What the hell is zram for? What benefits? - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

As I understand it, zram is some sort of virtual RAM or some method to give you more RAM. Why would this be necessary when the n7 already has a GB RAM. Reminds me of the page filing system on windows, and that seemed to just slow the system down
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Anyone

From wikipedia
zRam is an available feature for certain distributions of Linux, that was previously called "compcache". It increases performance by avoiding paging on disk and instead uses a compressed block device in RAM in which paging takes place until it is necessary to use the swap space on the hard disk drive. Since using RAM is faster than using disks, zRam allows Linux to make more use of RAM when swapping/paging is required, especially on older computers with less RAM installed.[1][2]
Even though the cost of RAM hardware is relatively low this feature still offers advantages for netbooks and other lower-powered latops, virtualization and in the case of embedded devices, especially those that use flash memories that have a limited lifespan, dependent on write-use and thus wear out quickly when used as a swap device.[2]
Need more explanation?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

Related

[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).

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?
Click to expand...
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
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
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"
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
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"
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Sent from my NookColor using xda app-developers app
1gb of ram is not for TW and the rest for apps....its 2gb total...in reality like 15mb total

[Q] Average free memory in Nexus 10

Hi I just got a tablet but its not nexus 10 with 2gb of ram it only has 1gb of ram. I am contemplating on exchanging my tablet for a nexus 10 and I would like to ask you folks out there what on average is the available free ram on a nexus 10?
I think to average it out this post needs to have a lot of input.
PS Reply
I generally get 400-800 MB free of ram
Looking at free ram is a rather pointless measurement considering Android is Linux, and unix systems go by a "free ram is wasted ram" philosophy. With that said, mine is currently sitting at 541.5MB.
700M
kilopopo said:
Hi I just got a tablet but its not nexus 10 with 2gb of ram it only has 1gb of ram. I am contemplating on exchanging my tablet for a nexus 10 and I would like to ask you folks out there what on average is the available free ram on a nexus 10?
I think to average it out this post needs to have a lot of input.
PS Reply
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
Thanks guys now i have an idea of how much memory is available on average.
I wonder if having 2gb is better than having 1gb of ram
Please search first, this question is near pointless and been asked a million times here, but to answer your question more ram never hurts but Android will hardly if ever run into low ram situations with 1gb of total system memory of more. Linux is different than a windows system and likes to use all available ram and when it needs ram for a task will kill tasks that have been idle for too long to free it up so task killers and monitoring free ram are time and battery eating tasks and you will be happier if you kick the habit ASAP
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
the nexus 4 has around 1800mb ram and the nexus 10 should have a similar amount
maxorelad said:
the nexus 4 has around 1800mb ram and the nexus 10 should have a similar amount
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably not, larger resolution means it needs more dedicated to vram
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
ECOTOX said:
Probably not, larger resolution means it needs more dedicated to vram
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's kind of false advertising then. For example, should I sell my computer as having 10GB of RAM, even though only 8GB is actually usable as System RAM, with the other 2GB as Video RAM? Kind of silly imo... should of just put 2GB in the thing and then a separate dedicated amount for video.
But in any case, is there any actual hard proof this is what is happening? I wouldn't know where to begin to look really, but I'd love to see a section of the kernel code that actually dictates this, instead of just hearing "assumptions"
espionage724 said:
