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I posted this in another thread but thought it was worthy of its own thread.
I've owned a lot of Android devices with 1GB of RAM - Xoom, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Note, and the original Transformer. This is the first android device that actually shows 1gb of ram. Every 1gb phone or tablet I've had only lists around 750mb total, and then only about 400 or so free on a fresh boot. The explanation has always been that 1gb is shared ram and that the mixing 250mb or so is for video ram. You can see total and available ram in an app called OSMonitor. Anyway, the tf300 actually shows 1gb total ram, and 750 free on a fresh boot. So that's an extra 250mb of usable ram over other devices.
Thoughts?
The device has more as 1GB RAM (1,2GB maybe)?
Gesendet von meinem Galaxy Nexus mit Tapatalk 2
It's advertised as 1GB of RAM, so either it has more actual RAM (1.2 like you suggest) or it has dedicated video RAM somehow.
It's very possible this is inherent to Tegra3. I do not have any Tegra 3 devices to check. I'm going to ask in the Prime Q&A section.
Obviously either a design flaw or outright false advertisement. You should sue them for giving you more ram than advertised.
goodintentions said:
Obviously either a design flaw or outright false advertisement. You should sue them for giving you more ram than advertised.
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WTF? I'm not complaining I'm trying to understand it. It's different than every other Android device.
EvoXOhio said:
WTF? I'm not complaining I'm trying to understand it. It's different than every other Android device.
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Goodintentions is known to be sarcastic you will learn that in time. Most likley it is because tegra 3's gpu has its own dedicated ram so it does not go into the system ram
mrevankyle said:
Goodintentions is known to be sarcastic you will learn that in time. Most likley it is because tegra 3's gpu has its own dedicated ram so it does not go into the system ram
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That would explain it. do you have a source link to back that up? not finding anything in a google search.
Thanks.
Everything im finding is that it just has the 1gb of ram, but possibly the way it handles it is different and may expand or shrink that video ram depending on what it needs.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html
just general info
also is DDR3
jblah said:
also is DDR3
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Yeah DDR3 means it's faster and has more bandwidth, but that wouldn't affect whether the system has dedicated or shared video RAM.
Is it possible that it's just more efficient in the usage of it's 1GB of ram than the previous products? I can't find any mention anywhere of Tegra 3 specifically doing anything or of the TF300 having more secret ram or anything.
That was the first thing that I noticed about this tab, is that the memory management on this tab is awesome. I can be running GTA3, have two or three tabs open in the browser and also be streaming music and the RAM only drops to about 550MB. At idle on a fresh boot, around 750MB free at idle, and If i do a task killer it will jump up to 830MB temporarily. I can only think it's becuase of the Tegra3 CPU. Regardless it's nice to see a tab with so much free RAM.
Scavar said:
Is it possible that it's just more efficient in the usage of it's 1GB of ram than the previous products? I can't find any mention anywhere of Tegra 3 specifically doing anything or of the TF300 having more secret ram or anything.
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No because we're not talking about FREE RAM here we're taking about TOTAL RAM. either the system has more than 1GB or it's not sharing RAM with the video card.
das7771 said:
At idle on a fresh boot, around 750MB free at idle, and If i do a task killer it will jump up to 830MB temporarily. I can only think it's becuase of the Tegra3 CPU. Regardless it's nice to see a tab with so much free RAM.
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Huge amounts of free RAM is not something nice to see; it's a pointless waste. I guess that misunderstanding is still pervasive in the "OMG tasks are in RAM MUST KILL THEM" community ...
nightwulf said:
Huge amounts of free RAM is not something nice to see; it's a pointless waste. I guess that misunderstanding is still pervasive in the "OMG tasks are in RAM MUST KILL THEM" community ...
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Huge amounts of free RAM on a fresh boot is a GREAT thing. It means that the OS is lightweight and not loading tons of bloatware into memory. Now after using the tablet and opening tons of apps the free RAM should go down, if not then yes it is wasting RAM by dumping stuff out of memory.
But besides that the topic at hand is total RAM. more total RAM means more apps can stay in the background which means better multitasking.
They all actually have 1GB of RAM. The difference is simply that some chips separate the video RAM and the system RAM, where others are able to use a shared memory space and dynamically allocate RAM to video as necessary.
