Database Users

Galaxy S Ram and Himem........

Hi all,
I am getting this phone on July 21 when it's avaible through T-mobile. However, I ran across an issue while reading on the vast number of threads about this phone regarding the available memory.
1. Is it true the Android 2.1 is limited to 256mb of ram unless "hi-mem" is installed/enabled by the rom?
2. Is hi-mem enabled on the SGS stock rom? From my reading it doesn't appear that it's properly enabled.
3. If hi-mem isn't enabled, does that mean the SGS is functioning with only 1/2 of it's ram?
4. If so, how much free ram is showing on the stock rom and how much should we see once hi-mem is enabled?
I'm assuming that since many Android phones come with 512mb of ram these days, that hi-mem has been properly enabled on some of them. How much free ram does a typical android phone running 2.1 or 2.2 have after bootup?
I'm currently using a Touch Pro 2 which runs out memory all the time and would rather not have to deal with that on Android as well. I assumed that 512mb is supposedly to be more than enough to run 10+ programs at the same time should I choose to.
Thanks in advance.

It doesn't appear to be using 512MB I only ever have around 100 meg free. I used to have a touch hd and know what you must be thinking but i can assure you even with only 256 available it is fast and hasn't run out of memory on me yet. be sure to download a memory freeing app like task killer.
It runs quake3, something i could never get my hd to do with out practically killing the os

Kernel supports 512M RAM.

with the new Gingerbread specs it REQUIRES 512MB .. now if its 256MB , that's something to worry about

Nex_1 said:
with the new Gingerbread specs it REQUIRES 512MB .. now if its 256MB , that's something to worry about
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Don't worry, it has 512mb. It's just that some older kernels didn't support more than 256mb of ram, so the phone simply didn't "see" all 512mb.
My concern was that the kernel out of the box was too old to support the full amount.

The phone physically has 512MB of RAM. However, I think Android 2.1 is limiting the availability to 256MB.
Froyo 2.2 will correct this issue.

[Q] When will we see the full use of the 512mb of ram?

So many froyo roms in development section, but still Vibrant showing 324 (more or less) of ram available? Isn't froyo suppose to fee that part of ram up that is not being used in eclair?

I think some of it is reserved for the GPU
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

There's a thread in the i9000 section about this. The short version is that all that RAM you can't see is reserved for various parts of the device to use. The radio uses some, the camera uses some, the GPU, etc.. It sucks that that memory is reserved even if you aren't using the GPU, for example, but that's how it is. They have a kernel patch over there that attempts to free up some of it by reducing the allocations. It seems to work without causing problems, but time will tell.
So the answer to the question is NEVER. There is 512MB of RAM in the device, but you won't be able to use all 512MB for user progams ever. This is no different than most off the shelf computers, they advertise 4GB of RAM, but the internal graphics takes 512MB, and other devices in the machine often do the same thing. Would it be nice if manufacturers wern't allowed to advertise this way? Maybe. However, Samsung isn't doing anything that isn't "industry standard". IMO they should all be advertising user-available RAM rather than installed RAM, but then people would ***** that the OS takes up some RAM, so you will never make everyone happy.

I would be unhappy if I thought we needed more RAM, but honestly I've never seen my Vibrant even get close to low.

I don't mind the RAM issue as I'm not having issues (yet), what I don't like is the internal storage.
On the Vibrant it's not too bad since we have 16GB, but for something like the G2 where they advertise it as 4GB, but you only have access to ~1.5, that's just not cool!
Eventually there'll probably be some kernel tweaks or something that'll free up some of that internal RAM, but I don't forsee anyone coding for it until they actually need it themselves (nothing speeds up development more than personal interest....why do you think the dev ROMs are so much better than the Samsung ones).

326MB of RAM?

Just got a Samsung Vibrant.
I noticed the phone says I only have 326MB of total RAM. I thought this phone was suppose to have 512MB of RAM? Is 326MB normal or did I get an odd phone?

No that's right. It's all the kernel will allow us to use. Even with the unofficial froyo roms out, we only get 341mb.
Friends don't let friends flash drunk...

