Database Develop

Full 512 mb available?

Does the froyo update make the full 512 mb ram available? I had heard earlier that only a part of it was available due to 2.1 limitations.
Sent from my GT-I9000 ADJF1 using XDA App

They were always available, ~300Mb for Programs and the rest for the system files... Why should that change?

I think what the OP meant was whether one had more memory for apps as ht tp:// developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html claims that the 2.6.32 kernel upgrade would bring "HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB".
At the moment, we do not have the full memory available in the Linux system:
Code:
$ adb shell
* daemon not running. starting it now *
* daemon started successfully *
$ free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 333420 329988 3432 0 34724
Swap: 0 0 0
Total: 333420 329988 3432
I do not know whether that is related to the graphics hardware taking some of the memory, or to the kernel version:
Code:
$ uname -r
2.6.29
Edit: What do you mean by 'system files'? The OS is stored on mass storage, right? And Dalvik and friends should appear as userspace processes taking up regular memory.

satta said:
I think what the OP meant was whether one had more memory for apps as developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html claims that the 2.6.32 kernel upgrade would bring "HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB".
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You do understand that this does not compute, since there has always been more than 256MB available
Or has there?

I was wondering about the same thing, kernel 2.6.32.9 (JP3) also shows a little more than 300mb...

buddy01 said:
You do understand that this does not compute, since there has always been more than 256MB available
Or has there?
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Hey, I'm just quoting from an official AOSP site

Mine shows 30 mb available under advanced task killer. What am I missing?
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@satta yeah that's what I meant and that's what I had read. Cheers
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I've seen Desire have over 400MB of memory available for applications in a video with a some sort of task manager on..

Are you sure, max i got on my nexus one was 312MB in some rare cases, using it without closing apps at all, never got below 100MB... But my Galaxy's max is 170MB, is almost half what my nexus gave me, that kinda suck (don't know if it matter bu tit feels bad in my head )

Desire has 576MB memory.. N1 has 512MB
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Maximum free RAM i got from my sgs is 210mb, easily achieved by using Astro's process manager and killing all non-essential services.

why t.f. do you guys always want to have lots of fre ram? please read a little about android memory management... free ram is wasted ram!

FadeFx said:
why t.f. do you guys always want to have lots of fre ram? please read a little about android memory management... free ram is wasted ram!
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So? We all still want our phones to be as future proof as we hoped they would be when we bought them. And we want the extra RAM simply because it's supposed to be there.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

FadeFx said:
why t.f. do you guys always want to have lots of fre ram? please read a little about android memory management... free ram is wasted ram!
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As long as it doesn't go below that ~70mb when the phones actually start lagging
Might also want to take into consideration that the counterpart Desire used in this thread is also an android phone, sure too much free memory is wasted memory but too little usable memory = lag and if there isn't a lot to use in the first place then it won't take much for the phone to start lagging.
Some help in JG and onward firmwares but it's still quite funny that a simple user can make a fix to create a solution for the entire problem and Samsung hasn't either thought about this or taken it into consideration. (Mimocan is my hero <3)
edit: WOO my first post after actually following these forums for almost half a year, just registered recently

Hey,
Actually you do not need that much RAM. Im running on JG5, which IMO is the most stable and usable firmware out there. Has been running the phone for 3 days straight without any ATK like apps, and has not experience any lags.
Another thing is that, IMHO ATKs slow down the system.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

The current Samsung froyo builds do not support highmem. It is a kernel compile time config option. Samsung will hopefully enable it in later builds.
Highmem made a noticeable difference in performance on my nexus one.

ed10000 said:
So? We all still want our phones to be as future proof as we hoped they would be when we bought them. And we want the extra RAM simply because it's supposed to be there.
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Nonsense. You are not entitled to more free ram in any way.
Every os uses a part of the ram for the kernel code and its buffers.
In addition the advanced graphics will need memory for its texture storage and graphic representation.
A froyo kernel will not make a major difference.
The sg has 512 memory today and it is using it as it should...

akselic said:
As long as it doesn't go below that ~70mb when the phones actually start lagging
Might also want to take into consideration that the counterpart Desire used in this thread is also an android phone, sure too much free memory is wasted memory but too little usable memory = lag and if there isn't a lot to use in the first place then it won't take much for the phone to start lagging.
Some help in JG and onward firmwares but it's still quite funny that a simple user can make a fix to create a solution for the entire problem and Samsung hasn't either thought about this or taken it into consideration. (Mimocan is my hero <3)
edit: WOO my first post after actually following these forums for almost half a year, just registered recently
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Click to collapse
lagging is actually not caused by to less free ram, in android there is no such. the used ram is caused by apps that you opened and then exited again. if you open a new app that needs more ram than aviailable (actually with a little gap of some mb) the system will close apps that are not used anymore and only kept in ram for faster opening. the lag comes from bad i/o speeds of the nand (internal memory) where apps data is stored. on i7500 there is 192mb of ram and it works ok with froyo (thanx to drakaz and gaosp team!) only thing is that every app you open forces the app you opened before to be kicked out of ram what makes switching between apps makes somewhat a pain.
also free memory and usable memory is apples and pears, useable is all memory that contains no actually running in foreground app or service. and free memory is the rest that contains absolutely no information and thus WASTED
edit: btw i7500 is running well with 20mb free ram.

