Memory Cards - General Topics

Hi there
We develop an database application von PocketPC's especially PDA.
On the MDA Compact with Windows Mobile 5 there is only about 60 MB free space
Our Database ist self has a size of 30 - 40 MB the running abblication takes 15 MB
So if the user also has some contacts in outlook etc. we often get the "Low memory screen"
So we thought about putting the application on an Memory card.
But what about perfomance and liftime of the card if we write often to the card back?
Which card can you tell me for fast access time and / or long life time?
The cost are not so important because our product ist for companies and not private persons

Related

WM6 and Performance Tweaks?

Most of the recent WM6 rom chefs have been advocating making NO performance tweaks, in favor of keeping as large a RAM pool as possible. As I rarely need 30mb to run a program, I am happy to give up what I don't need if it will help get data back and forth to the SD card and so on faster. Has anyone got thoughts or data about this? I don't own a benchmarking program so I can't check it out directly. I have been making all the tweaks anyway, but does it matter?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Ed
X-Plore 1.1
IPL/SPL 3.08
GSM 2.69.11
edhaas said:
Most of the recent WM6 rom chefs have been advocating making NO performance tweaks, in favor of keeping as large a RAM pool as possible. As I rarely need 30mb to run a program, I am happy to give up what I don't need if it will help get data back and forth to the SD card and so on faster. Has anyone got thoughts or data about this? I don't own a benchmarking program so I can't check it out directly. I have been making all the tweaks anyway, but does it matter?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree completely! I'd like to see a WM6 ROM with all the performance tweaks and 8 MB page pool. I know jwzg is working on an 8MB pp ROM based on Faria's up coming Vanilla WM6 ROM.
Check out this thread for more info http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299584&page=10
Thanks for the link. I really don't understand the drive for smaller and smaller page pools either...
Some Answers!
OK, here is my contribution to the WM6 literature...
I am running battery status 1.04 beta 3 with the following settings in all tests: cpu speed 247, cpu scalar min 143, boost 278. set on wakeup, remember last speed. My base setup is as per my signature. I ran SK Tools v 3.1.1.0 in demo mode. I also removed the HKLM\init launch100 key in both cases.
All tweaks, No tweaks
Integer (moves/25us) 134.0864, 134.4001
Floating point MWIPS 3.490, 3.489
RAM Access speed index 345, 328
Draw bitmaps speed index 503, 522
Main storage (w) KB/sec 607.78, 612.14
Main storage (r) KB/sec 3670.25, 3469.23
Storage card (w) KB/sec 412.76, 423.11
Storage card (r) KB/sec 3353.71, ! 1119.13
As you can see, the major difference is in the storage card read speed. This led me to retest using only the SD card speed tweak, and no others. Surprisingly, the result was unchanged from using no tweaks! So, likely there is some interaction with the other file system tweaks that is involved. (See the wiki-WM5 performance tweaks). At some point maybe I'll try to pin it down further.
Regards,
Ed
BTW: Sorry for the poor formatting, for some reason the extra white space between columns is being suppressed in the post.
When I was using NotTooSmart's ROM, it had some performance tweaks. I don't have a benchmark prog but it was definitely much faster. I would say it's comparable to when I had it overclocked to 234-247MHz...
I believe what made the most difference was the System Cache... I lost ~10MB of RAM but the ROM was flying... Start up was scary though... I think it went <2MB w/ the progs I had...
edhaas said:
Thanks for the link. I really don't understand the drive for smaller and smaller page pools either...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of people tend to be RAM fanatics... that's probably what drove cooks to have smaller and smaller page pools... Another thing is people and numbers.. many tend to feel the bigger, the better.. High IPL/SPL, High Radio, High OS, High Storage, High RAM.. I think you get the picture.. =P
