Database Users

Device Information: RAM, Flash ... Storage?

Hi.
I've read some of the posts regarding RAM/ROM ... still having a difficult time understanding both. Hope someone can answer the below questions to clarify my thoughts on RAM/ROM with respect to the XDA II mini [aka Magician]
(1) If you go into setting, device_information, and then choose hardware; you see that RAM size [128], Flash size [64], and storage size [26.7]. What is storage size, is it RAM or ROM?
(2) n the memory settings, what is the best way to allocate total main memory between storage and program? Currently i have it set @ default, which is equal amounts of memory for storage and program.
Thanxs in advance for any explanations.

1: Storage = Built-in ROM
Most PPCs come with some ROM built in for programs and documents. Your Magician must have a BigStorage hacked ROM image - usually Magicians only come with ~7MB Storage, but hacking the ROM image can yield 20MB more by reallocating the (useless) Extended_ROM which is normally used by telephony providers to store their customisations and bells and whistles.
2: Your choice!
Allocating more memory to programs will give running programs more RAM to work with, which primarily means that you can run more programs simultaneously. Also allocating more RAM to programs can speed up programs that use lots of RAM such as PocketGBA, which may load up to 32MB of data into RAM depending on what game you load with it, and TCPMP, which uses RAM to buffer videos.
Allocating more memory to storage gives you more room to install programs in 'Main Memory'. Since RAM is faster than ROM, programs installed in storage allocated RAM will load faster, however they will eat up RAM which could otherwise be used by running programs. The time difference between RAM, Storage and SD cards to load programs is neglible anyway.
Personally I would rather allocate as much as possible towards programs, leaving probably as little as 10MB for storage in total. Since you have BigStorage, install programs into there instead, so you can leave your RAM for programs or for the camera (as there is a noticeable speed difference between writing pictures and videos to ROM and writing them to RAM).
Wish I had a 128MB Magician :roll: !

thanxs for clearing that up toomuchdogfur
1: Storage = Built-in ROM
Most PPCs come with some ROM built in for programs and documents. Your Magician must have a BigStorage hacked ROM image - usually Magicians only come with ~7MB Storage, but hacking the ROM image can yield 20MB more by reallocating the (useless) Extended_ROM which is normally used by telephony providers to store their customisations and bells and whistles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see. Just wondering, if i were to upgrade or degrade my version of ROM, would that delete the BigStorage hacked ROM?
2: Your choice!
Allocating more memory to programs will give running programs more RAM to work with, which primarily means that you can run more programs simultaneously. Also allocating more RAM to programs can speed up programs that use lots of RAM such as PocketGBA, which may load up to 32MB of data into RAM depending on what game you load with it, and TCPMP, which uses RAM to buffer videos.
Allocating more memory to storage gives you more room to install programs in 'Main Memory'. Since RAM is faster than ROM, programs installed in storage allocated RAM will load faster, however they will eat up RAM which could otherwise be used by running programs. The time difference between RAM, Storage and SD cards to load programs is neglible anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So let me get this straight ... if were to load a application, say Pocket Music, would that effect both the "In Use" status for Storage [because it physically takes space to store the application in the program folder] and Program [because its being used].
So if a program is being runned, it should take away some memory under "Program".
If a program is installed, regardless if it is in use or not, takes away some memory under "Storage".
Is this correct?

dream_sequence said:
I see. Just wondering, if i were to upgrade or degrade my version of ROM, would that delete the BigStorage hacked ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep. Most likely you would have to hack it again to regain BigStorage.
dream_sequence said:
So if a program is being runned, it should take away some memory under "Program".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep!
dream_sequence said:
If a program is installed, regardless if it is in use or not, takes away some memory under "Storage".
Is this correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it is installed in 'Main Memory' (which is the 'Storage' bit of your RAM), then yes. If it is installed in your Built-In Storage or SD card, then it will permanently take up space on that instead, but then when running it will also take up some 'Program' RAM.

