Related
I am probably being naive here but with SD card prices so low now ....I cant understand why mobile manufacturers wont provide their devices with a "useable" capacity of memory .....
Or is the RAM memory very differant to SD memory ???
Is their a possibility of maybe in the near future, HTC launching a device with say a full gigabyte of onboard RAM ???
Yep, RAM is more expensive than ROM. By the way, this needs space which you just haven't in the Magician. It would also be too expensive, since a 1 GB card costs around 100 €, which is far too expensive for a manufacturer of these devices. Besides that, the magician is quite cheap in my opinion.
Dandie,
i think if i-mate provides us with the range of devices all would be happy and decide what to buy. e.g.:
-basic configuration - 64mb ram
-advanced conf - 64mb ram +512mb built in sd
-extreme 64mb ram +2gb built in sd
or whatever else breakdown is feasible or optimal. the price would respectively warry e.g. +$50; +$200.
i also don't see a problem to fit SD chip to device - its much smaller without body
it is also related to all device manufacturers. Since few of manufacturers do it i see some reasons for it:
1. low probable but: sd patent owners do not want to go for built in option or ask too much for it (but i know that some of the phone manufacturers already started production of the devices with build in miniSD chip);
2. it is not profitable or worthwhile from the marketing point of view;
3. I heard a lot from, people that SD cards are not very much reliable, sometimes it looses data, sometimes brokes. Thus it used for temporary storage purposes and nobody wants to take a risk with loosing your data…
4. and last but not least: they all are stupid and we here the only Einsteins who invented such simple way to increase memory
Although I have a 1GB SD Card in my JAM, I wouldn't want it to be built in. I'd rather take it out and put it in my card reader (USB 2.0) especially for transferring that 170MB DIVX file!
And what about those situations where you just give your SD card to your friend to copy stuff over and then back in your JAM?
And what about those situations where you just plug in your digi cam's SD card and have a quick view at the pics taken?
KTA,
nobody says "we want to replace external SD with built-in one" we say that we want to have both options: (i) BIG internal storage and (ii) SD/MMC slot for card.
internal storage would be used to keep our garbage on and forget about memory limit problems. And external for exchanging data with others, to move high-capacity data in and out and whatever else you want to use it for...
I never seen a person complaining on big HDD
Let people have an option!!!
Just guessing - but wouldn't there be an increase in power consumption with an increase in volatile memory?
Maybe the reason there is no 1gb RAM option in the PDA world today is that the battery life would be like 1 hour.
Mark One said:
Just guessing - but wouldn't there be an increase in power consumption with an increase in volatile memory?
Maybe the reason there is no 1gb RAM option in the PDA world today is that the battery life would be like 1 hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*BINGO* you got the answer right... :wink:
- $
- Battery life...
- OS Stability with bigger memory...
- Speed of OS with Bigger memory will reduce...
The rest is history...
xirc0m, Mark One,
DAMN WRONG !!!!
* Question of money is not discussed since people want to have extra memory and ready to pay reasonably. Again, I assume several options to fit every pocket. Don’t want extra memory – buy basic version.
*Do you have increased consumption with SD card inserted? Then why it should be with built in sd card?
* OS Stability with bigger memory… guys, if I have 100gb harddrive and you have 30gb does it mean that os stability is much lower in my case? I doubt
*Speed of OS with Bigger memory will reduce... SPEED would remain the same! But if you want to access built-in storage then you’ll get the speed of sd card
let me reiterate again. The whole idea is to have one big sd card built-in and have another slot for external card. There is still may be fast RAM as usual devices have
I suspect the main one is battery life; unlike SD card, which uses flash memory, which does not require power to maintain its content, the device's RAM needs constant power to maintain its content; that's why when your battery goes dead, your card content is still there, but not your main memory. You may then ask why not use flash for main memory? That's because Flash has a limited number of writes (although for most people it's virtually limitless now), and is slower.
Did you see pictures of the PCB? There is just no space left for more/bigger chips. The only thing you can do is replace the current chips with ones of the same size but more memory. These are expensive. Adding another slot inside the case wouldn't really help, since you still need space for the socket and there would be another sensitive part with not soldered contacts. I guess devices with up to 512 MB ROM built in exist already but they are bigger than the Magician. Don't forget: The magician was the smallest PPC available when it was released. It even had the phone built in. Trust me: There is no space left. The SD-RAM memory upgrade availble is done by exchanging the current chip and the price of 200 € tells you that 1 GB is just not realistic. Even though Flash-ROM is cheaper, it would increase the price to about double i think (don't forget, the end customer price always is a lot higher than the manufacturing costs - at least double the price I'd say) - not really interesting.
So - wait for fast 2 GB SD cards to be released (I'm still waiting for my Sandisk Ultra 2GB for almost 6 months now) and there you have your 2 GB ...
Why not to solder chip on the circuit board then? No contacts, no connectors, just chip. Sure, there is no space now. But don’t forget that when circuit board was designed all components were distributed proportionally to cover all board. If you add new stuff – you redesign it and tighten components. It only seems that no more room.