Cool. Thank you for the information.

Ravynmagi said:
Hmm... Seems strange they make Android phones with 512 and 768MB of RAM. Will the official Froyo be able to access more RAM?
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It's also strange that hard drive manufacturers advertise a "500GB" hard drive when you really only get about 465GB of actual usable space.
Same concept. Froyo may be able to utilize more RAM than Eclair but you'll never get the full "512MB"

jrizk07 said:
It's also strange that hard drive manufacturers advertise a "500GB" hard drive when you really only get about 465GB of actual usable space.
Same concept. Froyo may be able to utilize more RAM than Eclair but you'll never get the full "512MB"
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I would say it is more like on your PC. You may have 4 GB installed, but when you look at it it will tell you you have only access to 3.5 GB because other hardware is using the memory, like a shared GPU etc.

jrizk07 said:
It's also strange that hard drive manufacturers advertise a "500GB" hard drive when you really only get about 465GB of actual usable space.
Same concept. Froyo may be able to utilize more RAM than Eclair but you'll never get the full "512MB"
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Click to collapse
I'm getting tired of people making these retarded f****ng comparisons. Hard Drive capacities go down due to formating. Also, a 1 byte file takes up the smallest allocation unit on the drive, so space is wasted there as well. Better file systems are better about it, but unless you're writing raw data to the hard drive there's no way to avoid formatting it and losing space or writing data to it and losing space due to allocation boundaries. I've never heard of anyone Formatting RAM, have you? If the smallest allocation unit on the HDD is 4KB, then a 1Byte file will really take up 4KB on the drive's FS.
RAM is totally different. If there is 512 RAM there's 512 RAM. The only time you will see less than your amount of RAM on a computer is if the computer is allocatting a certain amount of RAM for use by an integrated graphics card (or something else).
Problem with our phones is that they're set up like the latter.
We don't have 512 RAM. We never have, and we never will. We haev 340'ish and the rest is GPU RAM. You're never going to run general applications on that RAM.

Oh. I had edited my reply because I had assumed I found my answer from this...
developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html
"HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB"
I had assumed that mean the official Froyo when we got it would have 512MB available.
So I guess I misunderstood their meaning there. So the 326MB is pretty much the max my applications will have to work with on this phone?
I guess I'm puzzled because I was in T-Mobile a couple days ago and I was going back and forth between getting this Vibrant and the MyTouch 4G. The MyTouch 4G advertises 768MB of RAM, while the Vibrant advertises 512MB of RAM.
So now I'm back to my original confusion. Why would HTC put 768MB of RAM in the MyTouch 4G if Android can't even use 512MB? *confused*
Ya'll compared it to the Windows XP limitation with only seeing 3.2-ish GB of RAM. But Dell doesn't install 8GB of RAM in Windows XP computers either. I guess I could maybe understand the 512MB phones if some of the memory is going towards video. But the 768MB phone doesn't make sense then.
This is my first Android device, so I'm still trying to figure out these things. Sorry for the dumb questions.

Ravynmagi said:
Oh. I had edited my reply because I had assumed I found my answer from this...
developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html
"HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB"
I had assumed that mean the official Froyo when we got it would have 512MB available.
So I guess I misunderstood their meaning there. So the 326MB is pretty much the max my applications will have to work with on this phone?
I guess I'm puzzled because I was in T-Mobile a couple days ago and I was going back and forth between getting this Vibrant and the MyTouch 4G. The MyTouch 4G advertises 768MB of RAM, while the Vibrant advertises 512MB of RAM.
So now I'm back to my original confusion. Why would HTC put 768MB of RAM in the MyTouch 4G if Android can't even use 512MB? *confused*
Ya'll compared it to the Windows XP limitation with only seeing 3.2-ish GB of RAM. But Dell doesn't install 8GB of RAM in Windows XP computers either. I guess I could maybe understand the 512MB phones if some of the memory is going towards video. But the 768MB phone doesn't make sense then.
This is my first Android device, so I'm still trying to figure out these things. Sorry for the dumb questions.
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Click to collapse
First of all. There are no dumb question. Second. Android uses all of the RAM. But as the phone reserves memory for hardware and other system essential services, you will only be able to use a certain amount of the memory. In this case around 345 out of the 512. The rest is put away so that the OS can run stable etc.
So for the MyTouch 4G it says that there is 768 MB installed, but you won't see all of that. The phone will reserve certain amount for it's hardware and you will never be able to free it unless you know how to change the kernel.
Hope this clears any confusion up.