[LEO] HTC HD2 576MB Ram not what is seems

Hi,
I've been using a cooked ROM with the 576MB RAM enabled. Clearly the total available memory increases 457.4MB.
The concerning thing is when I begin to test the memory. Presumably this extra memory means more applications can run simultaneously. However when i open multiple applications the OS will automatically close applications to conserve memory even when it has not reached the 457.4MB limit.
In previous ROMS I recall the memory would go upto about 290MB - 300MB before applications would automatically close to conserve memory. However with the extra RAM there is no change in this behaviour.
Another issue I have noticed, is when the memory reaches over 330MB, this then stops applications like YouTube and HTC Album from running (this NEVER happens on the roms without 576MB enabled). Clearly there is atleast 100MB more memory available which the HTC HD2 is not making full use of.
Can I please have your views and whether or not the 576MB is actually beneficial and not just a way of stopping other apps running when memory usage is high. Although I believe the extra memory is available, i'm not convinced certain applications can handle it correctly.

I'm using the Energy ROM with Radio 2.08, which gives you 576MB memory. I have no issues with programs losing, I have 7-8 programs open at once. Also I have noticed a noticeable speed increase with the extra RAM unlocked, and of course with the new ROM.

Abolisher2407 said:
Hi,
I've been using a cooked ROM with the 576MB RAM enabled. Clearly the total available memory increases 457.4MB.
The concerning thing is when I begin to test the memory. Presumably this extra memory means more applications can run simultaneously. However when i open multiple applications the OS will automatically close applications to conserve memory even when it has not reached the 457.4MB limit.
In previous ROMS I recall the memory would go upto about 290MB - 300MB before applications would automatically close to conserve memory. However with the extra RAM there is no change in this behaviour.
Another issue I have noticed, is when the memory reaches over 330MB, this then stops applications like YouTube and HTC Album from running (this NEVER happens on the roms without 576MB enabled). Clearly there is atleast 100MB more memory available which the HTC HD2 is not making full use of.
Can I please have your views and whether or not the 576MB is actually beneficial and not just a way of stopping other apps running when memory usage is high. Although I believe the extra memory is available, i'm not convinced certain applications can handle it correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
people want to believe in the 576 mb ram trick
truth hurts

After doing some research I have found out the following information :-
Windows Mobile 6.x is powered by Windows CE 5.2.
http://www.slideshare.net/abhisheksharma/windows-mobile-6
http://www.addlogic.se/articles/articles/windows-ce-6-memory-architecture.html
The memory architecture is divided in to 32 process slots. Each with a capacity of 32MB. However with a little testing of my own I have found that it is not possible to run more than approximately 11 applications similtaneously which equates to 28 processes running on my setup. The remaining (28 - 11) 17 processes are operating system specific processes such as the GWES.exe DLL's etc.
If you calculate the memory required for the max of 11 applications it is 352MB which explains why I never see the memory go above 300-330.
The advantage of having the extra memory (576MB) is possibly to allow the other 21 processes to run with more head room.

Abolisher, to test if the 576Mb Ram trick works, you can make the following test.
Create a 128Mo Ram disk, fill up this new storage with data (internet cache for example) and run agin your tests, you'll see that you could fill all your ram and your data on the storage will be OK.
Some tests were done to prove that the 576Mb trick was real.

Abolisher2407 said:
After doing some research I have found out the following information :-
Windows Mobile 6.x is powered by Windows CE 5.2.
http://www.slideshare.net/abhisheksharma/windows-mobile-6
http://www.addlogic.se/articles/articles/windows-ce-6-memory-architecture.html
The memory architecture is divided in to 32 process slots. Each with a capacity of 32MB. However with a little testing of my own I have found that it is not possible to run more than approximately 11 applications similtaneously which equates to 28 processes running on my setup. The remaining (28 - 11) 17 processes are operating system specific processes such as the GWES.exe DLL's etc.
If you calculate the memory required for the max of 11 applications it is 352MB which explains why I never see the memory go above 300-330.
The advantage of having the extra memory (576MB) is possibly to allow the other 21 processes to run with more head room.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it is even more complicated with even more limitations. This article series gives you more insight into memory subsystem in WM/WM:
http://blogs.msdn.com/hegenderfer/archive/2007/08/31/slaying-the-virtual-memory-monster.aspx
pen-pen said:
Abolisher, to test if the 576Mb Ram trick works, you can make the following test.
Create a 128Mo Ram disk, fill up this new storage with data (internet cache for example) and run agin your tests, you'll see that you could fill all your ram and your data on the storage will be OK.
Some tests were done to prove that the 576Mb trick was real.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the 128MB ramdisk work? It's been told it fails above 32MB.
Some tests were done to prove that the 576Mb trick was real.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's real. But absolutely useless unless any real life working scenario is found.