It's kind of false advertising then. For example, should I sell my computer as having 10GB of RAM, even though only 8GB is actually usable as System RAM, with the other 2GB as Video RAM? Kind of silly imo... should of just put 2GB in the thing and then a separate dedicated amount for video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you buy any computer without a dedicated video card you loose ram to the video processing. When you buy a 10gb computer you only get maybe 9gb usable. Same with hard drives due to formatting limitation, it's not false advertising that's how much it has. Consumer ignorance is not the same as false advertising. The system needs some dedicated to video, audio, radio, and anything else that can't have variable sizing. they told you the right amount but you didn't know that just like the desktop you buy in a store the total available isn't the same as user available because the system needs some of it
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
---------- Post added at 12:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 PM ----------
espionage724 said:
But in any case, is there any actual hard proof this is what is happening? I wouldn't know where to begin to look really, but I'd love to see a section of the kernel code that actually dictates this, instead of just hearing "assumptions"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes there is a section of kernel code that dictates it go look at the source. If it's like the samsung vibrant it will be in the kernel config file
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
yes we can
ECOTOX said:
When you buy any computer without a dedicated video card you loose ram to the video processing. When you buy a 10gb computer you only get maybe 9gb usable. Same with hard drives due to formatting limitation, it's not false advertising that's how much it has. Consumer ignorance is not the same as false advertising. The system needs some dedicated to video, audio, radio, and anything else that can't have variable sizing. they told you the right amount but you didn't know that just like the desktop you buy in a store the total available isn't the same as user available because the system needs some of it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose this does make sense; but even with the computers I owned that had integrated graphics, they had some kind of onboard memory attached to them. I could choose to alter how much additional VRAM I needed from system RAM, but didn't have to.
As for my Desktop, out of the 8GB installed in my system, only 1MB (according to Windows anyway) is unusable as "Hardware Dedicated".
Regardless, every other Android device I've seen has a specified amount of RAM it comes with on the box, and has "approximately" the same amount shown as usable in the OS itself. The Nexus 10 says 2GB, with only 1.6GB usable, which isn't nearly "as approximate" imo.
espionage724 said:
I suppose this does make sense; but even with the computers I owned that had integrated graphics, they had some kind of onboard memory attached to them. I could choose to alter how much additional VRAM I needed from system RAM, but didn't have to.
As for my Desktop, out of the 8GB installed in my system, only 1MB (according to Windows anyway) is unusable as "Hardware Dedicated".
Regardless, every other Android device I've seen has a specified amount of RAM it comes with on the box, and has "approximately" the same amount shown as usable in the OS itself. The Nexus 10 says 2GB, with only 1.6GB usable, which isn't nearly "as approximate" imo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i can say with 100% certainty that any computer you have owned without a dedicated GPU that has been made within the past 5-6 yrs has at least 100-200mb dedicated to vram. If it even supports 8gb it is gernerally around 512mb that is dedicated as it probably is within 3-4yrs old and probably has an AMD radeon HD gpu or intel HD GPU which use 256mb at minumum. The only way you would have only 1mb taken is if you have a dedicated GPU or it is reading it wrong. I've worked with computer for over a decade and have had to explain this upwards of 100 times I can also say that every single android device with more than 256mb of ram has at LEAST 100-300mb of its ram dedicated to the GPU, the cell/wifi radio, hardware video decoder, camera, and anything else it needs. Samsung vibrant has about 200mb for those dedicated from the 512mb, galaxy nexus has about 300mb dedicated out of 1gb, hp touchpad about the same. Larger the resolution the more you need so 400mb to the system isnt very odd. Id say min 256mb for the resolution on the N10 for video, then probly 100-128mb for the hardware video decoder and 50mb or so for camera and for wifi radio. that totals to approximately 400mb depending on the exact amounts because i dont know them for the n10. If you really want to you can go into the kernel config and change the amounts, but you will break hd playback, picture taking,etc. Which is what would happen if i configured the amounts too low in my vibrant kernels.
---------- Post added at 01:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------
ps, why must auto correct fail me sometimes? ^ x3
and to add to that, look at the amount of user available storage. Do you have the entire 16 or 32gb you bought? no, you will loose about 1-2gb from formating then another 1-2gb for the system and app storage