Ravynmagi said:
Ya'll compared it to the Windows XP limitation with only seeing 3.2-ish GB of RAM. But Dell doesn't install 8GB of RAM in Windows XP computers either. I guess I could maybe understand the 512MB phones if some of the memory is going towards video. But the 768MB phone doesn't make sense then.
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Click to collapse
for xp, the memory limitation is due to 32bit memory addressing. 32bits can address a theoretical 4gb, however due to also addressing gpu memory and probably some other reasons xp can't address the entire 4gb and so you see 3.xGB.
i can't really speak to android or the vibrant, but i'm guessing (like others have said) we are losing some of our ram in a share with the gpu.

I think most people are missing the issue here.
The phones are advertised as having 512 MB RAM.
When you buy a computer, and it says 512, it comes with 512 (only exception is the one I stated - integrated graphics cards sharing system RAM - but that is usually listed on the Computer Spec sheet).
So, when they get a phone and it says 512 MB RAM, they expect for there to be 512 Application-accessible RAM on the device.
HTC adds more RAM to put the user closer to the advertised specs. Most other manufacturers do not.
So users end up with 326 MB RAM wondering if they got what they paid for.
Which... they really didn't if you use you common sense, but companies will always use technicalities tand semantics o defend their decisions and/or actions.

N8ter said:
I think most people are missing the issue here.
The phones are advertised as having 512 MB RAM.
When you buy a computer, and it says 512, it comes with 512 (only exception is the one I stated - integrated graphics cards sharing system RAM - but that is usually listed on the Computer Spec sheet).
So, when they get a phone and it says 512 MB RAM, they expect for there to be 512 Application-accessible RAM on the device.
HTC adds more RAM to put the user closer to the advertised specs. Most other manufacturers do not.
So users end up with 326 MB RAM wondering if they got what they paid for.
Which... they really didn't if you use you common sense, but companies will always use technicalities tand semantics o defend their decisions and/or actions.
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Click to collapse
I completely agree with you. In fact some of us in xda have discovered that sgs indeed has less than 512MB of RAM. We are still somehow trying to defend Samsung by say Galaxy TAB has more RAM (when Samsung advertise 512MB only for TAB)!
On a side note - Hard Drive capacity is measured in millions of bytes hence 500,000millionbytes
will be around 465GB only (unformated)!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I doubt ~170 mb is being allocated for the radio and for hardware addressing space. It's my opinion that the phone actually only comes with 384mb ram.

raduque said:
I doubt ~170 mb is being allocated for the radio and for hardware addressing space. It's my opinion that the phone actually only comes with 384mb ram.
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no.
10ch

Prankey said:
I completely agree with you. In fact some of us in xda have discovered that sgs indeed has less than 512MB of RAM. We are still somehow trying to defend Samsung by say Galaxy TAB has more RAM (when Samsung advertise 512MB only for TAB)!
On a side note - Hard Drive capacity is measured in millions of bytes hence 500,000millionbytes
will be around 465GB only (unformated)!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many do list that but what makes the drives smaller is formatting. The raw size is what it is, but the formatted capacity is much less. You can ser this on sf cards easily. Format it as fat32 then ntfs, and the end (formatted) capacities will be different. Then play with allocation sizes as well ;p
If you have hordes of small files it can really eat inyo the space on ut hard drive, as well, since a file can only be as small as the smallest cluster size in the filesystem.
Even if they made the drive 1024mb x however many gb they say it is, that will be instantly cut fown tje minute you format a fs onto the drive. There is also space the fs reserves for system use, as well. Mft and such.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

anthonys2r said:
no.
10ch
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Click to collapse
He's right hardware addrrssimg shouldn't need that much, and graphics in a phone shouldn't need that much either. Maybe so,eone should sue Samsumg for false advertisement and see what they say.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

anthonys2r said:
no.
10ch
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Click to collapse
You can "no." all you want, but unless you have proof to the contrary, I'm going to stick with my OPINION that the phone has 384mb.
There's no way in hell the Radio, hardware addressing space and/or GPU frame buffer use 170-180mb of the ram.

