage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto..
Un mod
This is a very interesting idea. I've tried it and also found the loss of free ram to be a problem. But I'm running M2d. I tried dwizzy130's cab (which uninsulated with no prob). The volatile folder was populated with hidden files but i did get the low mem warning.
dogw/mogul: Are you running a stock rom? Whats your setup? I'd like to see if i can reproduce your results. I have made so many mods to my phone that one or a few maybe causing the prob. Maybe a different rom/radio/setup would produce better results.
This is an eyebrow raiser for sure!
Edit: Ok, By following the instructions manually I have the edit in place with out the extra loss of memory. The phone will still close apps after a point but your are correct in saying that the lag is reduced! It is noticeable. I'm thinking of dropping M2D and going back to dcd 3.4 just to see what performance would be like.
has anyone removed the SD card just to see what will happen?
I'm running M2D Reload 1.1
DCD 3.6.3
Radio 3.4
Sandisk 8GB HCSD
the cab install makes my phone use about 10% more ram but when i uninstalled it and just have the first hack i had 10 programs open including s2p and wmp playing music on both and still ran pretty smooth with very little lag. works nicely. i have 4gb card and 2gbs taken up by music and cabs ect. the other 2gbs is free.
dogw/mogul said:
Hey guys,
Go to http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=1466855
this is the original website.
Software you will need:
Phm RegEdit
QUOTE: "Speed up your Metro HTC Mogul with a Micro SD Card I would like to share this hack with my friends that have a smartphone on metro pcs.
I found this hack on a different site, tried it and works great on my mogul (flashed). One way I tested to see if it worked or not was by using Opera mobile. Everytime I surfed the internet on my phone, Opera would pop up saying i was out of memory (I have so many apps installed on my pda) and to close the tabs. It got so annoying that I uninstalled it and have been using PIE since then. Until recently, installed Opera mobile again, and notice the difference with this hack. No more pop ups. I went from site to site and it loaded it up. I notice major speed. I went to sites that had a hard time loading without the pop up warning me. This time, no pop up and fast upload... Now Opera mobile is the best web browser. My phone also has less freezes and boots up very fast after a reset.
I have an Kingston HC 8gb micro sd card and it works great.
As usual, use this tweak at your own risk.
How to use Micro SD card as RAM
1.Open a new folder “Volatile” on the SD card
2. Change the following key, using the registry editor:
from \HKLM\System\Filesys TempPath = \Application Data\Volatile
to \HKLM\System\Filesys TempPath = \Storage Card\Volatile
3. Turn off the pocket pc with the power button for about 30 sec (not soft reset/hard reset).
4. Turn it on again.
What software you can use to edit the registry:
PHM RegEdit (freeware): http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/RegEdit/
Here is also another speed hack if you don't want to use the one up above.
I have applied both tweaks to my phone.
Speed Hack
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\
Changed limit from 16384 to 32768
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\FATFS
Changed - CacheSize to 4096
(NEW!) Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\StorageManager\Filters\f sreplxfilt
Change “ReplStoreCacheSize” dword decimal value to 4096 or 8192
Posted by: Malatesta
Source: http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=127164
This was tested on Sprint HTC Mogul 6800 flashed to metro pcs"
I tried this in my Mogul and it seemed to work with my MicroSD 1GB. I noticed it booted up very fast, but the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta still showed Out of Memory. I guess I'll just have to wait until my 4GB MicroSD comes in from Amazon! There is some speed difference though with both on. No wonder it worked so well on his phone because he had an 8GB MicroSD! Anyways, just wanted to let most of you guys know.. PEACE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I originally posted that on HowardForums... my mogul was fast and never lagged... but, I like to experiment with tweaks and 3rd party apps... so I had to do a hard reset... here is where an issue came up... using Resco Backup, I was unable to successfully restore for the fact that it was tweaked toward the SD card... my suggestion... use Sprite Backup... make an original exe copy and save it to your external card... then save another exe copy of the tweak version... so now you have two back ups...
Now, with the opera mobile... use this tweaked version of Opera Mobile browser http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=459378
No more "out of memory" issues Opera Mobile with Dexter's version....
I am still using my old 1GB SD card I had in my old phone (LG VX8300). Since I use orb for everything, I didn't see a need to get a new card. But with this hack I am tempted to do so. Hmmm got to think about this one.
edit: going to do this hack first then see if there is improvement. If its slow but have more memory then I will definetly get a faster card.
edit (again): can someone make a cab file for the first set of registry settings? Thanks!
If you were using your microSD card as RAM it would last you a few hours a best, cards cannot sustain the amount of data writing required to emulate RAM. Plus RAM operates on a bus directly with the processor, hence why it's directly assignable in assembly, which absolutely is not the case with SD cards which have to deal with a file system and interfacing hardware. Honestly extending RAM onto an SD card would make your phone run infinitely SLOWER.
Maybe there are other parts of this "Hack" that work but the idea that you can use and SD card as RAM is simply garbage.
ok cool I don't want do it then. u know that opera mobile that monte linked is great. no memory errors. It just doesn't work too good in landscape or with a hardware keyboard.
Ok so I installed the cab but I don't see any change. I still have 12 to 14MB running Manila 2D. ideas? I have 300MB or space left onmy SD Card
As I said in my first reply, this will NOT give you extra memory. Depending on the speed of your SD card, it may increase the performance on some programs, but there is no way to give the phone more ram with any registry changes. You would have to write a very low level driver that would then cause it to see additional storage as available memory, but since it's not ram, it will be extremely slow. On the original PPC's, 2003 and earlier, it had no rom, just ram, and it balanced the storage and available ram with software so that you could adjust. With the newer versions of windows mobile there is ROM and RAM, each with it's own function. So unless you were involved in the original development of the OS, it's doubtful you would have the knowledge to be able to write this kind of driver, and therefore it will probably never happen.
So this is a hack worth testing, and if you have a very fast memory card, you may see some improvements, but it will not give additional ram, and could actually cause your phone to crash if you remove the memory cards because background processes will be utilizing the memory card.
My suggestion is to not even bother with this unless you just want to test with it.
Moving the volatile storage from FASTER internal rom to SLOWER external rom is not going to get you any additional RAM, and at best will simply slow things down.
Placebo caused by the soft reset that you must do.
regarding the statements about the tweaks or cab file that the other guy provided causing you to lose ram. That is correct and thats what speeds up your system. Increasing those values allocates free ram for those specific areas speeding up the filesystem and speed of the device. So technically you didnt lose any ram its just being used for other parts of the devise to speed it up
I saw no improvement... could just be me. And my audio manager would just skip through all songs with this reg edit applied. When i put it back the way it was audio manager played all songs fine.
Wow.
Wow. I manually did the reg-edits just now and I'm not on crack. Manila 2D is considerably smoother, Skyfire loads much faster and I was able to open up multiple other progams without any lag. This is ridiculous! Nice find!
My phone ran much slower with the update, I did it just for sh*t and giggles, and was right, no additional memory, and apparently my 8gb sd card is slower than the onboard rom because it ran probably 15% slower.
BTC