Most likely, devices with higher memory bandwidth will be able to use dynamically allocation because the extra bandwidth provides the overhead necessary to minimize performance impacts should the GPU need to pull more memory from the system on the fly.
On Tegra2 devices which were limited to 1 channel of 32bit ddr2, there is much less memory bandwidth than on tegra3 with ddr3 (or dual channel ddr2 like ipad). In this instance, it would cause a performance hit to have to free up extra memory from background tasks and then reallocate it to the gpu - so the solution is to just partition the entire memory into two sections each of which are generally large enough for both their respective duties: video ram and system ram.
EvoXOhio said:
Yeah DDR3 means it's faster and has more bandwidth, but that wouldn't affect whether the system has dedicated or shared video RAM.
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current reviews & memory benchmarks have shown the 300 ddr3 ram shows no Performance improvement over Prime ddr2. developers here can probably make the most it though.
Finally you all have your own section. CONGRATS!
---------- Post added at 10:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:25 AM ----------
a.mcdear said:
They all actually have 1GB of RAM. The difference is simply that some chips separate the video RAM and the system RAM, where others are able to use a shared memory space and dynamically allocate RAM to video as necessary.
Most likely, devices with higher memory bandwidth will be able to use dynamically allocation because the extra bandwidth provides the overhead necessary to minimize performance impacts should the GPU need to pull more memory from the system on the fly.
On Tegra2 devices which were limited to 1 channel of 32bit ddr2, there is much less memory bandwidth than on tegra3 with ddr3 (or dual channel ddr2 like ipad). In this instance, it would cause a performance hit to have to free up extra memory from background tasks and then reallocate it to the gpu - so the solution is to just partition the entire memory into two sections each of which are generally large enough for both their respective duties: video ram and system ram.
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he makes a great point. although no memory improvements shown in benchmarking, what he is saying could be seen as an improvement though. good info.
300 is not the only Tegra3 kid on the block with new DDR3 ram. Toshiba just released their Tegra3 Excite 10.1 in. tablet. it has gorilla glass, 1280x800 display, and 1gb DDR3 ram. available in 16 or 32gb. you can also order a 64gb.
demandarin said:
current reviews & memory benchmarks have shown the 300 ddr3 ram shows no Performance improvement over Prime ddr2. developers here can probably make the most it though.
Finally you all have your own section. CONGRATS!
---------- Post added at 10:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:25 AM ----------
he makes a great point. although no memory improvements shown in benchmarking, what he is saying could be seen as an improvement though. good info.
300 is not the only Tegra3 kid on the block with new DDR3 ram. Toshiba just released their Tegra3 Excite 10.1 in. tablet. it has gorilla glass, 1280x800 display, and 1gb DDR3 ram. available in 16 or 32gb. you can also order a 64gb.
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500 bucks for a 32gig.... No sir.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
In the spec section Amazon lists the TF300 as having 2GB of RAM...I'm sure its a mistype though.
http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-TF300-T-B1-BL-10-1-Inch-Tablet/dp/B007P4YAPK
Running 2.6 Kernel mine shows 983,2 MB of Total RAM.
After installing some nec. apps it drops down from ~850 MB to ~630 of
available RAM. After removal of most BW it shows ~820 MB of free RAM.
It's normal behaviour. It just acts like the Prime. Open it und you'll see a Prime with some faster MemoryChips & an optimized board design
I just hated my Prime for many reasons, but I really love this one
They've improved very much here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra#Tegra_3
Wasjust reading this and it says the CPU goes to 1.3Ghz in single core mode. does that mean 4 cores run at 1.2 then it shuts 3 down and bumps one of them to 1.3 if it needs it?
also anyone now the memery the gfx uses
4 cores @ 1.2Ghz = 4.8 G-ops/sec
1 core @ 1.3Ghz = 1.3 G-ops/sec.
So, the answer to your question is yes and no. Under an idle condition (not sleep) where there is little processor load or runnable threads, there will be only one CPU running @ 1.3 Ghz Fmax. (It can of course be running at a slower speed than this based on what the rate governor has decided) If the demand changes so that one or more additional cores need to be brought on line, the Fmax is constrained to 1.2 Ghz, and those additional cores are brought on line as needed. It may or may not have actually been clocking at 1.3 Ghz when this happens, but probably it will be.