Update on tweaks
I think I'm near the max. I maxed out the file cache, and filter cache, kept the SD cache at 256 and re-ran the benchmarks. Slightly higher numbers all round, but a dramatic increase in SD card read rate, now up to 6.5 mb/sec! I would expect this would speed loading those big programs and files from the SD card, and is 6 times the "stock" speed!.
Regards,
There was a post a few weeks ago (I think) where someone did comparisons with playing with PagePools and the performance. They compared 4MB, 6MB, 8MB, and 12MB pagepools. As I recall there was very little difference between 12MB and 8MB performance. I think 6MB was the worst of the 4.
Again this was all from memory, but I just remember after reading that, I no longer was that concerned about the differenence in performance over the added extra memory available by dropping to 8MB.
Performance tweaks
Actually, in thinking about the issue, it occurs to me that the standard benchmarks we are using (SPB Tools) don't measure things that would likely be changed by a change in page pool. CPU calculations, memory access speeds, would not change by changing the page pool or buffer sizes. The only measurement which would change would be the speed of swapping programs and data in and out of memory (by suppressing the actual need to do so) or accessing the memory card. However, these things *would* impact on "real life" apparent speed of the device in activation of programs and quick response times.
Thoughts?
Forgive my obvious ignorance... This is the closest thread I have found for my search, "SD card speed tweak" so can you please help me? point me to the tweak to speed up my SD card?
thanx in advance!
Re: Speed tweaks
Sure, If you want awesome numbers on SK Tools SD read benchmark, (particularly when combined with overclocking) make these registry changes:
HKLM>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>MMC_Class:
Change BlockTransferSize to 256 decimal
HKLM>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>SDMemory_Class:
Change BlockTransferSize to 256 decimal
HKLM>System>StorageManager>FATFS:
Change CacheSize to 4096, 8192, or 16384 decimal
HKLM>System>StorageManager>Filters>freplxfilt:
Change ReplStoreCacheSize to 4096, 8192, or 16384 decimal
The larger the numbers the faster the benchmark. However, some of the other benchmarks run slighly slower, and I'm not sure I see significant "real life" improvements in responsiveness. I'd be interested in your impressions. One thing to watch out for, particularly when using the 16384 settings, is that available memory can drop to "dangerously" low levels on start up from soft reboot. If you're using batterystatus you can monitor this. As long as you stay above 2mg or so at the minimum you're ok, as the situation resolves after the start up routines finish. If you do go below, I've had the screen blank temporarily and hang for a moment, but it eventually booted fine anyway.
Have fun!
Thank you for your prompt and courteous answer!! I am still learning this PocketPC stuff. Someday I hope to be able to contribute. It already seems faster!
email tweaks
is there anyway to make my pics in emails auto download?
(instead of having to click "download pics" every time...)
and to create shortcuts to my text messages and other applications, how can i do that?
b.mann said:
is there anyway to make my pics in emails auto download?
(instead of having to click "download pics" every time...)
and to create shortcuts to my text messages and other applications, how can i do that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This question is slightly offtopic, but I'll answer you anyways.
Go to the email account you want to change:
Menu/Tools/Options/Choose The Account (it will take you into email setup):
Next/Next/Next/Options/Next/Next/Download size limit (drop down menu - choose what you want)/Finish
Hi,