raduque said:
You can "no." all you want, but unless you have proof to the contrary, I'm going to stick with my OPINION that the phone has 384mb.
There's no way in hell the Radio, hardware addressing space and/or GPU frame buffer use 170-180mb of the ram.
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Click to collapse
I agree just checked and vibrant shows similar ram to htc aria, which has 384mb ram stock.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

raduque said:
You can "no." all you want, but unless you have proof to the contrary, I'm going to stick with my OPINION that the phone has 384mb.
There's no way in hell the Radio, hardware addressing space and/or GPU frame buffer use 170-180mb of the ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a thread in the i9k forum that details the amounts of ram reserved in the kernel source. Just about every feature on the phone has dedicated ram, weather or not it's currently in use. That plus what the kernel shows as available adds up to 512mb. It's stupid, but that's how it is. Poor and lazy software engineering, IMO. Unfortunately, doing the allocation in a sane way and having it work in android properly is very difficult without all of the source, which we will probably never have.
It's not really any better with other manufacturers. They all do it. I think they ought to be required to disclose user available ram amounts, but nobody cares what I think.

N8ter said:
I'm getting tired of people making these retarded f****ng comparisons. Hard Drive capacities go down due to formating. Also, a 1 byte file takes up the smallest allocation unit on the drive, so space is wasted there as well. Better file systems are better about it, but unless you're writing raw data to the hard drive there's no way to avoid formatting it and losing space or writing data to it and losing space due to allocation boundaries. I've never heard of anyone Formatting RAM, have you? If the smallest allocation unit on the HDD is 4KB, then a 1Byte file will really take up 4KB on the drive's FS.
RAM is totally different. If there is 512 RAM there's 512 RAM. The only time you will see less than your amount of RAM on a computer is if the computer is allocatting a certain amount of RAM for use by an integrated graphics card (or something else).
Problem with our phones is that they're set up like the latter.
We don't have 512 RAM. We never have, and we never will. We haev 340'ish and the rest is GPU RAM. You're never going to run general applications on that RAM.
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Click to collapse
I had 326 RAM .After installation of FROYO 2.2,my Galaxy can see only 304 RAm.Why?I expected to get more RAM with FROYO 2.2 Why did this happened?

N8ter said:
He's right hardware addrrssimg shouldn't need that much, and graphics in a phone shouldn't need that much either. Maybe so,eone should sue Samsumg for false advertisement and see what they say.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you should do it. You know, since you know exactly what you're talking about.

why does the vibrant not recognize all the ram even on 2.2

Guys, how can I get my samsung vibrant to recognize all the 512mb of ram. I thought froyo has all the software and kernels and stuff to recognize the full 512mb of my phone not just 308mb. Do I need to flash a new kernel or something. I have the nero v3 rom on my phone, with voodoo enabled. So how do we fix this?

308 MB you phone is showing you is the correct amount, your phone does have 512 MB of RAM total. However, part of that is used by the phone and android system to supply your phone's graphics card and other functions such as a RAM disk if I remembered correctly. In addition, You don't want your phone to run out of memory because you are running a game and missed that all important call right? well part of the RAM is reserved to keep the "phone" portion of the Android working.
It is a common misconception that Froyo will "unlock" this hidden RAM, but in reality we are already using all the RAM that came with the phone. The reason some HTC phone shows 512 MB of RAM is either because the phone is reading the "TotaL" amount of RAM or in the case of G2 the phone actually came with more than 512 MB of ram but advertised as 512 MB (the extra RAM is used in the same way as the Vibrant, GPU/Ram disk/Android, etc).

