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256MB RAM? How can we be sure?

Hi guys,
I have a serious doubt that HTC s740 has 256MB. I think that OS only thinks that way. These are the arguments for my doubt :
1. I have an application that shows message box with question before it closes. Usually when OS notices that system is low on memory it starts to close applications. Sometimes while this application is in background, message box pops up (not because I tried to close it, OS obviously thinks it is low on memory)
2. I have never seen significantly less than 100MB of free RAM in any applications that shows that information
3. I created an application that loads some text files into a memory. I started it when my device was close to a 100MB of free RAM. Very soon I got OutOfMemoryException although I had 100MB of RAM left!!
4. Once I bought 32GB SD card from eBay. After a test I figure it out that card was 4GB although it appeared to any PC it was 32GB. I saw on the some forums that I was not the only one with that problem. Many face the same when buying SD card from eBay sellers in China. Point of this...it is possible to alter memory controller in order to trick the system.
Is there anyone who knows some way I can be sure that there really is 256MB of RAM on my device?
Thanks

You have 256 MB ram, but what you're not understanding is that each application only has 32 MB of virtual memory to work with (with a max of 32 applications). It's a lot easier to run out of virtual memory than real memory. Read this.

I am very well aware of that. That is why I started my test application when I was close to 100MB of free RAM. I have appended 200KB of text into a string variable just a 4-5 times. So this can't be the reason. And that doesn't explain OS closing my other application.

Try running virtualmemory.exe to see if there's a vm problem. Also, you can run devhealth.exe and see how much available ram the system has. I really doubt the device is lying to you.

not clear to me from search what is current state of swap && / || CCache

Can anyone direct me to a guide somewhere?
I'd like to make an ext partition? Or would I? Is Swapper 2 just as fast? Tradoffs? Anyone run into their sd card wearing out yet?

bueler?
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The consensus seem to be "do not use" except as 'last resort', and only needed on phones with 256MB or less of mem.
I wrote this, and I am waiting for a technical review from some experts in this field.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=897823

kschang said:
The consensus seem to be "do not use" except as 'last resort', and only needed on phones with 256MB or less of mem.
I wrote this, and I am waiting for a technical review from some experts in this field.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=897823
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have 256MB ram
At the moment, Compcache is good enough, but I can't help but wonder how much better it could be with swap instead of Compcache.
edit: "For example, If you have a 256MB system (shows as 262MB due to 1024 vs. 1000 KB size difference) and have 130MB of apps and data/cache loaded, then that leaves about 130MB for the system to actually RUN programs. That sounds like a lot, but in reality that is not enough, since the system itself takes 50-80MB, and services will take up another 30-50MB, leaving almost nothing. "
quick review, you don't appear to be differentiating between RAM and Flash? Having more apps installed shouldn't increase RAM usage at all. Unless I gravely misunderstand the Android OS, if I install a new program, it resides in the system flash, not the RAM, until I run it, at which point it gets loaded to RAM. When the system needs memory and no swap or Compcache is in use, it writes the state of the application to the flash and removes it from RAM.
What the swap does is similar to what compcache does-- compresses apps that are currently in RAM, and moves them to the swap space. In the case of Compcache, this is in the RAM. But since you're compressing it, background apps don't take nearly as much RAM, and you get an app switching speedboost because the processor can uncompress the compcache'd program, "move" it to RAM, compress the currently running program in RAM, and "move" it to the compcache. Forgive me if you already said this, I can't read the entire thing at the moment.
As for swap, I'm not sure if the processor compresses before going to the hard swap file, I don't think that it does-- when android starts getting low on RAM, it moves what was in RAM, to the swap on the SD-card. Since it does this when the system is low on RAM, and not when the system runs out of RAM, you never notice it. Reading the app back from the SD card happens almost instantaneously, because the sd cards can be read from at a speed of at least 20MB/s, maybe more. When you're restoring an app to RAM, 20MB/s is plenty.
edit2: I'm sorry but this guide is too vague to be anything more than moderately informative. Comments like:
-"CompCache, or "compressed cache", is handled by the Linux kernel. It takes a portion of your memory, and use it as a cache space, but compressed. By using on-the-fly compression it is able to make your memory appear to be a bit larger than it actually is. However, the result is slower performance.
This is usually NOT tweakble without mod ROM such as Cyanogen Mod. The kernel also must support this feature, and not all do. This also slows your phone. "
-"...swap space by either creating a swap file or a swap partition. This adds a lot of read/write action to your SD card and may substantially decrease its usable life."
-"This really slows your phone."
People wouldn't be doing these things for no reason. Compcache does not "make your memory appear a bit larger", when it at least doubles the amount of usable RAM-- when you allocate 60MB, if you average 75% compression (I usually see between 65% and 80%), do you know how much RAM this effectively nets you? Over at least 60MB extra, usually about 80! So my phone goes from having 256MB ram to having 340 effectively. Having your processor overclocked minimizes any slowdown from the compression/decompression; I haven't noticed any slowdown, and having the "extra" RAM definitely has made my phone more able to multitask.
You basically discourage users from doing ANYTHING like swapping, compcaching, etc to their phone, saying it "slows it down" and "can substantially decrease your SD Card's life". My experience has been otherwise regarding slowing it down, and regarding the SD card, the only part that would actually go bad is the swap partition. If you put that at the end of the drive, when it goes bad, you'll know, and you can just move the partition back 300MB and put your 300MB swap there. We haven't heard of any users' cards going bad from this yet. Also, if you have a class 6+ SD Card, they implement wear leveling on the card, so you don't need to worry about wearing out any individual bits.
Sorry, I'm just not digging it.