I saw the benchmarking results that you guys posted and the difference between "with tweaks" and "without tweaks". The numbers sure show a difference with the benchmarking results but what i'd like to ask and what i'd really like to know is - have you noticed a significant difference in actual/real life performance on ur wizard? Was it obviously faster?
I mean, for me and IMHO, i'm not much of a fan of "benchmark" results and all that unless I actually see a "real" difference in speed when i use my PPC. I don't think i'll go for the performance tweaks if i'll loose 10+MB of RAM and am only able to see "benchmark" results being better instead of overall actual performance. That's why i'd like to get ur inputs on this whole performance tweaks thing...is there a noticeable difference in speed? (not just benchmark data)
WM 6.1 Tweaks
Hi,
Even the thread is quite old,
after some time of using WM6 and 6.1 and test meny mor etweaks, there I post some of them who i found usefull.
TKS to all contributors form xda or another.
1. Stop 3G services: settings\phone\ HSDPA must be disabled; RAT set to GSM; the internt still accesible trought GPRS for the most operators
Result in: less batery consumption 1-2 days stdby increase to 3-4 days
reduce blockings and wake-up problems
2. Disable Power management for SD card: use poket toolman or others and uncheck Enable Power Mgmt for SD card; or use regedit and change to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\SDCARD\ClientDrivers\Class\SDMemory_Class]
“DisablePowerManagement“=dword:00000001
Other option:
Change reg into
[HKLM\System\StorageManager]
“PNPUnloadDelay“=dword:8196
[HKLM\System\StorageManager]
“PNPWaitIODelay“=dword:8196
Note that the 8196 should be entered as a DECIMAL value. The HEXADECIMAL (HEX) equivalent is 0×00002004.
Result in: Less blocking and sd diseaparing fix or slow upload sd when wake-up
More consumption on batery, about 10% more, but with tweak 1 still OK
3. Uncheck today timeout: settings\items\ uncheck Today timeout
Result in: less delay when a phone call income o r standby resume
4. Try to instal the alarm programs and sounds files direct into main memory instead of SD; to avoid sd blocking when standby resume
5. Install .NET Compact Framework 3.5 (last vers) to your device, as:
1. Download .NET Compact Framework 3.5 from Microsoft and save it on your PC.
2. Run the downloaded MSI file and let it install.
3. Connect your device to Activesync/Windows Mobile Device Center and finish the automatically launched installation on your device.
4. Soft reset your device.
5. Open a Registry editor and navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\.NETCompactFramework where you will see two entries for the (now two) existing version references: the old one, which came with your device and the new one you just installed.
6. Change the DWord value of 3.5.7283.00 from 0 to 1 (thus enabling it) and all the other values (i.e.: 2.0.7045.00) from 1 to 0 (thus disabling it/them).
7. Soft reset your device.
Result in: shorter time (gain 0.5 sec) to navigate trough windows menus and buttons actions.
6. Activate lock applet on today menu; Without this function when the phone is in stand-by and a call income the phone delay has about 8-10s to wake-up.
Result in: the wake-up on call is shorter (gain 4-5 sec) than without this lock checked in today settings; somehow WM use this library to pass trowght to wake up.
7. Speed-up the SD card read; tks to edhaas contributor from xda-developers.
Action: increase some SD cache into registry:
a) HKLM>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>MMC_Class:
Change BlockTransferSize to 256 decimal
b) HKLM>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>SDMemory_Class:
Change BlockTransferSize to 256 decimal
c) HKLM>System>StorageManager>FATFS:
Change CacheSize to 4096, 8192, or 16384 decimal
d) HKLM>System>StorageManager>Filters>freplxfilt:
Change ReplStoreCacheSize to 4096, 8192, or 16384 decimal (16384 is dangeours high, some blank screen at startup)
a), b) settings are regulary set by default to 256; c), d) is by default to 0, so change-it and see if gain some perf.
All of them has tested and works fine.
Apply and now I found my i-mate ultimate 6150 OK, instead of first phone impression when I blame-it.

