Database Users

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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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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
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Click to collapse
Maybe you should do it. You know, since you know exactly what you're talking about.

Nexus S 328 MB of RAM? ?

The Nexus S details are a little more enlightening. Keep in mind the original version might have been scrapped, so these leaked specs are subject to change:
ArmV7 CPU Open GL ES Supported
~328 MB Ram
1 GB Internal Memory
800×480 Resolution 4″ Super Amoled (2?)
Screen 720p Video Recording
T-Mobile (at least this one)
Source: androidandme.com
I really do hope these specs are wrong. I was going to buy this phone for sure. I really was. Despite how everyone has been hating it for being by Samsung and being plastic. I was still going to get it. But now? Forget it. I don’t care if it has a dual code processor and great screen. It needs to have 1 GB of RAM or 768 MB at least. This phone may be ugly but it needs to have amazing specs and no GPS problems or any lag problems. Otherwise I will stick with my nexus one.

I will believe it comes with only 328MB RAM when I see it in front of me.
I'd say its a typo.

ksc6000 said:
words...
I don’t care if it has a dual code processor and great screen. It needs to have 1 GB of RAM or 768 MB at least.
...more words...
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dual core ? oh, okay dokay.
see, typos aren't targeting creatures. they can strike anyone, anytime. obviously it was meant to say 328Gb, and 1Tb on the not-here-yet S.
just wait.

The Nexus S probably only showed 328 MB FREE, if I remember correctly the GPU in the Hummingbird dedicates a ton of RAM to itself. This phone definitely needs at least 768 MB leaving 5xx MB free.
If it's 512MB (which it currently looks like), 1GB of ROM and the same Hummingbird, I'll pass. I'll just wait for CM to port 2.3 to the EVO and wait for the HTC dual cores.

id hope it doesn't have 328 mb ram

Just sounds like a Galaxy S then really.

All the people whining about lack of RAM - did you ever bother to check the amount of free RAM at any given time on Nexus One since Froyo?
Well, I guess you didn't, since Nexus doesn't go below 160MB free RAM, and you need to work hard to make it go below 200MB - which is a HUGE waste. You want to waste even more? 1GB of RAM? Really? Did you see applications that can use 1/10 of it?
328MB RAM can't come with the phone, because 99% of the time RAM comes in powers of 2, and very rarely there are 3 banks used, making the last multiplier 3 instead of 2. 328MB doesn't fit anywhere, so it's not a real number.

Jack_R1 said:
All the people whining about lack of RAM - did you ever bother to check the amount of free RAM at any given time on Nexus One since Froyo?
Well, I guess you didn't, since Nexus doesn't go below 160MB free RAM, and you need to work hard to make it go below 200MB - which is a HUGE waste. You want to waste even more? 1GB of RAM? Really? Did you see applications that can use 1/10 of it?
328MB RAM can't come with the phone, because 99% of the time RAM comes in powers of 2, and very rarely there are 3 banks used, making the last multiplier 3 instead of 2. 328MB doesn't fit anywhere, so it's not a real number.
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As I stated earlier, it's probably 512 MB but the GPU in the Hummingbird dedicates a huge chunk of it for itself. The Adreno 200 GPU in the Nexus One still leaves over 500 MB free -- 5xx MB vs 328 MB is a HUGE difference. So that considered, it'd be a huge step down from the Nexus One if it doesn't at least have 768 MB to even things out.

Jack_R1 said:
All the people whining about lack of RAM - did you ever bother to check the amount of free RAM at any given time on Nexus One since Froyo?
Well, I guess you didn't, since Nexus doesn't go below 160MB free RAM, and you need to work hard to make it go below 200MB - which is a HUGE waste. You want to waste even more? 1GB of RAM? Really? Did you see applications that can use 1/10 of it?
328MB RAM can't come with the phone, because 99% of the time RAM comes in powers of 2, and very rarely there are 3 banks used, making the last multiplier 3 instead of 2. 328MB doesn't fit anywhere, so it's not a real number.
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Click to collapse
Guess you have never owned a galaxy s either then which lags terribly when it's used pretty much all of its paltry sum of ram?
Trust me if this doesn't at least have double the amount of ram that this article says it has then that is a major mistake imo. Time will tell though.

