Database Users

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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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You must be running some early leeks cause some of my phones like the GS2 and the evo 3d are running ICS flawlessly.

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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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
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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
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
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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.
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

New Nexus10 shows total ram as 1.2gb via android assistant

New nexus 10 user here. came from an htc flyer. Anyways, android assistant shows total ram on my device as 1.2gb or so. Specs say thing has 2gb. Does any ones else's device report that or is that the way android assitant reports it? I am just wondering if i have a new device with ram issues. Also, with not much running, this things shows available ram like my Vivid (about 300gb or so ) and it is supposed to have 2x the amount of Ram.
Thanks for any insight.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2

What your seeing is correct. The Nexus 10 has 2GB of RAM on the motherboard, but 800MB of it is reserved specifically for the GPU. I still think it's kind of cheap marketing, but meh.
Before 4.2.2, only close to 400MB was reserved for the GPU, but apparently you could go past that limit in some cases, and it would cause userspace RAM fragmentation.

espionage724 said:
What your seeing is correct. The Nexus 10 has 2GB of RAM on the motherboard, but 800MB of it is reserved specifically for the GPU. I still think it's kind of cheap marketing, but meh.
Before 4.2.2, only close to 400MB was reserved for the GPU, but apparently you could go past that limit in some cases, and it would cause userspace RAM fragmentation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could copy that everytime a new user asks about this ram "issue", which isn't, since I saw you answered like 7 times? the same thing.

espionage724 said:
What your seeing is correct. The Nexus 10 has 2GB of RAM on the motherboard, but 800MB of it is reserved specifically for the GPU. I still think it's kind of cheap marketing, but meh.
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Click to collapse
Not cheap marketing, laptop manufacturers have been doing this for ages with integrated video cards. It's a little deceptive but it's the norm for this. I the Galaxy Nexus also did it. I am not certain but I don't think any mobile device has dedicated video ram, I believe it just is not reported as missing.
The Galaxy Nexus shows as having 893mb of ram.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

lKBZl said:
You could copy that everytime a new user asks about this ram "issue", which isn't, since I saw you answered like 7 times? the same thing.
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Click to collapse
Is there a problem with how I'm describing it? The Nexus 10 does have 2GB of RAM, with close to 800MB (I forget the exact amount but I know I reported it before) being reserved strictly for the GPU, and not userspace apps. I know it's not an "issue", but how I feel about it doesn't really mean too much at all though.
altimax98 said:
Not cheap marketing, laptop manufacturers have been doing this for ages with integrated video cards. It's a little deceptive but it's the norm for this. I the Galaxy Nexus also did it. I am not certain but I don't think any mobile device has dedicated video ram, I believe it just is not reported as missing.
The Galaxy Nexus shows as having 893mb of ram.
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Click to collapse
I agree it's kind of normal, but it's how much is missing that still bothers me. The Galaxy Nexus is said to have 1GB of RAM, and if what you say is true, you're missing only a tiny bit over 100MB (which, is nothing imo). The Nexus 10 on the other hand is missing nearly half the advertised amount (not literally "missing" but not usable under normal conditions).
I'm pretty sure most laptop GPU's don't take "that" much RAM either when it's not dedicated (most I've seen was 512MB shared video memory, on laptops containing 4GB of RAM; very small amount really)

espionage724 said:
What your seeing is correct. The Nexus 10 has 2GB of RAM on the motherboard, but 800MB of it is reserved specifically for the GPU. I still think it's kind of cheap marketing, but meh.
Before 4.2.2, only close to 400MB was reserved for the GPU, but apparently you could go past that limit in some cases, and it would cause userspace RAM fragmentation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the more i know and read about the n10 the more i feel being ripped off

Ripped of? For around $400-$500, you're getting a device with extremely high resolution (highest in its class EVER), a 1.7 GHz CPU with up to 2.1 possible, a software and hardware support guarantee from Google, an extremely competitive GPU, and future-proofing with the latest Android versions for years to come.
That sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me. I know I've loved my N10.
If you're having issues with your device its likely a manufacturing fault, just return it to Google and get a new one.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using XDA Premium HD app

hpl912 said:
the more i know and read about the n10 the more i feel being ripped off
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Rip off?
Have you checked how much usable space you have after formatting a 1GB drive? The N10 delivers the specified HW but there is always overhead required to use it, no matter which OS you have. That is just a fact of computing. I would argue that you get to use ALL of the N10 hardware when you accurately account for the a running OS and apps.
Compared to Win8 RT, Android (Linux) is a skinny fashion model. Go look at the Win8 RT tablet specs then see how much usable HW is left after it boots up. Here is just one example.