I also agree that built-in sd price would be different from external sd. Again, 1gb, 2gb, 8gb – this is just talks; we discuss the idea on having chip flash memory built-in.
Well, there is a flash ROM chip built in, as you know. It has 64 MB and is used for the Storage, the Ext_ROM and the OS. There is an upgrade available that makes it 128 MB ROM - 200 bucks! And also, I don't agree with you saying theres enough space left on the Magician. There is no space left at all! This device is one of the most compact electronic devices on the market. There is not enough space for one single additional chip. You have to wait for either the other or the memory chips to decrease in size and/or increase in features/capacity/speed (what they do). The next device probably will have more RAM, more ROM - but not 1GB. That's for certain.
avyshnya said:
KTA,
I never seen a person complaining on big HDD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using your HDD example, I thought the issue here was not the size of the "HDD" but whether the HDD is internal or external.
Can you imagine HTC with 3 different production lines, each with a different "embedded-SD" size? I don't think so ...
RAM goes against the whole quick standby capability of the device. I can suspend my handset into a minimal amount power consumption mode and then resume it right back to where it was before without any loading delay.
With RAM, I would have to hibernate any volatile information to a persistent store which takes both time and space. Otherwise I need to keep power applied the RAM while in suspend mode which costs me in battery life. Neither of these options are very attractive.
Plus a RAM store is yet another memory store to juggle. The OS would have to be modified to use it and I already have enough stores between main menory and the expansion slot. I shouldn't need to juggle another one. Finally, PCB real estate and battery load is limited so I don't want to add another memory controller or memory that needs constant recharging as RAM does.
Maybe increasing the cache on the processor is the way to go.
Dudes !!
You misunderstand my question !!
Yes I think having a removable SD Card is ESSENTIAL !!
I dont want to replace the external SD card with just an internal one !!
With 2Gb and 4Gb cards on the horizon - I dont think I would require much more storage (for the time being anyway!)
What I mean is .... would there be a possibility in the future of RAM prices dropping and sizes reducing - so that we could have a JAM type device with about 1Gb of RAM instead of the crappy 64Mb ???
What I HATE is having to worry about taking up too much of the measly 64Mb RAM which would then slow down and make the JAM unstable ..... I want to be able to install most/all of my "apps" into Main/Storage and then use my SD card for just Music, Movies, Games etc ....
Hopefully the RAM would be non-volatile so would remain even after a hard reset so no more need for constant Backups and re-installing etc !
1Gb Main/Storage Memory + 4Gb SD Card Memory = Perfect Device !!
It just seems crazy to me that Removable storage is reaching for the sky ..... but most of the time I have to be careful what/where I install programs on my device in case it slows down or becomes unstable ....
64Mb Ram + 2,4,8,16,32Gb SD Card = So Crazy It Makes Me Sick !!!
PS - I hear that JAM version 2 will have 128Mb RAM and built-in WIFI .... so there is room in there after all !!!
1GB RAM would indeed be nice, but that would be too expensive. The SD cards aren't made the same way. They're cheaper but slower. Even the Storage is a lot slower (which I found out by doing simple tests).
PS - I hear that JAM version 2 will have 128Mb RAM and built-in WIFI .... so there is room in there after all !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bet that they will make it even smaller, because most of the parts in any device will get smaller over the time. When they developed the Magician there wasn't any room for anything more though.
Interesting article on the future of Flash Memory .....
http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20041112/index.html
Dandie said:
Well, there is a flash ROM chip built in, as you know. It has 64 MB and is used for the Storage, the Ext_ROM and the OS. There is an upgrade available that makes it 128 MB ROM - 200 bucks! And also, I don't agree with you saying theres enough space left on the Magician. There is no space left at all! This device is one of the most compact electronic devices on the market. There is not enough space for one single additional chip. You have to wait for either the other or the memory chips to decrease in size and/or increase in features/capacity/speed (what they do). The next device probably will have more RAM, more ROM - but not 1GB. That's for certain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd gladly trade the cheapo toy-grade camera they shoehorned into this thing for a more appropriate amount of memory - anytime. That's for sure!
grrrrrr..
i think, another reason for not putting a 1gb a internal memory is because the phone still cant stand to have that large appilcation running.. it will surely always lockup if a total of 1gb load of applications you put in there. not to say + the another 1gb in external.
avyshnya said:
xirc0m, Mark One,
DAMN WRONG !!!!
* Question of money is not discussed since people want to have extra memory and ready to pay reasonably. Again, I assume several options to fit every pocket. Don’t want extra memory – buy basic version.
*Do you have increased consumption with SD card inserted? Then why it should be with built in sd card?
* OS Stability with bigger memory… guys, if I have 100gb harddrive and you have 30gb does it mean that os stability is much lower in my case? I doubt
*Speed of OS with Bigger memory will reduce... SPEED would remain the same! But if you want to access built-in storage then you’ll get the speed of sd card
let me reiterate again. The whole idea is to have one big sd card built-in and have another slot for external card. There is still may be fast RAM as usual devices have
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yo...avyshnya,
Guess you have never work in a Mobile Phone / a PDA device company before...or have you done any R&D on this...
As I mention above still valids...