512MB of RAM should be more than sufficient. Here is a quote from Dianne Hackborn, Android Framework Engineer
The Nexus One has 512MB of RAM and honestly that is really more than we know what to do with. It is great. I ended up putting some code into the
activity manager to put a hard limit on the number of processes we would
keep around, because there was so much memory we had often could keep way
more processes than was useful. That was never an issue on Droid.
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From http://groups.google.com/group/android-porting/msg/d4f60db2793f23d2

bgoldie said:
512MB of RAM should be more than sufficient. Here is a quote from Dianne Hackborn, Android Framework Engineer
From http://groups.google.com/group/android-porting/msg/d4f60db2793f23d2
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Click to collapse
The Nexus != SGS/Nexus S
Again, you're forgetting about the available RAM. I just checked my EVO (very similar CPU/GPU) running CM6.1 and I was wrong about the 5xx figure, it actually has 424 MB to use. That's almost a 100 MB difference. And what if apps get more complex/heavy? Dual cores are around the corner so why not?

It sounds like a great phone but no better than my vibrant. Its the new generation of android so I would expect new gen hardware like high Res screen, 1080p and all those other great things. The vibrant has amazing hardware so the next generation will be mind blowing, to me anyway. I see no reason to move to the nexus s. I have a nexus one so ill get gingerbread and the S is not better enough to upgrade from a nexus one or vibrant. I understand that they just want a phone on which to release gingerbread but it seems a bit thrown together last minute, not a lot of effort, which is fine but I don't want to have to hear stupid things about Google phones not selling well, as if that's some sort of negative for android generally. I would expect that by now people that want a nexus one or vibrant type hardware already have it so this phone may not sell well. Plus people that know anything are going to be waiting to hear about the next stage of hardware. Definitely not worth jumping on unless you are coming from a lesser phone than the nexus or galaxy s, hardware-wise. On second thought if the GPS works like it does on the nexus one I'd seriously consider selling my vibrant for it. I'm appauled that the vibrants GPS still doesn't work, the most frustration I've experienced with android since its 2008 release is when in the middle of a navigation the screen starts spinning and doesn't regain its composure, happens literally every time. Hell now I think I'm pumped about this phone, I can stop carrying my damn nexus just for the GPS. Its no way to live.

Jack_R1 said:
328MB RAM can't come with the phone, because 99% of the time RAM comes in powers of 2, and very rarely there are 3 banks used, making the last multiplier 3 instead of 2. 328MB doesn't fit anywhere, so it's not a real number.
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It could be a typo. 328 doesnt fit but 320 does. I think its going to be 512 minimum personally.

2GB of RAM unnecessary?! LOL

This is the 4th time I've opened my task manager today and realized I was using over a gig. It easy to use over a gig when its there
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

a phone OS using more ram than Vista??? not a good sign. God where are the AOSP roms already :crying:

Kernel knows it has more memory available so apps are more likely to stay in their suspended state, rather than removed from memory.
But I enjoy the 2GB of ram for sure.

dardani89 said:
a phone OS using more ram than Vista??? not a good sign. God where are the AOSP roms already :crying:
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Using RAM is not bad; needing RAM is bad. Android 4.0 can easily run with less than 400 MB, but some things can be a little faster when they don't have to constantly reload.

stuff said:
Kernel knows it has more memory available so apps are more likely to stay in their suspended state, rather than removed from memory.
But I enjoy the 2GB of ram for sure.
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This. Everything switches back instantly!!
One of the most frustrating parts of the HTC OneX for me was when i was reading a long page of comments on sites like the verge or typing up a forum post. If i left the browser to reply to a text or facebook notification, and then returned to the browser it would always reload a page, and at the top.
Even the (heavy) Sense 4 launcher would have to load up every now and then.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747

Voltage Spike said:
Using RAM is not bad; needing RAM is bad. Android 4.0 can easily run with less than 400 MB, but some things can be a little faster when they don't have to constantly reload.
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i wasn't making fun of android, i was making fun of touchwiz. too much bloat.