espionage724 said:
Is there a problem with how I'm describing it? The Nexus 10 does have 2GB of RAM, with close to 800MB (I forget the exact amount but I know I reported it before) being reserved strictly for the GPU, and not userspace apps. I know it's not an "issue", but how I feel about it doesn't really mean too much at all though.
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Click to collapse
Lol why do you take it like this? I just said you answered a lot of times the same, and you could copy it since i'm sure you'll have to answer that again' Where's the problem?

espionage724 said:
Is there a problem with how I'm describing it? The Nexus 10 does have 2GB of RAM, with close to 800MB (I forget the exact amount but I know I reported it before) being reserved strictly for the GPU, and not userspace apps. I know it's not an "issue", but how I feel about it doesn't really mean too much at all though.
I agree it's kind of normal, but it's how much is missing that still bothers me. The Galaxy Nexus is said to have 1GB of RAM, and if what you say is true, you're missing only a tiny bit over 100MB (which, is nothing imo). The Nexus 10 on the other hand is missing nearly half the advertised amount (not literally "missing" but not usable under normal conditions).
I'm pretty sure most laptop GPU's don't take "that" much RAM either when it's not dedicated (most I've seen was 512MB shared video memory, on laptops containing 4GB of RAM; very small amount really)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I stand corrected about the Galaxy Nexus. It reports at 693 available ram.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

[Q] any way to retrieve back the 1Gb RAM from GPU allocation?

Hello, I noticed that, from 4.1 to 4.3, ram dropped twice.
Now it's just a bit more than 1GB.
Well, I bought a device with 2GB RAM. I know, that's not completely wasted but allocated for GPU.
But... 1GB? On 4.1 we had 1.6 GB of real free ram, then 1.3 on 4.2, now 1.1!
And on kit kat? Maybe 512 MB?
Anyway. There is any way to get it back? Custom kernel? Custom ROM? No one tried this? I never compiled a ROM or kernel for android, so I have no idea where to start.
I think that's not an honest way of upgrading. 2GB was high end, and in android world would have been a lot of ram for a lot of time. 1Gb is just barely enough... It's already killing application, usually launcher or keyboard.
Inviato dal mio Galaxy Nexus con Tapatalk 4

gatsu_1981 said:
Hello, I noticed that, from 4.1 to 4.3, ram dropped twice.
Now it's just a bit more than 1GB.
Well, I bought a device with 2GB RAM. I know, that's not completely wasted but allocated for GPU.
But... 1GB? On 4.1 we had 1.6 GB of real free ram, then 1.3 on 4.2, now 1.1!
And on kit kat? Maybe 512 MB?
Anyway. There is any way to get it back? Custom kernel? Custom ROM? No one tried this? I never compiled a ROM or kernel for android, so I have no idea where to start.
I think that's not an honest way of upgrading. 2GB was high end, and in android world would have been a lot of ram for a lot of time. 1Gb is just barely enough... It's already killing application, usually launcher or keyboard.
Inviato dal mio Galaxy Nexus con Tapatalk 4
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There is lots of information out on the internet for this very topic. I believe it has to do with more memory allocation set aside for GPU or processing.

SmokinCharger said:
There is lots of information out on the internet for this very topic. I believe it has to do with more memory allocation set aside for GPU or processing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know the theory, I don't care why they did that.
It's like selling it for 2GB, then getting 1GB back, then... It's a 1GB tablet!
They should put 1GB for GPU and 2GB for RAM. You know, RAM, Random allocation memory, something that should be accessible from every application, not just locked there waiting for the GPU.
320, even 512 could be acceptable as a sacrifice for GPU allocation.
On PC you can even allocate 64MB on Intel chipset for GPU... And on PC you can have a lot of spare memory.
And on a tablet...One of the most powerful, and what should have been a top-sell for Google, you reserve a gig for GPU?
That's crazy. I almost feel scammed.
On topic:
Yeah, ok, but... If I'm not going to play. Can I flash a different kernel with some different init script?
I think that's something kernel-level. I didn't even rooted my Nexus 10, so I have not a lot of information, but it's not a common thing for tablet > 1920x1080 to allocate a gig for GPU. That's not right... I feel robbed this way.

I also feel the same way. On the nexus s forums there is a mod for kernels called bigmem, which takes some ram from some of the components and make it available to the system, for apps. I think the 1st ones who did this are the cyanogenmod team themselves, in one of their roms.