I often have no more than 30 MBs free, and not running THAT many apps. What is strange is that sometimes there is 70-80 MB free, and I have not done anyting. What happens in the background is a mystery... Any suggestions?

Heads Up For Devs (Next big thing)?

Now that the lag fixes have made strong progress and Froyo's source is almost here, there's one final thing that can be fixed about the SGS: compared to other phones, it's got quite a bit of less USABLE RAM.
Luckily, a cool dev in the i9000 forum has been messing with the kernel and figuring out how to free up more RAM. He's at 356 MB freed up (non-stable) thus far, and about 340 MB stable. This is up from 304 MB by default!!
Take a look if you haven't already. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=816229
Thanks to all devs for their hard-work, and I hope this helps you out in some way.

this requires board configuration files which are only available in source, not useful to us until we have source.

has anyone figured out if the 200 some odd megs of missing RAM are used by the GPU? Or does it have its own dedicated RAM?

Kaik541 said:
this requires board configuration files which are only available in source, not useful to us until we have source.
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Click to collapse
So you're saying we need the Captivate source files specifically? Because it works just fine for i9000 SGS.
gunnyman said:
has anyone figured out if the 200 some odd megs of missing RAM are used by the GPU? Or does it have its own dedicated RAM?
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The thread details some of it. Apparently Samsung's programmers were lazy and it dedicates quite a bit of RAM for GPU purposes (but doesn't dynamically allocate it based on usage... so that RAM just sits there useless when you're not doing video-intensive applications) and some of it is also for the radio/modem.

Disgustipated said:
So you're saying we need the Captivate source files specifically? Because it works just fine for i9000 SGS.
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yes, unless you know how to make a captivate froyo kernel without sources and aren't sharing (don't point to xcalibur's kernel, that's an i9000 kernel, not a captivate one)

Still interesting stuff though. Looks like we'll be able to recover at least 20-30 MB of RAM from the GPU. Perhaps more once it gets sorted where each and every drop of that original 512 MB is going.

Would be cool if that is what CM6 was waiting for....
that would yield huge performance increases i'd imagine.

iamamp3pimp said:
Would be cool if that is what CM6 was waiting for....
that would yield huge performance increases i'd imagine.
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No it would not, having 140-150MB up from 120-130MB free RAM while sitting on your home screen and running your applications will NOT give your a huge or otherwise performance increase. FREE RAM means it's not being used! this is not a desktop where it uses a lot of swap when running on a low RAM system. the hardware on these devices NEED the alloted RAM to operate correctly. Samsung was not simply "lazy" mess around with the kernel and free up a few more MB RAM and you might find a few VERY RAM intensive applications that perhaps run smoother or what ever but then you are reducing performance of all the hardware features that make your device so nice, I.E the Camera, Radios, GPU. the effort is not worth any possible tiny free RAM boost you might get. why does everyone care so much about the free RAM anyway. I know a LOT of folks are going to jump in here now and ramble on about how it's a big deal and how samsung screwed it up or whatnot, but making those hardware features dynamicly allot RAM would mean that the kernel would have to some VERY efficient prioritizing of hardware/software RAM usage in order to have the device run currently in whole. It makes more sense to me to just do what they did and lock the amount of RAM to those hardware features that would allow them to best operate without your phone radio not working right or your camera not being able to record in 720 because you forgot you had some application open in the background and RAM prioritizing isn't as perfect as it should be. the device runs FINE! Also so this isn't confusing to anyone who might think that I think we want to make the RAM dynamic, I understand it'sstatic thing but the same things apply, those hardware features would just be stock without the correct ammount of RAM all the time.

[Q] Can I increase the physical RAM size?

Dear all,
I am curious if I can purchase a larger RAM module and replace the one in my SGS resulting in more RAM space available to applications?
My SGS is running fast but I have a lot of applications installed which utilize RAM in background. As everyone know although SGS claim to have 512MB memory, the actual memory available for user application is around 3xx MB only. I am woundering if upgrade of physical RAM is feasible.
Thanks!

HKcow said:
Dear all,
I am curious if I can purchase a larger RAM module and replace the one in my SGS resulting in more RAM space available to applications?
My SGS is running fast but I have a lot of applications installed which utilize RAM in background. As everyone know although SGS claim to have 512MB memory, the actual memory available for user application is around 3xx MB only. I am woundering if upgrade of physical RAM is feasible.
Thanks!
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I'd highly doubt that it would be possible. Maybe some high skilled person could make the swap (it probably wouldn't be easy to find one..), but no-one knows if it would have even theoretical chances to work. And yes SGS has 512mb of ram..but os and apps just take their part of it in any situation.
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How RAM are allocated in Droid 3

I know there are 512MB RAM in Droid 3, in addition to 16G internal storage. However, I don't know what go to the RAM. Are the bloatware going to take part of it, or they are simply stored in the 16G internal storage? What about the OS?
Hope I can get some insights on this. Thanks.

i dont understand. your post sounds as if you think programs are installed on the RAM. they arent. RAM is random access memory, programs arent stored on here, they use RAM to run commands. The 16gb is what your programs will be installed to

Not all 512MB will show as total memory its around 370-380 I think that is because the graphics use some of the RAM. Some bloatware will preload into the RAM as well as some of your apps. But when RAM is needed for the program you are currently running lower priority apps preloaded will close. So even if you see bloatware running in the background it cannot take away RAM when you need it.
The 16GB is flash memory for installing programs, etc. Android is not like older versions of Windows Mobile where apps were installed directly to the RAM so the 16GB of memory and the 512MB of RAM are for two totally different tasks.