If the RAM will mean Nova Launcher wont reload itself as much as it currently does on my Incredible, then that's reason enough for me.

Having had the 1X for a month the 2 gb ram was one of the reasons I switched.

The 2GB of ram (and LTE) has been excessively downplayed by the International crowd because..well..they don't have it. The fact is the 2GB of ram should allow a stock phone to reload things much less. If you want to look forward 6 months to a year, I think the difference will be potentially much larger when we start to see creative devs tweaking their kernels to really use this extra ram. This is a ground breaking hardware move. We haven't even really begun to see what is possible. Judging any of these based on stock software at release is pointless. Think about how much better other phones have gotten after a few OTA updates....this device, especially with the extra ram is really well equipped for a long time.
Sent from my DROIDX using xda premium

jamesnmandy said:
The 2GB of ram (and LTE) has been excessively downplayed by the International crowd because..well..they don't have it. The fact is the 2GB of ram should allow a stock phone to reload things much less. If you want to look forward 6 months to a year, I think the difference will be potentially much larger when we start to see creative devs tweaking their kernels to really use this extra ram. This is a ground breaking hardware move. We haven't even really begun to see what is possible. Judging any of these based on stock software at release is pointless. Think about how much better other phones have gotten after a few OTA updates....this device, especially with the extra ram is really well equipped for a long time.
Sent from my DROIDX using xda premium
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This ^^^
Truth
XDA Mobile

By the time any phone will actually use 2gb of ram, im sure most of us will have moved on to a new phone already. Of course having the extra ram is good for bragging rights, but does it actually mean anything? I'll say no, but im sure some will argue that.

shook187 said:
By the time any phone will actually use 2gb of ram, im sure most of us will have moved on to a new phone already. Of course having the extra ram is good for bragging rights, but does it actually mean anything? I'll say no, but im sure some will argue that.
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they already make use of 1.1-1.2GB of ram out of the box running all stock software.......imagine if custom roms/kernels were available that make use of it....it's not far off....."by the time any phone will use" is closer than you think

jamesnmandy said:
they already make use of 1.1-1.2GB of ram out of the box running all stock software.......imagine if custom roms/kernels were available that make use of it....it's not far off....."by the time any phone will use" is closer than you think
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This is good in theory but everyone on here is talking like we have been missing two gigs all this time in our phones. If you are coming to the S3 from a single core phone of course this is night and day. My SGSII has NEVER.....I repeat NEVER run out of memory lost track multitasking or had to close out multiple apps to make room for more.....how many apps does one need sitting in a suspended state?.....I have 5 or 6 apps open at any given time with PLENTY of room for more...sure the extra ram is nice to have, but its completely unnecessary ....dual cores with a gig of ram have NO problem doing heavy multitasking .....ask anyone running as SGSII or Gnex.
The extra ram in the S3 is there to offset the loss of quadcore....its a nice helping hand to the Krait chip but not necessary for everyday multitasking that the average person does.....I don't know what phones alot of you guys are coming from but from the sounds of these posts they were serious under achievers.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