A kernel dev could do some mods to give more RAM to the user instead of reserving it, lots of phones have kernels like this. Also things can be removed from the ROM to free up more RAM to the user instead of it being taken by system services. I think this is also a lot of the reason we have less free now with Android OS version upgrades, because Google is adding a lot more services and these services take memory. We used to have 512MB of memory reserved for GPU, this was increased to 768MB in 4.2.2. I havent looked at the changelogs for 4.3 on this tablet but I dont think the GPU specifically got more reserved. That other 256MB lost over these couple version looks to do more with system services than GPU reservation.

That is my interest. Is anything available? I don't play a lot.
On an Android device, memory means future proof. Not totally, but a big part plays there IMHO .
1Gb is becoming low end, my galaxy nexus swap a lot if I don't remember to swipe away some application from the application preview button. And my galaxy nexus have 1gb - something like 230 MB allocated = almost 750 mb free. Not too far from 1100 MB free.
It will take a few application update, newer g+, Facebook, Google music and chrome et voila... You launcher will have to restart every time loading your 80 application, and the app will lose data swapping between applications (meaning that it was killed to reserve memory). It' s already happening and it' s sad, since it's a high end device.
Inviato dal mio Galaxy Nexus con Tapatalk 4

I do not think anything is available now, everyone seems to be concentrating on adding features and functionality than slimming down and freeing memory. An example of what can be done is if you look in the GNex section of development there is a guy named mpokwsths with his "Mpokang kernel" that is removing things and slimming down the kernel to give more free RAM. I believe his thread says he is up at 772MB free on the GNexus now at boot. But no I dont think there is anything yet for the Nexus 10

gatsu_1981 said:
Hello, I noticed that, from 4.1 to 4.3, ram dropped twice.
Now it's just a bit more than 1GB.
Well, I bought a device with 2GB RAM. I know, that's not completely wasted but allocated for GPU.
But... 1GB? On 4.1 we had 1.6 GB of real free ram, then 1.3 on 4.2, now 1.1!
And on kit kat? Maybe 512 MB?
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The rumor is that KitKat will be optimized to run on low-memory devices down to 512 MB (the article mentions android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, but it's likely that's what's being released as KitKat instead) when it comes out in a month, again according to the latest rumors. Presumably it will run a lot better on the Nexus 10, but we'll have to wait and see. At least we'll get it within a week or two of release, :highfive: as opposed to the many months most non-Nexus owners have to wait.

Enormous RAM usage

Since updating to KitKat RAM usage has been awful, 700 MB is minimum. It kills my multitasking because every background app is killed.. Any sollutions? Thanks

Same here. Google said they will improve ram usage with kitkat but they made it more trash.

matejilic said:
Since updating to KitKat RAM usage has been awful, 700 MB is minimum. It kills my multitasking because every background app is killed.. Any sollutions? Thanks
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Interesting as I'm using a custom ROM (see my signature) which is android v4.4.2 and I'm consistently seeing the lowest used memory since v4.3 took more for graphics. With 4.3 I was seeing 76% used now I see as low as 53%. With regular 66%.
If apps are restarting it is not noticeable.

3DSammy said:
Interesting as I'm using a custom ROM (see my signature) which is android v4.4.2 and I'm consistently seeing the lowest used memory since v4.3 took more for graphics. With 4.3 I was seeing 76% used now I see as low as 53%. With regular 66%.
If apps are restarting it is not noticeable.
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Click to collapse
How much ram is that percent out of though? Third tablet is supposed to have 2 GB ram and I know they say the GPU takes some but I'm also only seeing about 800 mega bytes actually used and out of that only around 200-300 free. It's not really an issue for me but why dues the GPU need so much
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

abdel12345 said:
How much ram is that percent out of though? Third tablet is supposed to have 2 GB ram and I know they say the GPU takes some but I'm also only seeing about 800 mega bytes actually used and out of that only around 200-300 free. It's not really an issue for me but why dues the GPU need so much
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
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I was referring to a Nexus 10, so 2GB. Performance/screen resolution is the reason for so much memory allotted to the GPU. Combined with the OS requirements it seems as if there should be more available but PC's have been allocating memory to GPUs for years.
We have already seen some tablets with 3GB and soon with 64 bit ARM processors and an Android OS to match we'll see 4GB tabs.
As you mentioned unless you are impacted this is much to do about nothing.

3DSammy said:
I was referring to a Nexus 10, so 2GB. Performance/screen resolution is the reason for so much memory allotted to the GPU. Combined with the OS requirements it seems as if there should be more available but PC's have been allocating memory to GPUs for years.
We have already seen some tablets with 3GB and soon with 64 bit ARM processors and an Android OS to match we'll see 4GB tabs.
As you mentioned unless you are impacted this is much to do about nothing.
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Click to collapse
I was talking about my nexus 10 too.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app