"virtual memory" in WindowsMobile6?

Hi,
my systemprogram in the Pocket Controller-Pro shows me very much unused "virtual memory". (See appendix) How does something likes this? Allegedly knows Windows Mobile but no virtual memory. For what is this memory useful?
And there is possibly an option to fallow RAM memory allocated? No matter how much program memory, Windows Mobile uses this virtual memory not, it will remain permanently 28MB free.
Und nochmal auf Deutsch.
Mein Systemprogramm in Pocket Controller-Pro zeigt mir immer sehr viel ungenutzten "virtuellen Speicher" an. (siehe Anhang) Wie kommt denn sowas? Angeblich kennt WindowsMobile doch keinen virtuellen Speicher. Zu was ist dieser Speicher nütze?
Und gibt es evtl. eine Möglichkeit diesen brachliegenden Speicher dem RAM zuzuordnen? Egal wieviel Programmspeicher belegt ist, WindowsMobile nutzt diesen virtuellen Speicher einfach nicht, es bleiben ständig 28MB frei.
Gruss
heross
heross said:
Hi,
my systemprogram in the Pocket Controller-Pro shows me very much unused "virtual memory". (See appendix) How does something likes this? Allegedly knows Windows Mobile but no virtual memory. For what is this memory useful?
And there is possibly an option to fallow RAM memory allocated? No matter how much program memory, Windows Mobile uses this virtual memory not, it will remain permanently 28MB free.
Und nochmal auf Deutsch.
Mein Systemprogramm in Pocket Controller-Pro zeigt mir immer sehr viel ungenutzten "virtuellen Speicher" an. (siehe Anhang) Wie kommt denn sowas? Angeblich kennt WindowsMobile doch keinen virtuellen Speicher. Zu was ist dieser Speicher nütze?
Und gibt es evtl. eine Möglichkeit diesen brachliegenden Speicher dem RAM zuzuordnen? Egal wieviel Programmspeicher belegt ist, WindowsMobile nutzt diesen virtuellen Speicher einfach nicht, es bleiben ständig 28MB frei.
Gruss
heross
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what is the model of your phone??
it seems to have 128 mb total memory of which 64 is ram and 64 is rom
i would assume that virual memory is what we refer to as ram
the first one being the size of the rom image and the last one being the storage memory
what is the model of your phone??
it seems to have 128 mb total memory of which 64 is ram and 64 is rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
the model is XDA Orbit with 128MB Rom and 64MB RAM.
i would assume that virual memory is what we refer to as ram
the first one being the size of the rom image and the last one being the storage memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, the ram can not be the virtual memory. Virtual + Physical RAM more than 64MB. And the first one is the RAM. Show appendix.
heross said:
Hello,
the model is XDA Orbit with 128MB Rom and 64MB RAM.
No, the ram can not be the virtual memory. Virtual + Physical RAM more than 64MB. And the first one is the RAM. Show appendix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let me rephrase what i said
virtual = actual ram available after the os has loaded to run the progs.
physical = total ram available (before os has loaded)
object= storage
Virtual memory doesn't really exist (hence its virtual).
It is a trick the system plays on programs to make each one think it has all the memory to it self.
This has to do with how programs treat memory addresses.
Since this memory does not really exist you can not utilize it for anything.
Here is a more detailed explanation.
Hi,
The virtual memory is 'virtual' - that is, although it is not physical memory, it is still memory that's available for the system to use for intermediate processing.
Sometimes, we find that the available RAM in our PC or laptop is simply not enough, when needed for intermediate processing. As a result of this, the system begins to run very slowly, sometimes so slow that it almost grinds to a halt. This is due to insufficient RAM.
I'm sure that most of you here have experienced this type of problem with your PC/laptop at home or work. The machine runs so slowly that you just sit there twiddling your thumbs, waiting for it to boot up, log you on, start that program that you want to use, or connect you to the internetwork, and so on and so forth.
The solution is either to:
1. increase the physical memory - i.e. buy higher-capacity memory sticks and insert them into the memory slots of your computer or laptop, OR
2. increase the size of the virtual memory.
With the second solution, a part of the hard drive is reserved for intermediate processing, as though it were an actual physical RAM, which it isn't. This then becomes a virtual memory, and is no longer available as hard drive storage space. The system would use it as part of its RAM, as and when it needs it.