tylerdurdin said:
This is good in theory but everyone on here is talking like we have been missing two gigs all this time in our phones. If you are coming to the S3 from a single core phone of course this is night and day. My SGSII has NEVER.....I repeat NEVER run out of memory lost track multitasking or had to close out multiple apps to make room for more.....how many apps does one need sitting in a suspended state?.....I have 5 or 6 apps open at any given time with PLENTY of room for more...sure the extra ram is nice to have, but its completely unnecessary ....dual cores with a gig of ram have NO problem doing heavy multitasking .....ask anyone running as SGSII or Gnex.
The extra ram in the S3 is there to offset the loss of quadcore....its a nice helping hand to the Krait chip but not necessary for everyday multitasking that the average person does.....I don't know what phones alot of you guys are coming from but from the sounds of these posts they were serious under achievers.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time
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i think the reason you never saw your device running out of room is likely because the system knew how much memory it had to work with and was always adjusting things to accommodate as much memory....if the system had more memory available to it it can behave differently....it's not about "how many apps one needs in a suspended state", it's about "the more apps you can keep in a suspended state the quicker the apps will run for the user"
i know this isn't x86 and it's not windows, but the analogy still stands, consider Windows 7
if you build a pc using it with 2Gb of ram it will run just fine, it will use somewhere around 1Gb of ram sitting idle, using it for the prefetch cache to be ready to launch your most used apps while maintaining a safe amount of memory for sudden useage/overhead
if you upgrade that same pc to 4Gb of ram, it will use close to 2Gb at idle.....it's not quite linear as that but you can see a direct correlation between available memory and memory utilization
the Linux kernel behind android appears to work very similarly, it will keep the most called upon code in local memory so that it launches faster when next called upon. the more memory available to the kernel, the less time it can spend killing apps in order to maintain that same level of free memory for the unexpected execution of a new app
the more memory it has, if it is written/compiled to take advantage of it, the more potential for performance is there.
I would say the 2Gb of memory is more easily utilized than the additional redundant cores in the Exynos kit. I have been looking for some real data on Android and SMP but I know recently Intel made a rare public statement about how it is not ready for even dual core utilization. I don't think Intel would make such a specific claim without data. I don't think the Exynos users are really getting much good at all from the four cores other than synthetic benchmark scores and I think they could see more benefits down the road from more memory than redundant A9 older technology additional cores.
disclaimer: I am still learning about all this so if some smart guy comes along and sees something above that is not quite right....it's not because I am making this up....it's what I understand to be true based on reading.

jamesnmandy said:
i think the reason you never saw your device running out of room is likely because the system knew how much memory it had to work with and was always adjusting things to accommodate as much memory....if the system had more memory available to it it can behave differently....it's not about "how many apps one needs in a suspended state", it's about "the more apps you can keep in a suspended state the quicker the apps will run for the user"
i know this isn't x86 and it's not windows, but the analogy still stands, consider Windows 7
if you build a pc using it with 2Gb of ram it will run just fine, it will use somewhere around 1Gb of ram sitting idle, using it for the prefetch cache to be ready to launch your most used apps while maintaining a safe amount of memory for sudden useage/overhead
if you upgrade that same pc to 4Gb of ram, it will use close to 2Gb at idle.....it's not quite linear as that but you can see a direct correlation between available memory and memory utilization
the Linux kernel behind android appears to work very similarly, it will keep the most called upon code in local memory so that it launches faster when next called upon. the more memory available to the kernel, the less time it can spend killing apps in order to maintain that same level of free memory for the unexpected execution of a new app
the more memory it has, if it is written/compiled to take advantage of it, the more potential for performance is there.
I would say the 2Gb of memory is more easily utilized than the additional redundant cores in the Exynos kit. I have been looking for some real data on Android and SMP but I know recently Intel made a rare public statement about how it is not ready for even dual core utilization. I don't think Intel would make such a specific claim without data. I don't think the Exynos users are really getting much good at all from the four cores other than synthetic benchmark scores and I think they could see more benefits down the road from more memory than redundant A9 older technology additional cores.
disclaimer: I am still learning about all this so if some smart guy comes along and sees something above that is not quite right....it's not because I am making this up....it's what I understand to be true based on reading.
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You are pretty spot on for the most part....but the difference here lies in the amount of ram needed to cache applications and perform extended tasks.....the reason my GSII never runs out of memory is because it has plenty for any array of tasks. While caching 8 applications I use all day...and still have anywhere from 325 to 400 megs available for any other array tasks .....I just can't see where I would need more.
As for your earlier mention of custom roms.....this becomes even less necessary ....right now a stock GS3 is using over a gig.....that's because its loaded chock full O'carrier BS on top of all samsungs layers of bloat and BS "features"....you strip all that crap out and you have a 275mb OS and more ram than you will know what to do with.
Bloat is the only thing requiring this extra ram because its running at system level which is also why Sense stuffed a dagger in the H1X.
Performance for launching is helped greatly by the processor for anything not in ram and the threshold for my phone is 64mb....which means my phone will not start killing of apps until that's met.....I could not seem to hit it just messing around.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