-$ , its all about Marketing issue...you are not looking at their point of view.... anything is possible the throw in the big chunk of memory...Technology is there...but they will not excute that so fast...
- Consume more Batt...yes it does with more memory...to your naked eye...you do not see it... if you seriously benchmark it you will realise it does...whether its external or internal memory
- Stablity on OS... still does... you are talkin about your PC...this is no PC...its PocketPC... sorry you are not benchmarking in correct terms...
- Speed... go n do a benchmark...you will see it yourself...
Hi all,
Over in the X1 forum, they have a utility & thread to speed up SD card access, and they are benchmarking it with SKTools. It also briefly discussed in our graphics performance thread, but NeoS2007 justly noted it was a bit off-topic, as that thread is actually about OpenGL and D3D (maybe he can change the title)
Anyway, what really bugs me is not that the X1 utility does not work for HD, but that the HD has soo much less RAM (and flash) performance then the X1. Why? Is it not supposed to be nearly identical base machine? Have they used a cheap RAM chip, or is the timing of it wrong. Would that be a bootloader setting?
In fact, I suspect comparing flash speed between X1 and HD is irrelevant if the RAM is so different, you are in fact still measuring RAM.
For example, this is my HD:
(posting from others show it is a fairly normal HD, only a bit high in storage write, maybe because I have a Ultra-card):
Code:
RAM access: 544
Bitmaps: 785
Main write 1776
Main read 6413
Storage write 1303
Storage read 8657
The typical X1:
Code:
RAM access:1519
Draw Bitmaps:797
Main (write):11070
Main (read):17066
Storage (write): 483
Storage (read): 16832
Thats 3 times the RAM speed
And as everything depends on RAM, it does not even matter to mention the 6 times flash write speed
In this thread, I am hoping that people who have significant other findings (you can test this with the trail version of SKTOOL) post so, just to see what really is normal.
Or better yet, if someone smart is able to somehow change the RAM timing, by modding a bootloader or poking some bytes into a chip register somewhere. (I suspect the RAM timing is not a windows setting, but deeper than that)
If you do post your setting, please include if you applied any tweaks, and the brand/type/class of microSD.
Thanks
if you look at the index in sktools benchmark the HD gets given a score of 560 v 472 for the diamond on ram access.
i get on my x1
Integer 329.2257
FP 7.233
Ram 1502
Bitmaps 799
MS Write 8727.27
MS Read 15170.39
SD Write 487
SD read 16168.42
it's curious as I also thought that the two devices were internally very similar, what tweaks are you using?
Do you get different results in integer and floating point, as some people believe their X1s run at 400mhz
Wow thats huge difference in ram speeds between blackstone and hd. But interestingly enough blackstone seems to perform better with in coreplayers benchmark. That maybe suggests that sktools is not accurate, or its buggy etc.
Integer 316.9227
FP 7.294
Ram 461
Bitmaps 769
MS Write 1860.13
MS Read 6849.50
SD Write 461.71
SD read 4740.74
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tested using SKTools
Am running SPB Benchmark at the moment to compare
my Touch HD:
Integer 330.3489
FP 7.605
Ram 576
Bitmaps 814
MS Write 1897.47
MS Read 7177.57
SD Write 192.25
SD read 6729.46
what the....?
why am i getting so low result for SD write? i have installes SD tuneUP and still....
noris08 said:
what the....?
why am i getting so low result for SD write? i have installes SD tuneUP and still....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Annoying, but I suspect the top 4 benchmarks are much more critical in whether the device feels snappy than the latter 4, and of those, I think the read has more influence than the write. So maybe it makes you feel less bad to know the SD write is probably the least important one?
Also, it may simply be the SD card you have. I just bought an 'ultra', most people have a class II, maybe you have a class I?
yeah, i know that this is the less important but it still bugs me.
that and the huge difference compared to x1
i have the 8gb Transcend microsd card that came within the package. i have no ideea what class it is. how can i find out?
it has a circle with a 6 inside of the circle printed on. that means it's a class 6? then the results i am getting worries me a lot
Since I kind of started this discussion in the other tread mentioned by cybermaus in his initial post, I think, I can put this to rest also. Run the Memory card benchmark in pocket mechanic (Trialversion available here: http://www.wizcode.com/downloads ) and you will see that the read/write performance of the 8GB card that came with the HD is quite remarkable, my results were even better than the ones posted over in the X1 thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3154958&postcount=257.
It's a more sophisticated bench for the card performance and we are talking about read performance of 22.5 MB/s unbuffered, 42 MB/s buffered and write performance of 1.80 MB/s unbuffered, 5.33 MB/s buffered, so all is good. The readings in the SK Tools bench seem to be false, I would suggest that this also goes for the ram performance readings. This is also consistent with the observation that the HD is the slightly faster device overall.
razorblader said:
Since I kind of started this discussion in the other tread mentioned by cybermaus in his initial post, I think, I can put this to rest also. Run the Memory card benchmark in pocket mechanic (Trialversion available here: http://www.wizcode.com/downloads ) and you will see that the read/write performance of the 8GB card that came with the HD is quite remarkable, my results were even better than the ones posted over in the X1 thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3154958&postcount=257.
