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How much Ram for developing?

I have googled the hell out of this, and there just isnt much out there. How much Ram is best for building ROM's? I understand that there is no such thing as too much RAM, but how much is really beneficial? I am currently building from source, and doing some cherry picks with a gateway laptop. 2.1 GHZ dual core AMD vision processor, 4GB Ram DDR3 PC-8500. I am thinking about upgrading to 8GB DDR PC10200. I am wondering if this will speed anything up or not. Or is it just unnecessary spending? The memory is only like $45 shipped so its not overly pricey, but the only thing increasing memory will help me with (or will it?) is compiling and buiding, and syncing. My internet is only ATT DSL and my max download is like 5mb. It is typically my hinderence. Please advise!
And no I cannot upgrade my internet, my complex wont let us have cable from anyone but them and they only offer 1.5mb from bloom, and they want $45 per month. I am paying $20 per month for ATT DSL @ 6mb (which i never get obviously). There are no other DSL providers and like I said the complex wont let any other company bring in cable connections.

It really depends on what OS you're running. A lot of OEMs put x32 Windows on their systems, even though they're all capable of x64 now. If you have a 32-bit system and are running Windows, your OS will limit you to ~3GB of available memory, regardless of how much you have physically installed.
If you're running Linux (which is recommended, I believe, for development), then more memory is always a good thing. The more memory and the faster processor means faster compiling speeds. Faster compiling speed means you can test your ROM/app faster.
Syncing will depend solely on your download speeds, so RAM will not really have any effect on that at all.

liquidzoo said:
It really depends on what OS you're running. A lot of OEMs put x32 Windows on their systems, even though they're all capable of x64 now. If you have a 32-bit system and are running Windows, your OS will limit you to ~3GB of available memory, regardless of how much you have physically installed.
If you're running Linux (which is recommended, I believe, for development), then more memory is always a good thing. The more memory and the faster processor means faster compiling speeds. Faster compiling speed means you can test your ROM/app faster.
Syncing will depend solely on your download speeds, so RAM will not really have any effect on that at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't build source in windows and he has stated he is building from source so he's on linux.
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---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------
Illnevertell said:
You can't build source in windows and he has stated he is building from source so he's on linux.
Ram isn't dudes problem your processor could use an upgrade though with a decent dual core building at standard -j4 will take roughly 2 hours on cm
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Click to collapse
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Illnevertell said:
You can't build source in windows and he has stated he is building from source so he's on linux.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That wasn't mentioned in the OP, but my comments about 32-bit vs 64-bit still hold. There are ways to virtualize, and that would run differently than a full install.
Ram isn't dudes problem your processor could use an upgrade though with a decent dual core building at standard -j4 will take roughly 2 hours on cm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The AMD Vision series are dual, quad, and octo core processors. I'm guessing that his is at least a dual core already. Not saying an upgrade wouldn't help, but it's harder to upgrade a laptop processor than a desktop one.

liquidzoo said:
That wasn't mentioned in the OP, but my comments about 32-bit vs 64-bit still hold. There are ways to virtualize, and that would run differently than a full install.
The AMD Vision series are dual, quad, and octo core processors. I'm guessing that his is at least a dual core already. Not saying an upgrade wouldn't help, but it's harder to upgrade a laptop processor than a desktop one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a dual core, wish it was quad lol. I am running Linux mint, 64 bit so that won't limit me thankfully. Good info guys!
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I just read that you can't compile 2.3.x+ without a 64-bit OS, so my comments about the OS are rendered mostly useless. Other comments still hold, though.