tylerdurdin said:
You are pretty spot on for the most part....but the difference here lies in the amount of ram needed to cache applications and perform extended tasks.....the reason my GSII never runs out of memory is because it has plenty for any array of tasks. While caching 8 applications I use all day...and still have anywhere from 325 to 400 megs available for any other array tasks .....I just can't see where I would need more.
As for your earlier mention of custom roms.....this becomes even less necessary ....right now a stock GS3 is using over a gig.....that's because its loaded chock full O'carrier BS on top of all samsungs layers of bloat and BS "features"....you strip all that crap out and you have a 275mb OS and more ram than you will know what to do with.
Bloat is the only thing requiring this extra ram because its running at system level which is also why Sense stuffed a dagger in the H1X.
Performance for launching is helped greatly by the processor for anything not in ram and the threshold for my phone is 64mb....which means my phone will not start killing of apps until that's met.....I could not seem to hit it just messing around.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
right on, yeah i agree it's overkill right now. I just think within the next two years, we will easily see multiple areas where having more is better than having less. I am thinking way outside the box but I am seeing visions of custom kernels that are doing some extreme caching, even running a VM type environment.....actually I am thinking of running Android and perhaps there will be an opportunity to run Windows RT or some desktop version of Linux simultaneously......something a device with even four cores and 1GB of ram would have a hard time doing.....and that's not to say it would run well on the S4 US version either, but it is certainly more suited for it

jamesnmandy said:
right on, yeah i agree it's overkill right now. I just think within the next two years, we will easily see multiple areas where having more is better than having less. I am thinking way outside the box but I am seeing visions of custom kernels that are doing some extreme caching, even running a VM type environment.....actually I am thinking of running Android and perhaps there will be an opportunity to run Windows RT or some desktop version of Linux simultaneously......something a device with even four cores and 1GB of ram would have a hard time doing.....and that's not to say it would run well on the S4 US version either, but it is certainly more suited for it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the way you think
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

tylerdurdin said:
You are pretty spot on for the most part....but the difference here lies in the amount of ram needed to cache applications and perform extended tasks.....the reason my GSII never runs out of memory is because it has plenty for any array of tasks. While caching 8 applications I use all day...and still have anywhere from 325 to 400 megs available for any other array tasks .....I just can't see where I would need more.
As for your earlier mention of custom roms.....this becomes even less necessary ....right now a stock GS3 is using over a gig.....that's because its loaded chock full O'carrier BS on top of all samsungs layers of bloat and BS "features"....you strip all that crap out and you have a 275mb OS and more ram than you will know what to do with.
Bloat is the only thing requiring this extra ram because its running at system level which is also why Sense stuffed a dagger in the H1X.
Performance for launching is helped greatly by the processor for anything not in ram and the threshold for my phone is 64mb....which means my phone will not start killing of apps until that's met.....I could not seem to hit it just messing around.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are partially right. My sensation xl and my friends galaxy note works multitask pretty well with just 768mb and 1GB ram. But that was on Gingerbread. Once we upgraded to ICS multitasking suffers tremendously. He even blamed me for persuading him to do the update. For GB 1GB is enough. For ICS 1GB is not enough if you want the best multitasking experience.