It's a more sophisticated bench for the card performance and we are talking about read performance of 22.5 MB/s unbuffered, 42 MB/s buffered and write performance of 1.80 MB/s unbuffered, 5.33 MB/s buffered, so all is good. The readings in the SK Tools bench seem to be false, I would suggest that this also goes for the ram performance readings. This is also consistent with the observation that the HD is the slightly faster device overall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did that, got
read unbuffered 11,86 mb/s
read buffered 32,75 mb/s
write unbuffered 1,47 mb/s
write buffered 3,38 mb/s
Couldn't do the RAM readings as it kept complaining it needed 21,5MB free even tho 70% was free. But indeed quite a difference to SKTools (phew).
rhtizzy said:
did that, got
read unbuffered 11,86 mb/s
read buffered 32,75 mb/s
write unbuffered 1,47 mb/s
write buffered 3,38 mb/s
Couldn't do the RAM readings as it kept complaining it needed 21,5MB free even tho 70% was free. But indeed quite a difference to SKTools (phew).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the same thing for me on the RAM bench, the low level tests for the the card bench also crash the program on my HD, so we are left with the file read/write tests, but good enough for me at the moment.
would be nice to do that benchmark before and after the install off sd_tuneup
Vinski- said:
Wow thats huge difference in ram speeds between blackstone and hd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blackstone and HD are names for the same device .
noris08 said:
why am i getting so low result for SD write? i have installes SD tuneUP and still....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The "tuneUP" doesn't improve the writing speed, it just increases the reading speed.
johnpatcher said:
The "tuneUP" doesn't improve the writing speed, it just increases the reading speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i've noticed that 'cause i've made the test with and without tuneUP.
that's is too bad because one may need fast writing speed when taking movies or burst photos
i still can't understand the huge differences compared to X1
btw, i have got better results testing with pocket mechanic. i did it last night and i don't remember the numbers, but, for writing test, there were something like 2.35 mb unbuffered and 4.95 mb buffered.
menwhile i found out that he sd card is class 6.
but i am still bugged by the high numbers X1 scored
johnpatcher said:
Blackstone and HD are names for the same device .
The "tuneUP" doesn't improve the writing speed, it just increases the reading speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, looks like I mistyped it yesterday, I meant X1 versus blackstone
But still wondering is the benchmark buggy, or why so huge difference. X1 doesnt feel that snappier, and looses Coreplayer benchmark, which uses software decoding in both, meaning pure processing power.
johnpatcher said:
The "tuneUP" doesn't improve the writing speed, it just increases the reading speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi guys,
I found two interesting things when I tested my HD with SKtools.
1) I compared the results of SKTools SD card reading test before I install SD tuneUP and after. It was very suprised for me. The results are following:
Without SD tuneUp: ~5500 KB/sec
With SD tuneUp: ~ 2500 KB/sec
2) I made RAM SKTools read/write tests on HTC Touch Diamond and I was very-very suprised.
HD results:
Main storage (read): 5779 KB/sec
Main storage (write): 1692 KB/sec
Diamond results:
Main storage (read): > 8000 KB/sec
Main storage (write): > 8000 KB/sec
Who can explain that?
razorblader said:
Since I kind of started this discussion in the other tread mentioned by cybermaus in his initial post, I think, I can put this to rest also. Run the Memory card benchmark in pocket mechanic (Trialversion available here: http://www.wizcode.com/downloads ) and you will see that the read/write performance of the 8GB card that came with the HD is quite remarkable, my results were even better than the ones posted over in the X1 thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3154958&postcount=257.
It's a more sophisticated bench for the card performance and we are talking about read performance of 22.5 MB/s unbuffered, 42 MB/s buffered and write performance of 1.80 MB/s unbuffered, 5.33 MB/s buffered, so all is good. The readings in the SK Tools bench seem to be false, I would suggest that this also goes for the ram performance readings. This is also consistent with the observation that the HD is the slightly faster device overall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But this, and may posts above, are focussing back to the SD card.
I really think the SD card is far less important than the RAM for general performance of the device. Checking the SD is like wanting a speedy car by checking how fast you can open the booth.
I'd like to indeed think that it may be a artefact in SKTool that causes the difference between HD and X1 RAM benchmarks (500 vs 1500). Especially since people tell me practical benchmarks like Coreplayer tell a different story.
But the difference is too significant to ignore. Does anyone know a different RAM/CPU (not SD) testing program?
so you don' think writing speed of the sdcard is important!
i'll say it again - when you record a movie or burst some photos writing speed will count or not? maybe a drop more then opening the booth?
Actually im thinking RAM is the issue here, the reason being yes the read speeds of the SD card would impact on the performace of loading the data which is why we have buffers, the problem i see is that im not getting buffer underruns so we dont have a shortage of data to play. So we are loading the data in to RAM without much issue.