576MB does increase performance.

djet said:
Does the 128MB ramdisk work? It's been told it fails above 32MB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is more than one ramdisk driver floating about,with different max sizes, go look in the non phone specific win mo sections.

djet said:
Well, it's real. But absolutely useless unless any real life working scenario is found.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, if no real life scenorio is found for 576MB, then what is the purpose for 1024MB in TMOUS version?

chrisukhd2 said:
576MB does increase performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hoax. Go get "1GHz hack".
noris08 said:
well, if no real life scenorio is found for 576MB, then what is the purpose for 1024MB in TMOUS version?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answering this question equals finding this scenario.

djet said:
Hoax. Go get "1GHz hack".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 1Ghz Hack is an hoax.
The "1Ghz driver" was the exact same file as the original one.
djet said:
noris08 said:
well, if no real life scenorio is found for 576MB, then what is the purpose for 1024MB in TMOUS version?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answering this question equals finding this scenario.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the TMOUS have 576Mb of RAM and 1024Mb of ROM, RAM and ROM are two different things.

pen-pen said:
The 1Ghz Hack is an hoax.
The "1Ghz driver" was the exact same file as the original one.
Well, the TMOUS have 576Mb of RAM and 1024Mb of ROM, RAM and ROM are two different things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The mass hysteria on this subject and tons of noobs lurking for "576 RAM" effectively make this story a worthless hoax.
I know. I've misread his question regarding LEO1024, just missed the "MB" point.

i am going to clear this up once and for all
1ghz hack = fake
576mb RAM = REAL as conclusively proved by advanced testing when it was first discovered, the fact that it comes as default whena tmous rom is flashed on a EU hd2, and my own testing (i built a rom wiht a 400mb pagepool and was able to sucessfully fill the remaining 50 odd mb of ram before the system gave out)
end of story
G

I've tried to load a lot of programs to test 576mb ram. After 10min test i loaded ~20progs and: In Use 372mb ram free 86........so i think 576mb is REAL I also tried memory test program that used all ram except last 10mb....

Real life tests with documented results. Please.

Something to keep in mind if you are opening loads of apps to test the memory:
When i have Opera 10 running in the background, it sometimes stops me opening HTC albums saying there isnt enought memory when there clearly is. As soon as you close it, it opens again.
So maybe you have opera 10 running when you try to open HTC album, causing the error. Close opera 10 and see what happens

That Ram bonus would be usefull if we were using ALOT of apps simultaneosly . But never in my experience with this phone needed more ram . So If you plan on installing a long list of apps and running them all in background(just to boast) maybe more ram is required. But aside the app that eats ram to check if it is valid i do not know of anyone to have reported to reach the limit with even pro usage.
If the phone hardware recognizes the extra ram and uses it then it is there. The extra tmous radios enable the phone to use more of its hardware perhaps? Remember PCs...? Windows x86 works up to only 3 gigs of ram even if you have 16 gb of ram installed onto the motherboard. Using a higher functionality operating version in x64 mode (for dual-core proc) enables the " hidden ram " . The ram was always there but the system needed a better programing to use it . I am not much of a computer expert but i guess its not fake, only that u do not need it !

It is my personal thinks:
The fact:
- ROM that show 448 MB run smoother than ROM that show 576Mb as I fell and some tests.
The reasons may be:
- HD2 (Leo) have enough 576Mb, it is real.
- With basic ROM, the manufacturer hide some part of RAM to use it for permanent applications/programs that may support for WinMo run faster and smoother and that apps/progs do not need to start/stop usually. The hidden part could be set to priority access mode (may be). And the RAM shown for you is 448 Mb only and you could do every thing with this part of RAM.
- The ROM that hacked RAM side to be shown as 576Mb open the hidden part and make all off RAM could be used randomly by user. In that case, top necessary applications run by Windows should start and stop many times, it may make the OS be slower a little.
It is my idea.