This answer applies to the STOCK kernels. All of this behavior is under control of the kernel, and some of the dev kernels alter this code with different behaviors.
cheers.
Niice info man. thanks very much. any idea on how much RAM the gfx uses?
-PiLoT- said:
Niice info man. thanks very much. any idea on how much RAM the gfx uses?
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No clue. Don't even know if the GPU has some private SRAM on the SoC. Consult the Tegra 3 TRM for that. But, a single-layer 24-bit framebuffer @ 1280x800 needs 3MB for a single layer. Add in z-buffering and whatever else the openGL ES (1.0 & 2.0) libraries do with offscreen/onscreen primitive storage in userland memory space and I suppose it can be much much higher than that.
Somehow I sense you are asking about kernel-reserved memory; I don't know if the kernel reserves some minimum amount of general-purpose RAM (e.g. for the framebuffer) or not. Sorry. (Use the force, read the source!)
bftb0 said:
No clue. Don't even know if the GPU has some private SRAM on the SoC. Consult the Tegra 3 TRM for that. But, a single-layer 24-bit framebuffer @ 1280x800 needs 3MB for a single layer. Add in z-buffering and whatever else the openGL ES (1.0 & 2.0) libraries do with offscreen/onscreen primitive storage in userland memory space and I suppose it can be much much higher than that.
Somehow I sense you are asking about kernel-reserved memory; I don't know if the kernel reserves some minimum amount of general-purpose RAM (e.g. for the framebuffer) or not. Sorry. (Use the force, read the source!)
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No im thinking more a portion of the 1gb system RAM was given to the gfx to play with. so our system RAM is only say 768mb
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.
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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.
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?
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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
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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.
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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
My K1 has upgraded to 7.0. it became slow when i use it. I rooted and optimzed it but it can olny get a lttle better.
I want to know if an android device can expand RAM by changing the RAM chip? And if it can perform much better?
its very difficult and not very cost-effective to hire skilled engineer to replace it . just buy a new tablet
Guan Yu said:
its very difficult and not very cost-effective to hire skilled engineer to replace it . just buy a new tablet
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so can u tell me will its RAM expand if i change the RAM chip withe higher one?
i saw the RAM of xiaomi tablet2 can be expanded with doing that. so can its CPU.
grayfox23 said:
so can u tell me will its RAM expand if i change the RAM chip withe higher one?
i saw the RAM of xiaomi tablet2 can be expanded with doing that. so can its CPU.
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i dont know cuz its also depend on software compability , but who know ? you can try it
Guan Yu said:
i dont know cuz its also depend on software compability , but who know ? you can try it
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1st,thank you for replying me. i did a lot of things befroe i buy it, because it is a second hand.and it former owner told me it was upgraded to 7.0 and became slow maybe because it 2GB RAM. so i was thinking if its RAM can be expanded by doing so.
Likely not, you will need a compatible ram chip. Even if the larger chip is compatible, the board or kernel may limit it to just 2gb. 32bit devices cannot use more than 4gb anyways. The best you can do is to just increase the swap.
grayfox23 said:
1st,thank you for replying me. i did a lot of things befroe i buy it, because it is a second hand.and it former owner told me it was upgraded to 7.0 and became slow maybe because it 2GB RAM. so i was thinking if its RAM can be expanded by doing so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been having the same thoughts as you. On this device, the ram is actually not built in the soc as most smartphones and tablets, its it separate from it on 4x512mb chips.
I got the tablet recently and the first thing that came across my mind was changing the thermal paste, the factory one is really garbage so I cleaned and replaced it with arctic mx2, under the heatsink of the soc and the ram there is some sort of a graphite thermal pad, which is not very efficient, I replaced it with thermal paste as well. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, so idk what are the ram chips exactly, devcheck reports that the device has lpddr3 1066mhz ram but I'm not sure if that is trustworthy.
IMO upgrading the ram to at least 3gb is very possible, now the question is what kind of ram chips we need and where should we look for them.
Tegra K1 is practically the fastest 32-bit soc in existence, so more ram would definitely help it out a lot. I mentioned it in another post but on the latest firmware the ram usage is abnormally high on this device, sitting at about 1gb at idle(no gapps, LOS) while it should be closer to 500mb.