This is especially significant when the system is processing memory-intensive programs such as Quake and similar. The processing is transferred from physical RAM, to the virtual memory. It gets processed in virtual memory, and then the result is sent back to RAM. It's so much quicker 'cos the available RAM is now free to process other less memory-hungry programs.
Thus, with virtual memory, programs run much faster because there is no more limitation on the size of the available physical RAM. You can, of course, increase the size of the virtual memory as much as you like but with some limitations.
Now, if only there is a way to get virtual memory in our devices, that would be great 'cos I find that a lot of action programs, such as car racing videos, tend to run very slowly in my device. With a virtual memory, such programs would run much faster.
Does anybody know how to set the virtual memory in our devices?
kiwi992.
Sorry kiwi, but you got it wrong.
You are talking about page file and that is wat is slowing down your computer when you run low on real RAM.
RAM is very fast. Writing to hard disk is very slow (compared to writing to RAM). When the system runs out of RAM it dumps parts of it to disk, but not to process them there. It dumps the parts it 'thinks' aren't going to be used soon and the whole thing is called a 'page file'.
If your computer were doing processing on HD instead of RAM that would take forever.
Virtual memory, and we do have it in our devices, is just a way of representing memory addresses. For instance it means that every program 'thinks' it is loaded at address 0.
Hi,
Fair comment but, hmm......, I beg to differ. Maybe we should just leave it at that, in the interest of harmony.
kiwi992.
kiwi992 said:
Hi,
The virtual memory is 'virtual' - that is, although it is not physical memory, it is still memory that's available for the system to use for intermediate processing.
Sometimes, we find that the available RAM in our PC or laptop is simply not enough, when needed for intermediate processing. As a result of this, the system begins to run very slowly, sometimes so slow that it almost grinds to a halt. This is due to insufficient RAM.
I'm sure that most of you here have experienced this type of problem with your PC/laptop at home or work. The machine runs so slowly that you just sit there twiddling your thumbs, waiting for it to boot up, log you on, start that program that you want to use, or connect you to the internetwork, and so on and so forth.
The solution is either to:
1. increase the physical memory - i.e. buy higher-capacity memory sticks and insert them into the memory slots of your computer or laptop, OR
2. increase the size of the virtual memory.
With the second solution, a part of the hard drive is reserved for intermediate processing, as though it were an actual physical RAM, which it isn't. This then becomes a virtual memory, and is no longer available as hard drive storage space. The system would use it as part of its RAM, as and when it needs it.
This is especially significant when the system is processing memory-intensive programs such as Quake and similar. The processing is transferred from physical RAM, to the virtual memory. It gets processed in virtual memory, and then the result is sent back to RAM. It's so much quicker 'cos the available RAM is now free to process other less memory-hungry programs.
Thus, with virtual memory, programs run much faster because there is no more limitation on the size of the available physical RAM. You can, of course, increase the size of the virtual memory as much as you like but with some limitations.
Now, if only there is a way to get virtual memory in our devices, that would be great 'cos I find that a lot of action programs, such as car racing videos, tend to run very slowly in my device. With a virtual memory, such programs would run much faster.
Does anybody know how to set the virtual memory in our devices?
kiwi992.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
impossible. see http://www.aximsite.com/boards/x50-x51-forums/218184-virtual-memory.html and http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1277861 ; look mostly for my remarks
kiwi992 said:
Hi,
Fair comment but, hmm......, I beg to differ. Maybe we should just leave it at that, in the interest of harmony.
kiwi992.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OS does NOT support Virtual memory. Therefore, it's impossible to use it. You can emulate it but it will, in general, result in very bad results (see my linked comments & explanations).
Menneisyys,
Thanks for your comments and the links.
kiwi992.
The virtual memory is perhaps the page pool size on the device.
personaly i see pagepool more like
System Cache in normal windows
as in mem used as cache for io as in access to storage