The question is not If 576MB RAM is real (its proven to me), it's the question if there may be 1GB ROM also.. as I don't see any reason why they would do that little change if they alrdy didn't change the 576 RAM thing
The only question is.. why don't TMOUS roms unlock the (may) hidden ROM?
I guess it could some realy deep coded software thing.. not sure if thats even possible..maybe others can tell
We will see alot more clear if we can boot into linux =)
Cheers

the actual chips are different for the rom. cotulla posted the two chip model numbers. one has 576ram512rom onboard the other has 576ram1024rom.

Android 1.6 vs 2.x memory footprint

Hello.
Right now I am on Cyanogen 4.2.15.1.
The biggest problem of G1 is imho lack of memory. I did every possible hack to make more memory available to my phone. I use compcache, 10mb hack etc..
I also tried swap, but it has been giving me some troubles and I find my phone working better without it.
I see everybody switching to 2.x roms and of course it makes me want to switch too although my phone runs pretty fine as it is now. But I would switch if I am convinced that things will improve. So here come the questions:
Did you experienced speed improvement by switching or it just runs the same/slower? (I am only interested in answers of G1 users as this is somehow a bit specific phone with the lack of memory)
My second question rose from my concerns of memory too. To use 2.x roms, one has to use DangerSPL, right? I am not sure about this, but I got the impression, that this one moves some of the memory from application runtime to rom space, so we can fit larger roms in. Does that mean, that in the end this rom has less operational memory for itself? Because that would be the exact opposite thing to what I want to do.
Thanks for the answers.

You as many others are confusing persistent storage with ram.
Ram is fast but will not store data over a reboot.. the amount of ram on the dream remains the same regardless of the spl/radio/rom (with maybe an exception of the 10mb hack that borrows 8mb from video ram for general use)
The persistent storage slow and is what danger spl changes.. this is the equivalent of your hard drive on a computer.
In the case of danger spl it significantly reduces the temporary space (cache) and increases both the core system storage (system) and the user space storage (data) this allows more on internal phone storage instead of the sdcard, having your core apps not using apps2sd is likely to increase perceived speed.
Since the memory (ram) is unchanged and the new kernels are better at memory management there is potential for newer versions to support more tasks at the same time than the older versions. (We are not there yet but cm-5.0.8-test4 and cm-4.2.15.1 seem similar in behavior in terms of what can be done with the ram avalible)
As for upgrading that's your choice.. in general on the dream anyway I don't recommend going to cm5.0.7 and related roms if you have not already done so.. and I never recommend a test version if you are not looking to be a tester. So I'd wait till cm5.0.8 final and related roms are pushed if you feel it's time to upgrade.
Otherwise if you are on a stable 1.6 rom that fills your needs and want to keep a very stable phone.. there is no need to rush the upgrade.. at some point you will find something that requires you to upgrade to 2.1 and will be glad it exists as it will improve the usefulness of the phone.. and I'm sure the stability of 2.1 will only improve over time.

Thank you for your answer.
I of course understand the difference between ram and persistent storage (rom?). The information I missed is that the additional memory is taken from the cache. Someone somwhere here posted something that implied that it reduces ram. Hackery!
Thank you for clearing that up. What are consequences of having less cache? Is this not a problem then?
You got my point with stable 1.6. I do not want to flash new rom every week and prefer stable working phone. The ONLY thing I was hoping for is the better memory management and maybe the whole rom footprint in ram, leaving more room for apps instead of system. I am running apps2sd but I think the main source of sluggishness of my phone is that apps are too often removed from ram by dalvik.
So I was hoping for something like " Yep, 2.1 is 50mb in ram instead of 80mb of 1.6 and you will have more free memory." That would make me switch. Having the same amount or even less makes no sense for me. I see no killer 2.x feature that I need to have so far.