What about the iphone, my cousin always gets 300t mb of free memory on his iphone 4. Android can't be that much of a ram hog. By the way doesn't the power vr gpu have dedicated ram for it self, I man come on, its a high end phone. Samsung is really messing up on there phones.

My question is *why* do you need more free RAM? Are you really running out, ever? Don't think of it like a PC where you need free RAM as overhead when apps start utilizing more and more. Android will free up more RAM as necessary by killing apps that are preloaded in the background. I've never run into a situation where I've run out of memory, couldn't even tell you what happens when you do. I don't use task-killers, run a ton of widgets, and I've never seen it dip below 60-70mb free.

Kubernetes said:
My question is *why* do you need more free RAM? Are you really running out, ever? Don't think of it like a PC where you need free RAM as overhead when apps start utilizing more and more. Android will free up more RAM as necessary by killing apps that are preloaded in the background. I've never run into a situation where I've run out of memory, couldn't even tell you what happens when you do. I don't use task-killers, run a ton of widgets, and I've never seen it dip below 60-70mb free.[/QUOTE
Yes I do run out of ram. Every time I watch a flash video and while leaving no heavy ram using apps to be multitasked, after I finish my vigo and go back to my other apps I finder them killed. It gets on my nerves. I expected more out of 512mb. I also spent too much money for my phone for it to perform under shar what it's specified.
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Click to collapse

I run autokiller and always have 150ish.free. even if I didn't run it I would never run out id ram even when I had my g1
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So much for multitasking, right?
Phone has 384 app accessible ram. Typically runs with ~100ish free after a fresh boot with a stock ROM. The browser can take ~30mb, so that doesn't leave much to multitasking with. When ur phone starts auto killing performance decreases. They should have h put the aeverised ram in the phone, instead of playing the semantics game. Even Verizon updated their fascinate specs to change that to 384.
I'll make sure to check this before I buy my next phone in a couple weeks tho (soooo excited!!!).
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

N8ter said:
So much for multitasking, right?
Phone has 384 apparently accessible ram. Even Verizon updated their fascinate specs to change that.
Galaxy tab uses the same social and its alwaysvshowing 400+ MB ram on everyone I checked.
I'll make sure to check this before I buy my next phone in a couple weeks tho (soooo excited!!!).
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
This means that this is a software issue, not hardware because the tab has the same processor found in the vibrant. 400t is allot better than just 300, not only but the tab also requires more resources with it's 720p screen.

helikido said:
This means that this is a software issue, not hardware because the tab has the same processor found in the vibrant. 400t is allot better than just 300, not only but the tab also requires more resources with it's 720p screen.
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Click to collapse
It's not a software issue.
And yes, 100MB RAM in a smartphone is a lot.
It's like getting a computer with 4GB RAM and ripping a 2GB RAM stick out out of it.
There's 128 MB RAM that isn't accessible to the system The OS itself probably uses abut 100+ MB RAM, and once you start installing applications/services that start eating up resources.
Some say the 128 is dedicated graphics ram (fast graphics RAM to allow the Hummingbird to achieve it's faster GPU performance). What a waste. I'll make sure my next phone isn't built like a game console.
They should have at least added another 64MB RAM the way HTC did in the HD2/HD7.
The phone has as much App RAM as a mid-range Android device (think HTC Aria). It's factorable, especially if you want to multitask. Running multiple applications on this phone, I basically have to manage my apps they way I did on Windows Mobile (i.e. open task manager to FC the browser, etc.) because you don't want to be playing a game or doing anything somewhat important when the phone starts trying to auto-close background tasks to recover RAM (and some services will simply restart themselves immediately).
Good phone, bad execution in the software, and they should not have advertised it as having 512 RAM, because to anyone that isn't an idiot Graphics RAM is not synonymous with Application RAM, and 128 less RAM is quite a big chunk to be missing.

...Graphics RAM is not synonymous with Application RAM, and 128 less RAM is quite a big chunk to be missing.
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Virtually every computer on the shelf at Wally-World and Best Buy do exactly this - the motherboard graphics chip uses system RAM to operate. Admittedly does not directly correlate to a phone, and they should make a disclosure, but there is ample precedent in the general marketplace.