nativestranger said:
You are partially right. My sensation xl and my friends galaxy note works multitask pretty well with just 768mb and 1GB ram. But that was on Gingerbread. Once we upgraded to ICS multitasking suffers tremendously. He even blamed me for persuading him to do the update. For GB 1GB is enough. For ICS 1GB is not enough if you want the best multitasking experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to blame both device and OS....I am running ICS on my GS2 and have not even seen the slightest difference.....although my battery is just slightly worse.
Sent from........Somewhere In Time

nativestranger said:
For GB 1GB is enough. For ICS 1GB is not enough if you want the best multitasking experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must be running some early leeks cause some of my phones like the GS2 and the evo 3d are running ICS flawlessly.

[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

[Q] RAM missing?

Hi
I´m kind of new here but still haven´t found an answer why my Nexus only shows 1097 RAM instad of 2000? Even tried different hardware checker and they all tell me the same. Have I made I bad flash?

Davidkallen said:
Hi
I´m kind of new here but still haven´t found an answer why my Nexus only shows 1097 RAM instad of 2000? Even tried different hardware checker and they all tell me the same. Have I made I bad flash?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 2GB ram on the device must accommodate both the operating system and graphics Ram before any apps are loaded. So what you see is normal. This is no different for laptops. Also the 16 or 32 GB internal storage shows less after formatting and Android OS plus Google apps (Gapps) are installed. At least with the Nexus 10 you have much less bloatware compared to other Tablets (eg. Samsung).
Sent from my Nexus 10 using XDA Premium HD app

3DSammy said:
The 2GB ram on the device must accommodate both the operating system and graphics Ram before any apps are loaded. So what you see is normal. This is no different for laptops. Also the 16 or 32 GB internal storage shows less after formatting and Android OS plus Google apps (Gapps) are installed. At least with the Nexus 10 you have much less bloatware compared to other Tablets (eg. Samsung).
Sent from my Nexus 10 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for you answer 3Dsammy.
I understand that you use RAM when things are installed, But I still dont get it. When I was on stock it showed in settings 2 gb RAM. And now Hardware info (app) System RAM 1097?. Same with Clean sweeper.

Davidkallen said:
I understand that you use RAM when things are installed, But I still dont get it. When I was on stock it showed in settings 2 gb RAM. And now Hardware info (app) System RAM 1097?. Same with Clean sweeper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nexus 10 has never shown 2gb available, I've had it since launch and I believe the most I've ever seen was back on 4.2 was about 1400MB or so, and it has gone down from there on each update. You never get what they advertise on the box, every single one of my devices has less than whats advertised, my Note 3 is supposed to have 3gb available, but really its only 2.38 after its said and done..
1098 is normal on 4.4.2 for N10, I've attached a shot from mine ... I can only assume most of it is being reserved for the GPU and its super high resolution.
** These threads might have more information you are looking for.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2377356
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2463178

Hi,
As already stated here, just clearing a little the information for you .
The Nexus 10 has a huge screen resolution, therefore it requires a more powerful GPU, even having a pretty powerful graphic processors which is the MALI, it's not powerful enough for the 1600p screen, so they allocated ≈1GB to the graphic unit to prevent any possible issues.
Also, there are some apps running in background, so it takes some RAM too.
Hope this clarifies a little ,
~Lord
"All I Ever Needed Was A Little Piece of Hope" - World of Fantasy (Helloween)
Sent from my monstrous Xperia Z1

Thank for your help:good:

I did notice that with slim kat 4.2.2 I have 1647 ram available and with 4.4.2 slim kat I had 1099.
so I thought that Kit Kat uses less RAM but I don't really see it with those comparisons.
Joe