Analysing RAM Usage on the device [DevHealth] - How to Change PagePool size ?

-DevHealth.exe
To get a summary of where the RAM is going on the device, you can use the comprehensive DevHealth application to create a snapshot of the memory usage on the device at any point. DevHealth.exe is available in the Windows Mobile 6 Adaptation Kit and you can run it several ways.
To run DevHealth using SD/MMC card (recommended method)
Create a folder named "2577" on an SD/MMC card.
Rename DevHealth.exe to autorun.exe and copy it to "2577" folder.
Insert the SD/MMC card into the device. This automatically runs autorun.exe from the card, which is really the DevHealth application.
To run DevHealth using ActiveSync or another method
Copy DevHealth.exe to \Windows\Start Menu folder on the device.
Run DevHealth from Start menu.
The device displays a wait cursor while DevHealth.exe is running. At the end of the process, you will have a log file named mem_N.txt, where N is the run number starting with 1 and the highest N is the latest run. The log is saved on the SD\MMC card if it is present, otherwise the log file is saved in the "\" directory of the device.
Now guys, with this tool, we can view the available Page Pool for RAM. On my vox it is 6 MB. How to change this value to say 10 MB ??
Any ideas??
Regards,
Chandan
page pool
I'd like to know how to change the pagepool, too.
On my wizard the larger pagepool made my device far more responsive.
pagepool of 10MB will not make any changes in performance.
it will just waste your ROM space.
6 MB is more than enough for Vox. Many people have found 4MB to be giving similar performance. So 6MB is a safe bet.
If you do increase it to 10MB you will be wasting 4MB of ROM.
PagePool uses RAM space and not ROM space. Yes, 6 MB is the sweet spot as suggested by Microsoft.
pagepool
So can i conclude from your comments that this has been tried?
Again, on my wizard i used a 16(!) mb pagepool with a very minimal rom. This gave me a far more responsive device. In fact, my wizard is a lot more responsive then most "high performance" wm devices such as kaisers.
Since the vox has a similar (or actually the same) processor, i was expecting similar performance.
If there was a tool to change the pagepool, as there is for the wizard, i'd be happy to find out for myself and of course post the results to this forum.
Thank you for your answers so far.

a quick question for all

I have used the pocket pc for a year but still I cant answer this question that was thrown to me just now...
" how many applications can we put in our wizard?" I have looked in the net but no answer was found mybe here I can find the answer
due to the rise of wm6.1 usual capacity of programs is 27 - 29 and storage is around 40 to 44
with this setup how many applications can we put
please answer me I am in the loo here... or is there no one else has put it in to the test too?
Is that really a serious question?
It just depends on the size of the apps...
Do you ever wonder how many animals you can put in your car? Not even a whale, but millions of ants...
here's the math
number of apps = storage space available / average space required by one app
(average space required by one app = sum of total space taken by all the apps / number of apps)

[Q] are WM apps capped from using 25mb+ RAM?

hey fellow XDA WM devs and users and forum people,
Greetings,
so I am asking whether not WM devices are capped on using 25+mb of RAM for each app...
If so, can I assume that this is the reason why we cannot have stunning graphic games just like the other compatitor platforms (iOS, Android) ??
also, a reply tweet from one of my favourite game dev:
http://twitter.com/Isotope244/status/16152606483
any comments or answers are greatly apprerciated
Kind Regards
Processes in winmo can only access 32 mb of virtual memory (with a max of 32 processes). There's normally at least 7 mb or so of memory allocated to dll's for all processes (sometimes more). 32-7=25 mb. I think that's what the developer is talking about. This is changing with WP7, where all process will have full access to 1 GB of virtual memory (limited by the amount of availabe RAM).
Farmer Ted said:
Processes in winmo can only access 32 mb of virtual memory (with a max of 32 processes). There's normally at least 7 mb or so of memory allocated to dll's for all processes (sometimes more). 32-7=25 mb. I think that's what the developer is talking about. This is changing with WP7, where all process will have full access to 1 GB of virtual memory (limited by the amount of availabe RAM).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks farmer tad for your reply....
now its all clear to me
thanks.
(oh lol... then what's thhe point of phones having all those extra RAM while the OS cannot use them, at all?)

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