Same amount of ram with both spls as I said. No 10mb hack on cm5 because the gpu is used for system operations
Cache is mounted as /cache and as I said contains temporary and cached data.. As designed its intended as a staging area, which will usually persist across reboots but may not under certain situations.
No performance impact ought to exist due to the resize. If too many things are attempted to be saved here you will get out of disk space errors.. but 30mb is plenty for the staging operations required by the system during normal operation.
As you may know: Linux never has "free" memory.. but reclaimable memory.. the reason for thus is anything read from persistent media is put into "disk cache" in case its needed again.. if the memory is needed for something else it will be freed at no/little cost, but if the cached files are needed they wont be reloaded thus saving the time reading disks/SD/flash.
(Thus why devs cringe when people show the output of free.. 'cat /proc/meminfo' will give full detailed breakdown of memory use if you qknow how to read it)

I am Linux guy myself, so I know how it manages the memory. Anyway, 10mb hack was a huge thing for me, can not live without it.
That pretty much means I am staying and 1.6, thank you for your time.

Droid2 RAM Memory question.

Sorry if these are DUH questions, but while I've been working with computers since the mid 80's, I'm fairly new to the smart phone game and unfamiliar with the way they work internally.
Is the RAM on these phones a physical chip (like a PC) or is it a software defined allocation (virtual)?
Also, and more importantly, if it is software defined, is it possible to allocate more of the phones internal storage memory to RAM?
I've noticed that while I'm only using about 7% of the internal storage, RAM is typically running at about 80% used.
The device is rooted, running 2.3.2 and currently running the stock VZW rom.
Any insight on this would be appreciated.
Thanks!

I imagine android uses virtual addressing instead of physical addressing but I'm not sure.
I CAN tell you, though, that android (specifcally the dalvik vm) is designed to keep things in memory instead of freeing it to reduce load times, etc. If it starts to run out of memory it unloads things, probably on a LRU basis.

I see. So then the amount of available RAM really doesn't matter as it works more like cache?

It's not really much different in windows... if your usage is under certain limits, very little will be paged out. 99% mem in use is fine in windows. 101% is not.
I guess the main difference is that closing an app is not as integral to android as it is to windows, so those of us who are accustomed to closing apps to save memory feel a bit odd.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

True, but a windows system with twice the memory of another, will usually run better. Which is what prompted me to ask this question to begin with. I figured if there was a way to re-appropriate some of the unused portion of the storage area to the frequently used area of RAM, it would make the system run faster and smoother. I just don't know if it's possible or if it even makes a difference with the Android/Linux OS.

What is the difference between ROM & RAM ?

We listen many times about ROM & RAM but what is the difference between those two words ?
There are a big different between ROM & RAM
ROM stands for "Read-Only Memory", it is a type of built-in memory which be used in computers, Mobiles and other electronic devices and as its name indicates, it is used only for reading data from it, You can not write to it or change it. The manufacturers use it to store devices data.
RAM stands for "Random Access Memory", it is opposite of ROM as it is used for reading and writing so this memory is available for operating systems, programs and processes to use when the computers is running.
That was a brief about the difference between ROM & RAM. I hope it was useful and you can learn more information about this by searching for "ROM & RAM" on Google :good:

Difference Between RAM and ROM​
RAMROMRAM is volatile memory, which could store data as long as power is supplied.ROM is a nonvolatile memory, which could store data permanently.RAM is read-write memory, data can be retrieved and altered.ROM is read-only memory, data can be read-only, we cannot alter the data.RAM is faster in speedROM is slower in speedRAM is expensiveROM is cheaper than RAMThe CPU can access data stored in RAMThe CPU can not access the data stored in ROM unless data is stored in RAMRAM is used as cache memory in the computerROM is used as firmware by microcontrollersRAM consists of four components which are memory matrix, address decoder, input buffer, and output bufferROM consists of two components which are Decoder and OR gates
Read this article to learn the difference between RAM and ROM.

RAM is Random Access Memory, it's fast temporary storage, used by applications and the operation system. ROM is Read Only Memory, the EEPROM chip, Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory, the BIOS, basic input and output system, is stored on it, the control panel that has the drivers used to communicate with all hardware firmwares, gets signals from them, and sets certain variables, based on the customization stored on the CMOS Battery and the signals being watched for, some flash a different BIOS on the EEPROM chip in order to enable and disable settings to allow for a having a virtual layers, allowing for virtual drivers/kexts and hardware spoofing, in order to install Mac OS on PC hardware, it'd be called a Hackintosh. However, in Android terms, the ROM is the operating system image, like Windows has an ISO file، developers have it customized to add and remove apps and features on the on the stock OS image. I hope this was helpful