liquidzoo said:
I just read that you can't compile 2.3.x+ without a 64-bit OS, so my comments about the OS are rendered mostly useless. Other comments still hold, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At one point in time I was compiling cm9 on my 32bit system. Took about an two and a half hours though. Dual core with 3gig ram
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ICS I could compile on 32 bit jb I need 64 bit
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I think I'm gonna just grab an 8gb kit from crucial and see what happens
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That's dumb no point get a better processor before that much ram it will not help you at all with compiling without something to use that data
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Illnevertell said:
That's dumb no point get a better processor before that much ram it will not help you at all with compiling without something to use that data
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't find a processor that's compatible, plus so far building cm10 hasn't even used 75% of my processor. If you can find a way to replace a laptop processor let me know. I hear it's a pain.
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I can do it on my dell inspiron bro and why get 8 gigs of ram your not doing anything that needs it if your also not pushing the processor
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Illnevertell said:
I can do it on my dell inspiron bro and why get 8 gigs of ram your not doing anything that needs it if your also not pushing the processor
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Click to collapse
I'll look into finding a drop in quad core, it will take time to research tho.
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Rom Building Setup
Decepticaons said:
I have googled the hell out of this, and there just isnt much out there. How much Ram is best for building ROM's? I understand that there is no such thing as too much RAM, but how much is really beneficial? I am currently building from source, and doing some cherry picks with a gateway laptop. 2.1 GHZ dual core AMD vision processor, 4GB Ram DDR3 PC-8500. I am thinking about upgrading to 8GB DDR PC10200. I am wondering if this will speed anything up or not. Or is it just unnecessary spending? The memory is only like $45 shipped so its not overly pricey, but the only thing increasing memory will help me with (or will it?) is compiling and buiding, and syncing. My internet is only ATT DSL and my max download is like 5mb. It is typically my hinderence. Please advise!
And no I cannot upgrade my internet, my complex wont let us have cable from anyone but them and they only offer 1.5mb from bloom, and they want $45 per month. I am paying $20 per month for ATT DSL @ 6mb (which i never get obviously). There are no other DSL providers and like I said the complex wont let any other company bring in cable connections.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm currently using an old Vista computer with an AMD Athlon Dual core 4600+, GeForce 210 PCIe, & 2GB of DDR2. Nothing fancy nor overclocked. I have Linux Mint 13 "Maya" - Cinnamon (64-bit) installed and it all works quite nicely. Your biggest downfall is going to be your DSL (I have the same) because it takes a few hours to download the repository files. As far as compiling & debugging goes, it's all good.
The Mint linux is simply a Ubuntu based OS with far less GUI issues on my older comp, I've had both but Mint seems to run smoother:
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=106
There's lotsa good info here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1801690
I'm still very new to the actual building myself but I've had a blast learning! My phone is actually running on a system I compiled all by myself! I couldn't have done it without all the help from my new friends here on XDA...
Search the forum for more info, it's ALL there, you simple need to look for it! Hope I helped...
Have fun with it!
---------- Post added at 10:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------
scootertrashtx said:
I'm currently using an old Vista computer with an AMD Athlon Dual core 4600+, GeForce 210 PCIe, & 2GB of DDR2. Nothing fancy nor overclocked. I have Linux Mint 13 "Maya" - Cinnamon (64-bit) installed and it all works quite nicely. Your biggest downfall is going to be your DSL (I have the same) because it takes a few hours to download the repository files. As far as compiling & debugging goes, it's all good.
The Mint linux is simply a Ubuntu based OS with far less GUI issues on my older comp, I've had both but Mint seems to run smoother:
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=106
There's lotsa good info here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1801690
I'm still very new to the actual building myself but I've had a blast learning! My phone is actually running on a system I compiled all by myself! I couldn't have done it without all the help from my new friends here on XDA...
Search the forum for more info, it's ALL there, you simple need to look for it! Hope I helped...
Have fun with it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should have mentioned my compile time, It took about 5 1/2 hours on JB... you can throttle the output a bit with a command code that sk8ter listed... let me find it...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1766862
3rd code block in #1...
If you're using a laptop, set it on a hard, flat surface or better yet, get a cooler... it'll get a bit warm.
Read this too... good info:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=667298

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1812253

Android PC Possible?

Hey everyone, I am new to this site and the whole Android Development thing altogether.
I have been researching and pondering an idea of mine for some time now and I have yet to find any answers. I have been looking at an old laptop of mine that I basically just use for movies/surfing as it is pretty outdated (Gateway MX-6959: 1.66GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, Intel Integrated Graphics) but it is fine for older games and emulators. I also have an HTC Amaze 4G Android Phone that has similar Specs (1.5GHx CPU, 1GB RAM, Adreno 220 Graphics).
This question I have is would it be possible to build a small custom case to house the needed hardware and a simple cooling system and use the hardware from any run-of-the-mill Android Smartphone I might be able to get my hands on (1GHz+ CPu, 512MB-1GB RAM, Adreno or similar GPU...which I will root/overclock) to build a Micro PC that runs Android 4.0 and can run emulators (GBA, PS1, etc) as well as Android HD Games like Modern Combat 3, N.O.V.A., etc.
Is it possible to do this? If not, what are the constraints to the project? What all would it entail?
Any information/advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

See no reason why not. Infact there are already quite a few mini pcs on the market running android and thevlikes of raspberry pi are getting android ports
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zacthespack said:
See no reason why not. Infact there are already quite a few mini pcs on the market running android and thevlikes of raspberry pi are getting android ports
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes Android PC, or Ubuntu mobile...