[POSSIBILITY] SWAP for our KFs

OK so I read this and I thought: this could solve all of our RAM issues
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1934360
Any ideas?
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using xda app-developers app
All devices have swap space (unless you have no space left) but since storage is so slow compared to ram, you feel a slow down. Have you tried enabling all the ram compression features in the performance section of your settings?
Sent from my nuclear powered toaster.
jji7skyline said:
All devices have swap space (unless you have no space left) but since storage is so slow compared to ram, you feel a slow down. Have you tried enabling all the ram compression features in the performance section of your settings?
Sent from my nuclear powered toaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of Course I did, but its only a tiny boost, it would be awesome if you could add at least another 512 MB to our memory let alone 1GB+. But the problem I guess is the reading Speed of the kindle’s memory.
This Post Has Not Been Found
If Found Please Report It To 404
Swap is a no-no on flash storage, unless you like wearing it out sooner...

Nexus 9 uses F2FS filesystem by default!

The Nexus 9 uses the F2FS (flash-friendly) filesystem as default, instead of EXT4! (see attached screenshot)
Also notice the 508 MB Swap partition in the screenshot...
edgarf28 said:
The Nexus 9 uses the F2FS (flash-friendly) filesystem as default, instead of EXT4! (see attached screenshot)
Also notice the 508 MB Swap partition in the screenshot...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you do a androbench benchmark please i want to know the storage performance
---------- Post added at 06:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 PM ----------
edgarf28 said:
The Nexus 9 uses the F2FS (flash-friendly) filesystem as default, instead of EXT4! (see attached screenshot)
Also notice the 508 MB Swap partition in the screenshot...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the swap file used for, is it for the cpu, does it use the ram?
The thing has the fastest set up it should be the most smoothest device ever made.
64 bit tegra k1 with geekbench single core performance of 2000 almost double that snapdragon 801.
Fastest internal storage chip. 15MB random write and 38MB random read.
Android lollipop
F2fs filesystem
2gb ram
---------- Post added at 06:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:03 PM ----------
bushgreen said:
Can you do a androbench benchmark please i want to know the storage performance
---------- Post added at 06:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 PM ----------
What is the swap file used for, is it for the cpu, does it use the ram?
The thing has the fastest set up it should be the most smoothest device ever made.
64 bit tegra k1 with geekbench single core performance of 2000 almost double that snapdragon 801.
Fastest internal storage chip. 15MB random write and 38MB random read.
Android lollipop
F2fs filesystem
2gb ram
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.
..
bushgreen said:
Can you do a androbench benchmark please i want to know the storage performance
---------- Post added at 06:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 PM ----------
What is the swap file used for, is it for the cpu, does it use the ram?
The thing has the fastest set up it should be the most smoothest device ever made.
64 bit tegra k1 with geekbench single core performance of 2000 almost double that snapdragon 801.
Fastest internal storage chip. 15MB random write and 38MB random read.
Android lollipop
F2fs filesystem
2gb ram
---------- Post added at 06:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:03 PM ----------
.
..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 508 MB Swap partition do not use any RAM, I think it's just an partition on the internal memory to extent the RAM with 508 MB (so basically you have 1.8 Gb RAM + 508 MB Swap)
And see attached screenshot for the AndroBench results.
it is just plain stupid putting only 2GB ram on a 64Bit device and then helping out with 500MB swap. They could have easily add 3GB ram without any significant costs..
Funny thing is that the nexus 6 has 3GB ram and has a variant with 64GB disk.
Looks like f2fs is only used on the encrypted /data partition, /system and /cache still use ext4.
Also, the Nexus 9 actually has zram enabled, which explains the swap "partition". Having 2GB of memory with 0.5GB of zram is an interesting alternative to just using 3GB of memory instead.
farmerbb said:
Looks like f2fs is only used on the encrypted /data partition, /system and /cache still use ext4.
Also, the Nexus 9 actually has zram enabled, which explains the swap "partition". Having 2GB of memory with 0.5GB of zram is an interesting alternative to just using 3GB of memory instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, it is not an interesting alternative, it is a stupid one in every way. the nexus 9 is already quite expensive. 1GB ram just costs a couple of dollars and room is more than enough within. and considering it is 64Bit it will bloat up ram usage anyway, not to forget that this high screen resolution eats up a lot of ram, too.
a user said:
no, it is not an interesting alternative, it is a stupid one in every way. the nexus 9 is already quite expensive. 1GB ram just costs a couple of dollars and room is more than enough within. and considering it is 64Bit it will bloat up ram usage anyway, not to forget that this high screen resolution eats up a lot of ram, too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's stupid until you realize how channeling works. The option to user zram is a very interesting one and it might be a better solution. So far benchmarks of the tablet agree with HTC/Google.
EDIT: also, in a serialized "queue" architecture like the this 64bit K1 with 2 cores, multitasking is not the priority. 2GB + zRam or 3GB should not make much difference.