RAM would also explain any lag issues people might be gettings with the over all performance of the device.
noris08 said:
so you don' think writing speed of the sdcard is important!
i'll say it again - when you record a movie or burst some photos writing speed will count or not? maybe a drop more then opening the booth?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not saying it is not important. I am saying it is less important than RAM speed:
If you record a video at full VGA resolution, it would mean a 640x480x30x3 or 27 MB/s stream into RAM/CPU/GPU (depending which does the compression). Next, it is compressed (so cycles around between RAM and CPU/GPU a bit) and finally needs to be written to a file in the compressed stream of maybe 1 or 2 Mbps. Which is 0.125 or 0.250 MB/s
If you play a XViD video, the same thing in reverse, except now the RAM bandwidth is even 35 MB/s because we want the full WVGA
So, SD requirements: between 0.1 and 0.3 MB/s. RAM requirements, way above 35 MB/s (the CPU also needs to calculate, not just move data)
Like you, I'd also like a faster SD. I would hope it would speed up loading a new program after selecting it from the launcher. Also, interrupt calls from the SD could cause jerkiness in video. And that one guy with 0.192 MB/s SD defenitely would like a faster SD.
But the fact SD is important, does not take away the fact RAM is more important, which brings us back to the original question: Is the SKTool test flacky, or is X1 significantly faster in RAM?
cybermaus said:
And that one guy with 0.192 MB/s SD defenitely would like a faster SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that guy happens to be me
i am not arguing about bigger is better (i am speaking about RAM)
but considering the fact that X1 is also made by HTC, and it would be logic that they keep the best part of the cake for themselves (HD) i can only imagine that SE found a better management software of the given hardware.
can this be an explnation for the almost 1 year delay of the X1?
Hi I've read some where in this forum that the galaxy S has some I/O problems which are leading to the frequent lags that the phone experiences
Frankly I do not know what I/O is but my question is whether I/O problem is a hardware or software problem. If it is software then fair and well, I'll wait for samsung to ooptimize the software
I have noticed that the benchmark software (Quadrant) runs relatively smoothly all the tests except the I/O test at which it stops for a while before moving to the next test. I dont know if this relates to the I/O problem.
Thanks for your answers
RADLOUNI said:
Hi I've read some where in this forum that the galaxy S has some I/O problems which are leading to the frequent lags that the phone experiences
Frankly I do not know what I/O is but my question is whether I/O problem is a hardware or software problem. If it is software then fair and well, I'll wait for samsung to ooptimize the software
I have noticed that the benchmark software (Quadrant) runs relatively smoothly all the tests except the I/O test at which it stops for a while before moving to the next test. I dont know if this relates to the I/O problem.
Thanks for your answers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theres still no solid proof that its a software issue.
****
EarlZ said:
Theres still no solid proof that its a software issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
****...............then you're saying its hardware ??????
He is not saying its hardware, just that there is no solid proof that its software.
However, based on the amount of working fixes, and reports of great improvements using Froyo I would put money on it being software related.
In fact...I am!
I am ordering a SGS in 3 days when my contract is up for renewal.
Actually, I think everyone's overlooking another obvious possible source of lag: clock-scaling for power conservation. If a phone slows down to 200MHz when it thinks it's inactive, and won't speed up until it sees evidence of activity lasting for 400ms, well... that's 400ms of lag you wouldn't get if the phone were running full-bore 1GHz all the time.
There's even an easy way to test the theory (on a rooted phone, at least) -- take two otherwise-identical phones, fully-charged, root one (while keeping the same rom), then install SetCPU and lock it into 'performance' mode so the phone can't slow down.
If the one locked at 100% CPU speed doesn't lag, and the one that's allowed to slow down to prolong the battery life does... well... there's the answer.
I mention this because I just experienced the night-and-day difference between the CDMA Hero's default power/speed (528MHz max, going down to 250MHz or less when "inactive") and with it locked to 712MHz in performance mode. Pretty much all of my lag problems vanished instantly when I locked it to performance mode. I have a hunch right now that perceived lagginess is almost entirely due to cpu scaling (particularly the time it takes to scale back up, and the criteria used for doing it).
Makes Sense
bitbang3r said:
Actually, I think everyone's overlooking another obvious possible source of lag: clock-scaling for power conservation. If a phone slows down to 200MHz when it thinks it's inactive, and won't speed up until it sees evidence of activity lasting for 400ms, well... that's 400ms of lag you wouldn't get if the phone were running full-bore 1GHz all the time.
There's even an easy way to test the theory (on a rooted phone, at least) -- take two otherwise-identical phones, fully-charged, root one (while keeping the same rom), then install SetCPU and lock it into 'performance' mode so the phone can't slow down.
If the one locked at 100% CPU speed doesn't lag, and the one that's allowed to slow down to prolong the battery life does... well... there's the answer.
I mention this because I just experienced the night-and-day difference between the CDMA Hero's default power/speed (528MHz max, going down to 250MHz or less when "inactive") and with it locked to 712MHz in performance mode. Pretty much all of my lag problems vanished instantly when I locked it to performance mode. I have a hunch right now that perceived lagginess is almost entirely due to cpu scaling (particularly the time it takes to scale back up, and the criteria used for doing it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very interesting theory, and it makes sense to be frank.