I know things like Raspberry Pi and Via APC are around, but they have extremely limited capability from what I have read...not to mention a weak 600MHz processor. I want to essentially build a mini gaming Android PC. Something closer to a ~1.5GHz CPU with Adreno or equivalent graphics on board.
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jsekits said:
I know things like Raspberry Pi and Via APC are around, but they have extremely limited capability from what I have read...not to mention a weak 600MHz processor. I want to essentially build a mini gaming Android PC. Something closer to a ~1.5GHz CPU with Adreno or equivalent graphics on board.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doing a bit more research, I have found something called ODROID-X. IT it using a Samsung Exynos 4412 Cortex A9 Quad Core Processor (1.4GHz), 1GB RAM, and Mali-400 graphics. These seem very similar to my Amaze 4G...maybe even a bit better. Does anyone know if this unit can be overclocked? If so, how far can it be pushed and still be stable? As I stated, I want to design it in a custom case that I can rig a small scale cooling unit to in order to keep the OC'ed CPU stable.
I only really want to take on the project if it will be able to handle the higher-end Android games/emulators. Modern Combat 2-3, N.O.V.A. 1-2-3, PS1 emulator, etc.
Sorry for all of the questions by the way, I am still VERY NEW to the whole custom hardware/software scene and I just want to make sure I do everything the correct way.

I don't know if it would help but I think you might be able to run an x86 android build on your laptop.

haro138 said:
I don't know if it would help but I think you might be able to run an x86 android build on your laptop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could, true...and still may at some point since I have 3 at my disposal. But, I just like the idea of making something new...and I want to learn more about the hardware as well.

a LiveCD for Android running on x86 platforms
You can also use the disc image in a virtualization application like VirtualBox, VMWare or Microsoft Virtual PC if you want to try the operating system without even rebooting your computer. :cyclops:
http://code.google.com/p/live-android/

haker307 said:
a LiveCD for Android running on x86 platforms
You can also use the disc image in a virtualization application like VirtualBox, VMWare or Microsoft Virtual PC if you want to try the operating system without even rebooting your computer. :cyclops:
I might look into that for other things, but that defeats the purpose of what I am trying to do. I want to BUILD a system. I'm leaning towards the ODROID-X Platform, but I need to figure out developing a custom case than I can mount a couple fans to since I plan to overclock as high as the Samsung Sxynos 1.4GHz Quad Core and MAli-400 graphics can be taken and remain stable. I also need to figure out what type of power supply I would need to use since the ODROID-X uses 5V / 2A, I don't know how I would need to set it up to plus into a wall outlet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Get a big enough tablet, attach a keyboard, and you have an Android PC.
But seriously, Android is based on a linux kernel, I think ubuntu would be like an android pc.

baddaman54 said:
But seriously, Android is based on a linux kernel, I think ubuntu would be like an android pc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ubuntu is nothing like android. It's a full-fledged computer OS; compared to it, android is just a toy.
For that matter, I'm not sure why you'd prefer android for a computer, but whatever floats your boat.

you won´t be able to run N.o.v.a 3 or any of those games on a androidx86 image, because those games are compiled for arm not x86.
Just buy an Ouya.

When I say PC, I think I messed up, I simple meant a system in a box, plugged into the wall lol. The hardware is ARM, the OS on ODROID-X is 4.0ICS. It's a venture to play Android HD games/websurf with a controller or keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth on an HDTV.
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Samsung rolling out JB for most smartphones

I got my hopes up for nothing as the Charge did not make the list
http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/samsung-rolling-jelly-bean-toward-most-of-its-smartphone-tablet/