Google opted for this kind of CPU in the N9 to make it as fast as an ipad air2 on your active task. You don't have multiple windows, you won't do true multitasking in this tablet. This is an ipad alternative, and even these architectural details show it.
FrankBullitt said:
It's stupid until you realize how channeling works. The option to user zram is a very interesting one and it might be a better solution. So far benchmarks of the tablet agree with HTC/Google.
EDIT: also, in a serialized "queue" architecture like the this 64bit K1 with 2 cores, multitasking is not the priority. 2GB + zRam or 3GB should not make much difference.
Google opted for this kind of CPU in the N9 to make it as fast as an ipad air2 on your active task. You don't have multiple windows, you won't do true multitasking in this tablet. This is an ipad alternative, and even these architectural details show it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a lot of unrelated stuff in your post. there is no need for zram or swap (regarding the first posts its swap and not compressed ram, but i do not know myself what it is) if you get an extra 1GB of ram. 1 GB of ram is ALWAYS better than zram or swap. zram is a nice option when you cannot extend the memory for various reasons and swap may be used for heigh memory use cases when you have some not too slow alternate memory. n9 internal memory is still damn slow for swapping (if it is indeed a swap faile on disk at all).
but actually there seems to be no good reason to not add an extra GB as we can see the nexus 6 has it, the nexus 9 ha definetly room for it (it is not like pc dram module) and it is damn cheap also.
secondly, i'm not talking about multitasking when i pointed out 64bit, so why the hell are you bringing this in? beside of that on a tablet multitasking it meanwhile not so uncommen. the point is that a 64 bit os has a MUCH larger memory footprint. also such high screen resolutions add a decent amount of memory either. and finally, your argument about benchmarks proving anything related to my comment is unrelated at best. it doesn't prove anything related to my statement.
there is aboluelty no reason to prefere zram or swap over an extra GB of ram, and it seems that there is nothing that would made it difficult for htc to add it. i can only assume that they added this just collect some experience on it and nothing more.
i really don't get it. what's the purpose of your statement? showing of your lack of knowledge or celebrating fanboyship "oh cool, they skipped a 5$ GB ram but gave us zram hurayyyyy".
sounds totally sound to give a smartphone 1GB ram more, same high resoltion on a smaller screen and twice as much disk space
EDIT: but please finally tell us WHAT exactly is so "interessting" adding zram or swap instead of one GB ram? you post has no information except this little claim. one might find this decision interesting of course due to its stupidity but it doesn't look that this is the source of your interest.
Any conjecture or theoretical analysis is ultimately pretty meaningless. Just let the performance speak for itself.
@mkygod hallelujah !! ??
a user said:
a lot of unrelated stuff in your post. there is no need for zram or swap (regarding the first posts its swap and not compressed ram, but i do not know myself what it is) if you get an extra 1GB of ram. 1 GB of ram is ALWAYS better than zram or swap. zram is a nice option when you cannot extend the memory for various reasons and swap may be used for heigh memory use cases when you have some not too slow alternate memory. n9 internal memory is still damn slow for swapping (if it is indeed a swap faile on disk at all).
but actually there seems to be no good reason to not add an extra GB as we can see the nexus 6 has it, the nexus 9 ha definetly room for it (it is not like pc dram module) and it is damn cheap also.
secondly, i'm not talking about multitasking when i pointed out 64bit, so why the hell are you bringing this in? beside of that on a tablet multitasking it meanwhile not so uncommen. the point is that a 64 bit os has a MUCH larger memory footprint. also such high screen resolutions add a decent amount of memory either. and finally, your argument about benchmarks proving anything related to my comment is unrelated at best. it doesn't prove anything related to my statement.
there is aboluelty no reason to prefere zram or swap over an extra GB of ram, and it seems that there is nothing that would made it difficult for htc to add it. i can only assume that they added this just collect some experience on it and nothing more.
i really don't get it. what's the purpose of your statement? showing of your lack of knowledge or celebrating fanboyship "oh cool, they skipped a 5$ GB ram but gave us zram hurayyyyy".
sounds totally sound to give a smartphone 1GB ram more, same high resoltion on a smaller screen and twice as much disk space
EDIT: but please finally tell us WHAT exactly is so "interessting" adding zram or swap instead of one GB ram? you post has no information except this little claim. one might find this decision interesting of course due to its stupidity but it doesn't look that this is the source of your interest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No...you would understand what he was talking about if you understood what he meant by "architecture". The Tegra K1 chip employed by the N9, aka Project Denver, is the first in order execution CPU since...like, 1990.......This device was never designed to multitask, as the CPU itself was designed to finish tasks in order, and be damn fast at that.
Here, read up on this: http://hothardware.com/News/Nvidias-64bit-Tegra-K1-The-Ghost-of-Transmeta-Rides-Again/
Adding 1GB of RAM is useless, since 64bit really needs 4 & up to shine, it doesn't make a difference whether or not you tack on another GB.....
UAL4588 said:
No...you would understand what he was talking about if you understood what he meant by "architecture". The Tegra K1 chip employed by the N9, aka Project Denver, is the first in order execution CPU since...like, 1990.......This device was never designed to multitask, as the CPU itself was designed to finish tasks in order, and be damn fast at that.