Are there any software out there that would enable me to lock the CPU speed to 1 GHz. I am willing to try this
RADLOUNI said:
Very interesting theory, and it makes sense to be frank.
Are there any software out there that would enable me to lock the CPU speed to 1 GHz. I am willing to try this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The guy just told you, root phone and install "Setcpu". That's the only way.
Looking at the benchmarks and the various fixes implemented I tend to lean towards the opinion that it may be hardware related.
hxxp://twitter.com/koush/status/20321413798
I'm not familiar enough with the internals of the phone. If there is faster flash memory located on the phone, then a repartition may be enough to fix the device. If not, then I'm afraid we may be stuck with some lag.
Would anyone be so kind as to explain what I/O is and why the setup in the SGS causes lagging while other android phones with similar specs don't seem to suffer from the same problems?
Thanks in advance
RADLOUNI said:
Very interesting theory, and it makes sense to be frank.
Are there any software out there that would enable me to lock the CPU speed to 1 GHz. I am willing to try this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not very interesting, as it's closer to the truth than you think.
think about it, Android OS is really Linux, the SGS is a miniature PC with phone capability.
everything else aside for the phone part, works just like a PC running Linux.
even on a Windows PC the Duo Core or Quad Core machines that has the Power Saving option enable behaves the same, when they are on iddle mode they run at 50% CPU power or less, and it takes them a fraction of a sec to speed back up, people that don't like that tiny lag, they always set the PC on performance mode, or always on, or simply not install the power saving software that comes with the PC.
we can do the same on the SGS phones, the only downside is that your battery will be out of juice faster than you think.
not to mention the Screen is the most power hungry part in the phone, just like most other phones with large LCD displays
did the install and...
Hi
I just did the install of setcpu and i will monitor the device for sometime before i give some feedback. My initiall impression is that the performance got better.
i set the software to performance mode and kept the limits between 100Mhz and 1000Mhz
i will also try to set the min limit to 800Mhz
Actually, that reminds me... the other thing I've seen cited a lot for causing lag is the way Android manages memory by terminating apps instead of using a swapfile. This can cause lag, because it simply takes time to call onPause()/onStop() and wait for it to finish, compared to unceremoniously just suspending the app and dumping a few megs to the microSD card.
Apparently, manufacturers don't use swapfile because most/all Android phones ship with class 2 microSD flash, in which case it would hurt performance more than it helped.
With that in mind, I'd say the following two things should be tried:
1) Buy a class 6 (or better) microSD card, format a swap partition, and use a rom on a rooted phone that supports it. For the record, swap with class 2 would be detrimental; swap with class 4 would be of minimal benefit; swap with class 6 is a big improvement; class 8 basically doesn't exist, and class 10 in real-world use -- with small, scattered files and random read-writes -- is only a little bit faster than class 6, because at that point the time it takes to deal with protocol matters becomes huge relative to the time it takes to actually DO the flash write (the SD card SPI and 4-bit protocols are *really* ugly, and overwhelmingly optimized for sequential reading and writing of bulk data. The moment you start doing random-access rewrites, their performance -- regardless of class -- goes to hell. That's part of the reason why pro gear still tends to use CompactFlash... it still has to deal with flash a page at a time, but it can access arbitrary tiny chunks of data scattered all over the place a lot faster and with a lot less ceremony than (micro)SD).
2) Install SetCPU and lock the CPU to max speed in "performance" mode.
SetCPU alone seemed to make the biggest difference with regard to keyboard input lag. My guess is that Android (or HTC's modifications for the Hero, Evo, etc... and quite possibly Samsung's too) slow the phone WAY down whenever an input area is displayed, on the theory that "most" apps at that point are just displaying the picture of a keyboard and waiting for the user to mash the screen with his finger. Without SetCPU, Graffiti is almost unusable and makes weird errors. With SetCPU locked to performance mode, Graffiti is almost flawless. It's literally a night-and-day difference.
Kpkpkpkp said:
Would anyone be so kind as to explain what I/O is and why the setup in the SGS causes lagging while other android phones with similar specs don't seem to suffer from the same problems?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Input/Output -data communication to/from the phone and other devices/networks
It's like when you are writing information to the system that comes from downloads, so whether you are syncing files, downloading from the marketplace or uploading...you are doing I/O....
"In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system (such as a computer), and the outside world possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it. "
Wiki
bitbang3r said:
Actually, that reminds me... the other thing I've seen cited a lot for causing lag is the way Android manages memory by terminating apps instead of using a swapfile. This can cause lag, because it simply takes time to call onPause()/onStop() and wait for it to finish, compared to unceremoniously just suspending the app and dumping a few megs to the microSD card.
Apparently, manufacturers don't use swapfile because most/all Android phones ship with class 2 microSD flash, in which case it would hurt performance more than it helped.