It has already been said that jb and touchwiz would never fit on our system partition.
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I think the bigger issue here besides getting 4.1 is... the mobile market needs to follow the model of the PC for the enduser.
I would be willing to pay some money to upgrade to the next major OS updates for my devices. Whether its my tablets or my phone. I wouldn't mind if I could only get vanilla android either.
It would put the power in the consumers hands. For example, I bought a laptop with windows vista and later upgraded it to windows 7 since my laptop could run it well. I hope someday android is able to do this as well. And sooner rather than later.
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bubarub said:
I think the bigger issue here besides getting 4.1 is... the mobile market needs to follow the model of the PC for the enduser.
I would be willing to pay some money to upgrade to the next major OS updates for my devices. Whether its my tablets or my phone. I wouldn't mind if I could only get vanilla android either.
It would put the power in the consumers hands. For example, I bought a laptop with windows vista and later upgraded it to windows 7 since my laptop could run it well. I hope someday android is able to do this as well. And sooner rather than later.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is that upgrading a phone will never be as straightforward as upgrading a PC. There's no one "Android Operating System" that exists as a general purpose OS. AOSP is the base, but even Google does more work to it before it goes on a Nexus device. Every phone has different hardware, which requires different drivers, and often, different close-source software and libraries, which means that every version of Android is a different embedded OS that is based on core Android. Making it generalized enough to run across the board on all hardware on the market would bloat it. It would make it memory, CPU, and power inefficient. We like to think of our phones as powerful miniature computers, but in reality, they don't even match the processor and memory capabilities of the average netbook. It's only through careful optimizations that it is able to run the way it runs, and you can't just slap a generic version of Android on a device and expect the same results.

Its not impossible...
And isn't every computer different from one another just like a phone or tablets?!
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bubarub said:
Its not impossible...
And isn't every computer different from one another just like a phone or tablets?!
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As Shrike said - the phones are too small and don't have the capacity that computers do for memory, disk and processor. Even if they did, the power draw would be excessive. Everything is extremely customized to fit within the phone's tiny footprint.
BTW - every computer has it's own limits with respect to memory and cpu capacity. Yes, you can upgrade, but there is a point of diminishing returns. What's the point of installing the fastest processor if the bus can't handle it? It goes on and on.
Lastly, it will never be in their best interests (profits, new sales) to adopt the computer model. They don't like that you keep a computer for years. They want churn. They want planned obsolescence.

bubarub said:
Its not impossible...
And isn't every computer different from one another just like a phone or tablets?!
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Impossible? No. Highly impractical? Yes
A computer has enough memory, storage, and processor power that the larger footprint of the "everything and the kitchen sink" model doesn't bog it down the way it would a phone. Just look at storage space alone...when you don't know exactly what hardware you're going to encounter, you have to account for all possibilities. Just the extra storage is going to add tangibly to the cost. Then you have the extra power drain required for the more efficient processors that will be needed to run the more generic OS correctly, and the extra RAM needed to load all of it's parts. A smartphone is a modern example of the classic embedded system. When you have limited resources to work with, your OS has to be more focused, customized, and efficient to work in an acceptable way.
So, yes, it's possible in the broadest sense, but do you want to pay $1500+ for the device that can be upgraded at will and be out of date within 2 years? Or would you rather pay $100-$500 every two years for the latest hardware and OS, at the expense of a more limited upgrade path? Personally, I know where I'll put my money.

Haha good point on that last paragraph! I agree.
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Specs
It doesn't take much to look at the default off the shelf Dell box's specs and compare them to that of any phone. The Intel Core i7 or AMD FX-8150 processors would smoke any ARM on the market for mobiles. Memory in the desktop is 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz. Again crushing the Droid Charge and every other phone. 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive, nuff said man won't be there for mobile for a while now. The power consumption would drain your mobiles battery in the time it takes to boot up. Let us also not forget that GHz and GB and TB don't all perform the same across the board. For instance a 1TB parallel ATA drive, 1TB SATA, and 1TB SSD differ vastly in performance. The NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad core, 1.2 GHz, ARM Cortex-A9 processor in the Nexus 7 just doesn't hold a candle to the Intel Core i7-640UM Dual Core 1.2 GHz. It's about more than cores and clock speeds.

MikeAGriffey said:
It doesn't take much to look at the default off the shelf Dell box's specs and compare them to that of any phone. The Intel Core i7 or AMD FX-8150 processors would smoke any ARM on the market for mobiles. Memory in the desktop is 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz. Again crushing the Droid Charge and every other phone. 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive, nuff said man won't be there for mobile for a while now. The power consumption would drain your mobiles battery in the time it takes to boot up. Let us also not forget that GHz and GB and TB don't all perform the same across the board. For instance a 1TB parallel ATA drive, 1TB SATA, and 1TB SSD differ vastly in performance. The NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad core, 1.2 GHz, ARM Cortex-A9 processor in the Nexus 7 just doesn't hold a candle to the Intel Core i7-640UM Dual Core 1.2 GHz. It's about more than cores and clock speeds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could take the time to pick apart your post and make fun of you, but there isn't any point.
Kind of like your post.
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Time to just give up on JB or ICS for charge. I just upgraded to galaxy nexus. I love it and highly recommend it. Cheers!
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[Q] Windows RT is compatible with ARM architecture