Here, read up on this: http://hothardware.com/News/Nvidias-64bit-Tegra-K1-The-Ghost-of-Transmeta-Rides-Again/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i know very well how denver works and it still has nothing to do with what i said.
Adding 1GB of RAM is useless, since 64bit really needs 4 & up to shine, it doesn't make a difference whether or not you tack on another GB.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's simply not true! 64bit does not shine more orn 4GB ram or on 12GB. you need 64bit for 4GB+ ram (while 4GB actually works on 32bit with PAE). but i am not talking about when 64bit is needed to allow for more memory. i am talking about the double sized memory pointers, the bigger size ints and longs, due to 64bit! this caused all native code to consume far more memory. but as ia already said multiple times, not only the 64bit os itself eats a lot of memory it also the high resolution graphics but also the meanwhile increased resolution assets of android.
i don't say that it is actually needed to install more memory. but if they decided to add zram it seems they actually needed more memory. the point is that it is stupid to extend the memory with zram instead of just simply adding 1GB ram.
i can't say it more clearly. the stupidity is to NOT INSTALL 1GB MORE RAM BUT INSTEAD USE ZRAM TO MAKE UP FOR LACK OF MEMORY.
It doesnt need a swap file 2gb ram is enough
UAL4588 said:
No...you would understand what he was talking about if you understood what he meant by "architecture". The Tegra K1 chip employed by the N9, aka Project Denver, is the first in order execution CPU since...like, 1990.......This device was never designed to multitask, as the CPU itself was designed to finish tasks in order, and be damn fast at that.
Here, read up on this: http://hothardware.com/News/Nvidias-64bit-Tegra-K1-The-Ghost-of-Transmeta-Rides-Again/
Adding 1GB of RAM is useless, since 64bit really needs 4 & up to shine, it doesn't make a difference whether or not you tack on another GB.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Arm chips didn't really start to use out of order instructions until the cortex a9, sometime around the Tegra 2 and the atrix. There were plenty, literally hundreds of android phones with cortex a7 and a8 cpu's with in order execution. (Think of the older snapdragons, the hummingbird, the omap's) Because this CPU happens to be an in order processor, doesn't mean its now a non multitasking tablet or OS. Multitasking performance should not be expected to get WORSE, with better hardware(I'm not saying it is, but it shouldn't be expected).
Yes 64 bit processors shine with above 4 gigs of ram(as far as mapping more memory), but 64 bit applications have a larger memory footprint than the same application compiled for 32 bit CPU's(uses more ram). So with the higher resolution and 64 bit OS, 2 gigs of ram may be pushing it, and it is probably why they added the swap.
No matter how you slice it, ram is always better than swap. Ram is always gonna be faster memory than a large storage device. If they thought 2 gigs would not be enough ram, swap should not have even be a consideration, just make it 3. The nexus 10 was a prime example of this due to the screen resolution and the GPU needing too much ram. Most of the 10's issues were the CPU not having quite enough power and not enough ram. Chrome would refresh pages with just a few tabs open when switching between them.
I personally would not trust a young filesystem that was initiated by Samsung.
Both of the above sounds like my data is at risk
After playing with it for a few days , I observed reload of the launcher sometimes. I am not sure if Lollipop is not yet well optimized for N9 or whatever. I think that 3GB of ram should be better.
2gb Ram is plenty it does not need the swap file
I hope the swap file ain't causing any slow downs or lag because it is reading writing to it instead of using the main ram
edgarf28 said:
The 508 MB Swap partition do not use any RAM, I think it's just an partition on the internal memory to extent the RAM with 508 MB (so basically you have 1.8 Gb RAM + 508 MB Swap)
And see attached screenshot for the AndroBench results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A swap partition is just that, it swaps memory to a file system when memory or other resources are gone. Some applications will do it by default.
I'm positive you don't have a grasp on linux or *inux systems. You should read up on 'em.
I beg to differ... I'm so sick and tired of all my apps getting booted out of memory the moment they're off-screen. Even the damn launcher vanishes way too quick and takes an eternity to reload. This tablet sucks for multi taking, even though the gorgeous screen is taylor-made for it.
a user said:
i know very well how denver works and it still has nothing to do with what i said.
that's simply not true! 64bit does not shine more orn 4GB ram or on 12GB. you need 64bit for 4GB+ ram (while 4GB actually works on 32bit with PAE). but i am not talking about when 64bit is needed to allow for more memory. i am talking about the double sized memory pointers, the bigger size ints and longs, due to 64bit! this caused all native code to consume far more memory. but as ia already said multiple times, not only the 64bit os itself eats a lot of memory it also the high resolution graphics but also the meanwhile increased resolution assets of android.
i don't say that it is actually needed to install more memory. but if they decided to add zram it seems they actually needed more memory. the point is that it is stupid to extend the memory with zram instead of just simply adding 1GB ram.
i can't say it more clearly. the stupidity is to NOT INSTALL 1GB MORE RAM BUT INSTEAD USE ZRAM TO MAKE UP FOR LACK OF MEMORY.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally agree with this, I'd be happy to pay $10-$20 more for and extra 1 to 2 Gb or ram.
Then they could have gone something like 4GB Ram + zram
Would have been better
And while denver may be an In order design, its 7 way Superscalar which should outweigh the benifits of a 3 way OoOE Design for multitasking

Categories

Resources