With that in mind, I'd say the following two things should be tried:
1) Buy a class 6 (or better) microSD card, format a swap partition, and use a rom on a rooted phone that supports it. For the record, swap with class 2 would be detrimental; swap with class 4 would be of minimal benefit; swap with class 6 is a big improvement; class 8 basically doesn't exist, and class 10 in real-world use -- with small, scattered files and random read-writes -- is only a little bit faster than class 6, because at that point the time it takes to deal with protocol matters becomes huge relative to the time it takes to actually DO the flash write (the SD card SPI and 4-bit protocols are *really* ugly, and overwhelmingly optimized for sequential reading and writing of bulk data. The moment you start doing random-access rewrites, their performance -- regardless of class -- goes to hell. That's part of the reason why pro gear still tends to use CompactFlash... it still has to deal with flash a page at a time, but it can access arbitrary tiny chunks of data scattered all over the place a lot faster and with a lot less ceremony than (micro)SD).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To ask a question and summarize, if you were given a choice of any class card to put in your phone you'd chose a class 6 because of the performance benefit here? Or would you maybe go with a higher class because it'd get greater benefits in other areas? Thanks for the help, again, don't consider money as a factor for the main issue, just trying to learn a bit.
result
bitbang3r said:
Actually, that reminds me... the other thing I've seen cited a lot for causing lag is the way Android manages memory by terminating apps instead of using a swapfile. This can cause lag, because it simply takes time to call onPause()/onStop() and wait for it to finish, compared to unceremoniously just suspending the app and dumping a few megs to the microSD card.
Apparently, manufacturers don't use swapfile because most/all Android phones ship with class 2 microSD flash, in which case it would hurt performance more than it helped.
With that in mind, I'd say the following two things should be tried:
1) Buy a class 6 (or better) microSD card, format a swap partition, and use a rom on a rooted phone that supports it. For the record, swap with class 2 would be detrimental; swap with class 4 would be of minimal benefit; swap with class 6 is a big improvement; class 8 basically doesn't exist, and class 10 in real-world use -- with small, scattered files and random read-writes -- is only a little bit faster than class 6, because at that point the time it takes to deal with protocol matters becomes huge relative to the time it takes to actually DO the flash write (the SD card SPI and 4-bit protocols are *really* ugly, and overwhelmingly optimized for sequential reading and writing of bulk data. The moment you start doing random-access rewrites, their performance -- regardless of class -- goes to hell. That's part of the reason why pro gear still tends to use CompactFlash... it still has to deal with flash a page at a time, but it can access arbitrary tiny chunks of data scattered all over the place a lot faster and with a lot less ceremony than (micro)SD).
2) Install SetCPU and lock the CPU to max speed in "performance" mode.
SetCPU alone seemed to make the biggest difference with regard to keyboard input lag. My guess is that Android (or HTC's modifications for the Hero, Evo, etc... and quite possibly Samsung's too) slow the phone WAY down whenever an input area is displayed, on the theory that "most" apps at that point are just displaying the picture of a keyboard and waiting for the user to mash the screen with his finger. Without SetCPU, Graffiti is almost unusable and makes weird errors. With SetCPU locked to performance mode, Graffiti is almost flawless. It's literally a night-and-day difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HI I tried setCPU at performance mode , and i have to say that it improved the perofrmance A BIT. But i would not say that much has improved.
I guess that the class6 SD card option has more bearing on this issue than CPU speed scaling
RADLOUNI said:
HI I tried setCPU at performance mode , and i have to say that it improved the perofrmance A BIT. But i would not say that much has improved.
I guess that the class6 SD card option has more bearing on this issue than CPU speed scaling
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the SD card lag fix option REQUIRE a class 6 card? That limits the size a bit, doesn't it? What is the biggest class 6 card available?
borchgrevink said:
Does the SD card lag fix option REQUIRE a class 6 card? That limits the size a bit, doesn't it? What is the biggest class 6 card available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
16GB
no, it does not need to be Class 6, it depends on the SD card build quality, some Class 2 performs as good as a Class 6
but it's a luck of the draw, if you have a known good Class 2 or Class 4 microSD card, then use it, no need to buy a new one
i suggest you to test the speed of the SD card before you do the mimocan thing
use this app, it's pretty accurate
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739083
The CPU theory doesn't really explain why symlinking the /dbdata/data folder to /data/data eliminates lag.
hxxp://android.modaco.com/content/samsung-galaxy-s-s-modaco-com/312298/got-the-stalling-problem-rooted-try-this/
It also seems that a 32gb class2 SanDisk card is OK.
http://android.modaco.com/content/s...rt-microsd-cards-that-work-with-mimocans-fix/
borchgrevink said:
It also seems that a 32gb class2 SanDisk card is OK.
http://android.modaco.com/content/s...rt-microsd-cards-that-work-with-mimocans-fix/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kinda pricey at the moment, aprox $135 for real non fake ones
I'm wondering whether there's a way to test the internal NAND speed, then we can compare and balance whether to use extend SD card.
I have a Sandisk Class4 !6G microsd which has 19M/16M read and write, but if the NAND still much faster than this card, im considering to use internal storage only(less mp3 and game instead), its hard to balance.
Sorry to re-awaken an old thread, but since you've had no reply: I had the same question, and found an app in the Market called "Android Hacker's System Tool" that includes a storage speed test (among many other things).