I don't understand why some of you attribute a free RAM amount (or lack thereof) as a memory hog?
If RAM is used instead of slower disk I/O it translates to a better user experience, the OS is good on keeping the taps on the memory and clean the thrash by itself, but nothing can prevent poor coding and a single rouge app can become the memory hog independent of how much RAM your system has, it might eat all of it.

The real problem is that the phone has only about 150mb of free ram and that'd on boot up. If the phone does have some ram dedicated to the gpu from the system ram (known as shared ram) then why
Don't other android devices do that too, and the iphone has more free ram on boot up then what is user acsesable to me. I thought the gloriose sgx540 had it's own high end dedicated ram for graphics?

N8ter said:
So much for multitasking, right?
Phone has 384 app accessible ram. Typically runs with ~100ish free after a fresh boot with a stock ROM. The browser can take ~30mb, so that doesn't leave much to multitasking with. When ur phone starts auto killing performance decreases. They should have h put the aeverised ram in the phone, instead of playing the semantics game. Even Verizon updated their fascinate specs to change that to 384.
I'll make sure to check this before I buy my next phone in a couple weeks tho (soooo excited!!!).
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you hate your vibrant so much why do you spend so much time on the forums? Dont seem to contribute much so just go get a new phone and leave us alone.

ionic7 said:
If you hate your vibrant so much why do you spend so much time on the forums? Dont seem to contribute much so just go get a new phone and leave us alone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is an ignore list feature on these forums

helikido said:
The real problem is that the phone has only about 150mb of free ram and that'd on boot up. If the phone does have some ram dedicated to the gpu from the system ram (known as shared ram) then why
Don't other android devices do that too, and the iphone has more free ram on boot up then what is user acsesable to me. I thought the gloriose sgx540 had it's own high end dedicated ram for graphics?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And how is that a problem?
Do you have an immediate need for something that requires 150+ MB after the boot?
Here's an absolutely healthy linux system with 2GB of RAM:
Code:
free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2049868 1982076 67792 0 146988 840748
-/+ buffers/cache: 994340 1055528
Swap: 6008824 820 6008004
I will be worried if my swap is being used a lot, but using my memory on the system is good.

I agree with this. 512 advertised, 308 seen, 150 Available after a boot....my phone keeps running out of memory so often its sad. It can never run my music player and my gps software at the same time. When I switch between the 2 apps, it closes the other one and its really really sad to see. ****ty job samsung, ****ty job. I hope the galaxy s mod gets ported for the ram which opens 338mb. At least its something.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

}{Alienz}{ said:
It can never run my music player and my gps software at the same time.
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Click to collapse
I just went on a 700+ mile car trip with the music player and gps navigation software running the entire time. No problem. Was even able to simultaneously play games while my wife was driving.

}{Alienz}{ said:
I agree with this. 512 advertised, 308 seen, 150 Available after a boot....my phone keeps running out of memory so often its sad. It can never run my music player and my gps software at the same time. When I switch between the 2 apps, it closes the other one and its really really sad to see. ****ty job samsung, ****ty job. I hope the galaxy s mod gets ported for the ram which opens 338mb. At least its something.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you have a rouge app/apps running that memory hog your phone, getting 30MB of more available RAM will not save it. You need to find what is hogging your phone, I am yet to see a message that my phone is low on memory, sometimes I do a lot of browsing, txt, mytracks and playing music with Pandora or stock player at the same time and it never complained that it was low on memory to run these.

ionic7 said:
If you hate your vibrant so much why do you spend so much time on the forums? Dont seem to contribute much so just go get a new phone and leave us alone.
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Click to collapse
Who said that I hate my phone.I'm only truong to find out shar mashes it not recognize all it's ram. In this era, ram is a huge factor to run apps and most importantly newer os updates like ginger bread and honey comb. Don't wanna run out of ram right when you boot up your phone don't you? And if the tab can recognize more ram than this then this means it does gave something to do with software. I guess we have to wait for samsung to release froyo, because im sure that they will gave all threw tweaks that will boost this phone very high, bedside from shar I've noticed, all the,roms out thete dont really boost this phone allot. How do I know,i gave nero v3 and that only boosted me to 1137 on quadrant from 2.1 and with voodo enabled I get 1500 max on quadrant. Oclf the same thing too. so all I'm saying is that it's definitely a software issue. Pretty sure android does not hog 400mbt. And no sgx has its own ram for sure.