Is there any way around the WM5/WM6 emulator storage space limitations?!?!

This has come up many times in many forums, but still cannot find an answer.
We develop commercial apps for windows mobile. We would like to be able to use emulators for testing. I realize we cannot rely totally on emulators for testing and do need to test on real devices as well, but it would be very beneficial to do some testing without having to buy umpteen devices for every developer.
Currently we can only use emulators for PPC2003. The problem is that WM5 and WM6 emulators only allocate 32 MB for storage space on the device, which is ridiculous. My HTC Fuze has over 290 MB for storage.
32MB is not enough to store our application plus the database.
Before someone tries to tell me about MEMSIZE parameters and settings in visual studio to increase memory, that is RAM, not storage space. Microsoft seems to have made no provision for changing the amount of storage space.
You can of course set up a virtual storage card using a folder on your hard drive. The problem is that the driver is buggy and does not work correctly for storing a database. I have seen references to this bug in relation to SQLCE and SQLite and it also affects DB2E (the database we use).
So is there either:
- A way to get more than 32MB storage space (not RAM) in the emulator
- A fix for the virtual storage card bugs
This pretty much renders the emulator useless for serious testing.
Workaround using Ramdisk
I have found sort of a workaround that lets me do testing using an emulator.
If you go to this thread there is a discussion of a Ramdisk driver that allows for large ramdisks.
Unlike the previous ramdisk driver which would only give me 17MB of ram disk, with this one I could get up to a 127MB ram disk.
The original source of this new RamDisk is gone, but go to that thread you can download a zip containing the executable and dll but none of the other files.
I did some work and figured out the lnk files you need and attached them to this post.
The exe and dll go into \Windows
The Ramdisk.lnk goes into \Windows\Startup. The link I provided sets up a 64 MB RAM Disk. You can edit the text in the lnk file to change that.
The Ramdisk-Unload.lnk is used to unload the RamDisk.
The downside is that you lose the contents when soft resetting, but that is not often with an emulator.
I know we had some trouble with the storage size limitation as well because we use a large database, but creating the folder on the hard drive and using that as an "storage card" word. Although ours isn't a sql database, it's a binary one. We have noticed writing a lot to the "storage card" that is on the hard drive, tends to fail every once in a while, not sure why. But if you try again two seconds later, it works.
So beyond doing good try...catches and maybe having a retry method. As far as I know, there isn't a way of changing that.

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