On my Motorola Droid1 running MIUI (not o/c'ed currently), I was shocked to see NAND speeds of only 1.9 MB/s read and 0.21 MB/s write. The OEM 16gb SD card showed a bit over 2 MB/s for both read and write... at least symmetrical, but still very slow. No wonder apps on the SD card seem just as quick as those in NAND!
Any thoughts as to why IO is this poor overall, and why NAND write in particular is so pathetic? The phone feels very smooth right now.
Why do you post questions about your Droid in a Windows Phone forum? Samsung Focus is Windows Phone 7. There is nothing in common with your Droid.
rvonder, interest numbers, thanks for the post. I'm a little surprised at the low numbers as well. Especially the writes. Hopefully we will have a test app for WP7 soon.
Just going by deduction from here. If the phone feels snappy even with those numbers, isn't it safe to assume it doesn't matter ?
rvonder said:
Sorry to re-awaken an old thread, but since you've had no reply: I had the same question, and found an app in the Market called "Android Hacker's System Tool" that includes a storage speed test (among many other things).
On my Motorola Droid1 running MIUI (not o/c'ed currently), I was shocked to see NAND speeds of only 1.9 MB/s read and 0.21 MB/s write. The OEM 16gb SD card showed a bit over 2 MB/s for both read and write... at least symmetrical, but still very slow. No wonder apps on the SD card seem just as quick as those in NAND!
Any thoughts as to why IO is this poor overall, and why NAND write in particular is so pathetic? The phone feels very smooth right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
foxbat121 said:
Why do you post questions about your Droid in a Windows Phone forum? Samsung Focus is Windows Phone 7. There is nothing in common with your Droid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rather than waste anybody's time, please read the question first next time, it has nothing to do specificaly with android but rather about the use of external memory card considering the Focus uses built-in NAND memory that might be much faster than the external memory (or not). Since Windows 7 phone "merges" both memory, it would most likely be at the speed of the slowes of both...
thegarmac said:
rather than waste anybody's time, please read the question first next time, it has nothing to do specificaly with android but rather about the use of external memory card considering the Focus uses built-in NAND memory that might be much faster than the external memory (or not). Since Windows 7 phone "merges" both memory, it would most likely be at the speed of the slowes of both...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read his question? He was asking why his Droid phone SD card IO is so slow. First of all the Android app in question does something really stupid. Last time I checked, it gives out really low IO score on my Captivate as well. So, I'd say it is the app that's not really designed well, or could be Android OS doesn't offer a good API for testing the SD performance. None of these are related to how WP7 works. As you mentioned above, WP7 treats memory differently and no one knows exactly how SD performance affects entire system (we knew that most 'faster' SD cards don't work). And we don't have any app to test native IO speeds of the combined memory. So, this is really comparing apples to oranges.
I'm still running my Shift with the original 1Gb of RAM and its original slow 40Gb hard drive.
Readyboost using the SD card has been discussed plenty on these forums, with the general conclusions that it doesn't make much difference because the extra processing probably eliminates the gain in read speed.
But I am surprised that no-one has discussed using readyboost with a USB stick. Obviously this is only of use when the HTC Shift is sitting on a desk. This site has concluded in the past the read/write speed to the SD card is limited by the shift, and using a faster SD card does not make a difference. But USB memory is quite different, and the HTC Shift is capable of reading and writing to the USB memory stick very quickley indeed.
So I would have thought it would be a no-brainer, when using your HTC Shift on a desktop, to bung in a modern 8Gb USB stick with Readyboost enabled for the full 8gb (or more). I do this, and although I don't perceive any increases in speed, I would have thought an 8Gb cache would really help a slow 40Gb hard drive bottleneck. Unfortunetely I'm too rubbish technically to perform any sort of performance text.
I'm running Windows 7 BTW, but the same idea applies to Vista.
Flanimal said:
I'm still running my Shift with the original 1Gb of RAM and its original slow 40Gb hard drive.
Readyboost using the SD card has been discussed plenty on these forums, with the general conclusions that it doesn't make much difference because the extra processing probably eliminates the gain in read speed.
But I am surprised that no-one has discussed using readyboost with a USB stick. Obviously this is only of use when the HTC Shift is sitting on a desk. This site has concluded in the past the read/write speed to the SD card is limited by the shift, and using a faster SD card does not make a difference. But USB memory is quite different, and the HTC Shift is capable of reading and writing to the USB memory stick very quickley indeed.
So I would have thought it would be a no-brainer, when using your HTC Shift on a desktop, to bung in a modern 8Gb USB stick with Readyboost enabled for the full 8gb (or more). I do this, and although I don't perceive any increases in speed, I would have thought an 8Gb cache would really help a slow 40Gb hard drive bottleneck. Unfortunetely I'm too rubbish technically to perform any sort of performance text.
I'm running Windows 7 BTW, but the same idea applies to Vista.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably readyboost is efficient when Shift has to deal with a lot a small files requiring frequent reads and writes, where the flash memory has better access times than the HDD. I'm not experienced to point out to such cases, but as you say in most of the cases you cannot perceive an increased speed.
But maybe there are other members here who can be more specific.
Anyway, I'm using XP for which readyboost does not work, but there are commercial programs available,