I still don't get how you're running out of RAM. Right now I've got Winamp streaming through BT and have started streaming a Flash video. Also running are XDA and Maps. No hiccups.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Using full ram with root

I've read that 1 of the 2gb of RAM is used for the touchwiz so you effectively only have 1gb. If you install a custom rom, ie. cyanogenmod, do you get to use the full 2gb then?

Filiusincendia said:
I've read that 1 of the 2gb of RAM is used for the touchwiz so you effectively only have 1gb. If you install a custom rom, ie. cyanogenmod, do you get to use the full 2gb then?
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Click to collapse
Pretty sure its ICS that takes up the space and its not a full GB. I don't have the phone but a friend has around 1.6 - 1.7 Gigs free at max.

I don't think that would work out, considering the international GS3 has 1GB of RAM and runs TouchWiz.

So much confusion, let's spell this out. First of all our phones have 2gb ram, period. The GPU requires about 0.38gb of the system's 2gb because it doesn't have its own onboard memory. So no matter what software you run, you'll be starting out around 1.62 available.
Different operating systems, frameworks, skins, and applications will have different memory footprints. Touchwiz is probably a bit heavier than AOSP (CM/AOKP), so after a clean boot you'll probably have more free ram running an AOSP variant.
Honestly its all kind of moot at this point however, because I doubt in either situation most people get anywhere near using the all remaining RAM with current ROM offerings. Key lime pie may be another story.

Yeah to his point about not using the RAM is just stupid, unused ram is wasted ram meaning you have it for nothing, for example on stock cm9 you got 1.2 gb free most of the time, 500-600mb free, touchwiz manage ram better but still leaves a lot behind, look up what ram does and you will understand why unused ram is useless
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

jgalan14 said:
Yeah to his point about not using the RAM is just stupid, unused ram is wasted ram meaning you have it for nothing, for example on stock cm9 you got 1.2 gb free most of the time, 500-600mb free, touchwiz manage ram better but still leaves a lot behind, look up what ram does and you will understand why unused ram is useless
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Isn't it ideal to have unused RAM so that when you open apps and multitask, you the memory to keep them alive? Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but if we never had unused Ram then we would never be able to multitask, right?

Spartoi said:
Isn't it ideal to have unused RAM so that when you open apps and multitask, you the memory to keep them alive? Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but if we never had unused Ram then we would never be able to multitask, right?
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To a certain extent, I for one think there's no reason to try and utilize all of it for nothing. And it's pointless to complain about having extra
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This is quote from something I read in pc mag
" This has to do with extremes. Remember that every so many cycles (don't remember on current ram), your memory has to completely refresh its contents. If you have an extra 16GB that you never use, then you waste time refreshing all of that ram. Also on this note, higher densities, and larger quantities are harder on your controller. For maximum speed and stability, use ram appropriate for your usage pattern"
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jgalan14 said:
This is quote from something I read in pc mag
" This has to do with extremes. Remember that every so many cycles (don't remember on current ram), your memory has to completely refresh its contents. If you have an extra 16GB that you never use, then you waste time refreshing all of that ram. Also on this note, higher densities, and larger quantities are harder on your controller. For maximum speed and stability, use ram appropriate for your usage pattern"
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While that is true, ram come in discrete chunks and 2 gb is noticeably better than 1. At a certain threshold the memory manager kills off old apps to free up ram. More ram means more recently used apps remain loaded and available sooner plus i have no issues with many pages open in a browser. I typically run with around 600 mb free. Only my dell streak i would often be under 100 and unless i manually closed apps it really bogged down.
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1gb of ram is not for TW and the rest for apps....its 2gb total...in reality like 15mb total