Thank you.
After I posted the question, I did some research on google. Basically your replies are pretty in line with what other say. The 512MB RAM is used when running program, and OS too. Motorola says there is a 1.5 secured storage space in the phone. I guess that is where the app are stored physically. When being run, the app will be loaded into RAM.
Yes, the sum of used RAM and free is less than 512MB. I guess the difference goes to the OS and graphics. That's what I learn after posting the question. If there is anything you think might help understand these terms, please share.
Thanks for all the feedbacks.

newshook said:
Thank you.
After I posted the question, I did some research on google. Basically your replies are pretty in line with what other say. The 512MB RAM is used when running program, and OS too. Motorola says there is a 1.5 secured storage space in the phone. I guess that is where the app are stored physically. When being run, the app will be loaded into RAM.
Yes, the sum of used RAM and free is less than 512MB. I guess the difference goes to the OS and graphics. That's what I learn after posting the question. If there is anything you think might help understand these terms, please share.
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ram is memory, the internal storage (both the 16gig and the secured partition/the 1.5 gig) are hard drives

[Q] is there really 2 gb of memory in this phone?

Hi,
I'm a bit surprised that if I add free memory and used memory from the Settings app the total is about 1.7 gb. Ain't we supposed to get 2gb? I hope sony didn't do the hdd trick (see wikipedia page on Kibibyte, I cannot post link as a junior member) and even so 2000000/1048576 = 1.907 ... where's my ram?

Under CPU-Z that show : 1.732Mb.

Your OS doesn't need RAM to function right?

Dsteppa said:
Your OS doesn't need RAM to function right?
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yes it does but I thought it will be included in the "used memory"... if the OS takes 300 mb that's ok but why I only got 900 mb free when I kill all apps? I used to have a nexus 4 and with the same amount of memory on chip there was a *LOT* more available in the settings menu.

Geolm said:
yes it does but I thought it will be included in the "used memory"... if the OS takes 300 mb that's ok but why I only got 900 mb free when I kill all apps? I used to have a nexus 4 and with the same amount of memory on chip there was a *LOT* more available in the settings menu.
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That 900MB figure is about the same I normally have free. Various apps and services take up about 800MB on my phone, which seems excessive but I've turned off all background stuff that I can (some Google and Xperia services just won't go away, however). The only good news is that Android will free up memory if it's needed so that 900MB is not a finite figure (at least that's what I assume).

Hmm. I generally have no more than about 300 mb free memory at any given moment. Even just a few minutes after reboot. No weird apps or excessive widgets. Do you guys really have 900 mb free? You can check your memory on the fly using Cool Tool from Google Play.

The Z3C has 2GB of RAM, don't worry. What you are missing is used by shared graphics memory. BTW: This is exactly the reason why the Z3 has 3GB of memory (instead of 2GB) for its screen resolution is full HD opposed to "only" HD on the Z3C.
Anyhow, is it really necessary to start another thread on the same topic if there already is one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/general/ram-2gb-1-69gb-t2941487

sxtester said:
The Z3C has 2GB of RAM, don't worry. What you are missing is used by shared graphics memory. BTW: This is exactly the reason why the Z3 has 3GB of memory (instead of 2GB) for its screen resolution is full HD opposed to "only" HD on the Z3C.
Anyhow, is it really necessary to start another thread on the same topic if there already is one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/general/ram-2gb-1-69gb-t2941487
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Click to collapse
I have never had any doubts about the two gigs. But how much free memory do you have on your Z3C after a reboot and after a few hours of typical usage? My other phones with this much ram have generally had a lot more memory available at any given moment. Not that *free* memory is of any particular use in android, but I'm still curious to see whether your Z3C's are the same.

Fruktsallad said:
I have never had any doubts about the two gigs. But how much free memory do you have on your Z3C after a reboot and after a few hours of typical usage? My other phones with this much ram have generally had a lot more memory available at any given moment. Not that *free* memory is of any particular use in android, but I'm still curious to see whether your Z3C's are the same.
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When I boot up the phone and immediatly check it shows some 800MB of free memory. About 500 to 600MB after a couple of days, fluctuating though. However, don't think these numbers have any meaning for Android keeps as much in memory as possible in order to increase responsiveness. It also depends on the Apps installed and the bloat disabled/blocked. Further, comparing it to other phones you had earlier might also be misleading since the version of Android could be a different one, hence comparing apples to apples would just not be possible.