Steven Sinofsky, responsible for the Windows RT said that this version of Windows is compatible with ARM architeture.
Maybe it's compatible with ARMv6, the same from our phone.
May we'll, someday, see a Windows RT ROM for P500?
It's a dumb question, since I'm not a developer...
But what do you guys think? It's possible or just a dream?
I'm meaning a hibrid ROM, like Paranoid (Tablet UI and Phone UI)

Jajaja i dont know if it.is possible
JB have many lags imagine windows 0.o :surprisemother****er:
Enviado desde mi LG-P500 usando Tapatalk 2

i feel its a long shot
but themed roms are always possible

The first thing that I felt after spending a couple hours of testing Windows 8 @ my notebook is: Wow!! This is so fluid! So smooth...
And my notebook it's a simple AMD Dual Core E-350 @1.6GHz and 2GB RAM.
Windows RT is a more clean version of Windows 8, it will run smooth on any device with, at least, 1 GHz and 512MB RAM.
Maybe our device could run WinRT too, with some lag, but running nice! hahaha

How can you guys even think of WinRT to work on our phones? We aren't able to run even B2G..!!!

Pedrorudi said:
The first thing that I felt after spending a couple hours of testing Windows 8 @ my notebook is: Wow!! This is so fluid! So smooth...
And my notebook it's a simple AMD Dual Core E-350 @1.6GHz and 2GB RAM.
Windows RT is a more clean version of Windows 8, it will run smooth on any device with, at least, 1 GHz and 512MB RAM.
Maybe our device could run WinRT too, with some lag, but running nice! hahaha
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Our device is quite a way off 1ghz, but if it works i'd like to see it

Wickedude said:
Our device is quite a way off 1ghz, but if it works i'd like to see it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but with OC, our phone gets up to 729MHz without frying the CPU.
As I said, maybe it will run Windows RT, a bit laggy, buuut...

Windows RT system is about 6Gs(with basic apps to work) big. It would be a miracle to see a Transformer Prime run RT, let alone this phone.
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AgentCherryColla said:
Windows RT system is about 6Gs(with basic apps to work) big. It would be a miracle to see a Transformer Prime run RT, let alone this phone.
Sent from my LS670 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, forgot this "little" detail, forget it, we'll never see a port to our phone... =/
But, mods is not discarded. hahaha

Building dev machine...

Ok so i got this spare laptop, it had a problem had to reflow the bridge. Got that all taken care of. Just wondering about the specs if it would be sufficient, for say some Jellybean.
Pretty new to all this gonna start with a plain old gingerbread source from my manufacturer.
AMD Athlon II P320 Dual Core 2100mhz
4 gig DDR3
ATA Disk 320gig
Ubuntu 12.10 64bit.
And any tips about the build environment/ or compiling android in general would be appreciated. No need to write up a tut but some helpful tips, or things to remember?
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There are plenty of tutorials for setting up the development environment in these forums just search around
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The emulator can be a bit slow at times.
I Use Windows 7 and use the X86 images to run the emulator. running the ARM images can be really slow.
If you are not going to use the emulator and use real devices to test and debug your apps a slower cpu will do.
My setup:
core I5 3470
8Gig ddr3 ram
SSD drive for OS and a normal drive for storage and builds of the source code.
It's enough and I have also used a laptop with a intel dual core a while back. But the emulator was really slow on that machine, I could not use the emulator with a tablet resolution.

thx for the tip, decided to just run full install of ubuntu 12.10 64bit. I think im pretty much ready to run...just gettin all the sources i can.
Question after ...gitin'... a source is it ok to rename the directory? I wont run into probs? as long as I dont mess around with anything tied to my paths in env. variables right? Even those I guess I could edit later. I dunno why im havin this brain fart tonight.
Just gotta watch what dir im in while workin i suppose if i go all renaming. I dont want to mess with the dirs in the source itself just the dir where i dl the sources to. I like to keep things oganized.
Sorry for all my noobieness lol. I also got some questions about the manifests but ill save them for google.
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