rancur3p1c said:
I have 256MB ram
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too, me too...
At the moment, Compcache is good enough, but I can't help but wonder how much better it could be with swap instead of Compcache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So try it. With CM612, I have CompCache AND Swap (through Swapper2 / 128 MB) turned on. It slows down every once in a while but my programs don't crash any more.
edit: "For example, If you have a 256MB system (shows as 262MB due to 1024 vs. 1000 KB size difference) and have 130MB of apps and data/cache loaded, then that leaves about 130MB for the system to actually RUN programs. That sounds like a lot, but in reality that is not enough, since the system itself takes 50-80MB, and services will take up another 30-50MB, leaving almost nothing. "
quick review, you don't appear to be differentiating between RAM and Flash? Having more apps installed shouldn't increase RAM usage at all. Unless I gravely misunderstand the Android OS, if I install a new program, it resides in the system flash, not the RAM, until I run it, at which point it gets loaded to RAM. When the system needs memory and no swap or Compcache is in use, it writes the state of the application to the flash and removes it from RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At first I thought the same way you did, until I started looking in "diskusage".
According to diskusage, there is no separate RAM. 256MB is 256MB. App storage is where everything goes, and what's left is used to load services and such. The numbers I added up matches. I have 256 MB phone. 100 is for apps, which leaves about 150-160. System itself takes 50-80 (acore, gapps, phone, system...) then add a few services and you're down to 30-40 MB free to actually run the programs. The numbers seem to match up to what's shown at the bottom of "Manage Services".
I know it's weird, but perusal of Android developers kit doesn't contradict this understanding.
What the swap does is similar to what compcache does-- compresses apps that are currently in RAM, and moves them to the swap space. In the case of Compcache, this is in the RAM. But since you're compressing it, background apps don't take nearly as much RAM, and you get an app switching speedboost because the processor can uncompress the compcache'd program, "move" it to RAM, compress the currently running program in RAM, and "move" it to the compcache. Forgive me if you already said this, I can't read the entire thing at the moment.
As for swap, I'm not sure if the processor compresses before going to the hard swap file, I don't think that it does-- when android starts getting low on RAM, it moves what was in RAM, to the swap on the SD-card. Since it does this when the system is low on RAM, and not when the system runs out of RAM, you never notice it. Reading the app back from the SD card happens almost instantaneously, because the sd cards can be read from at a speed of at least 20MB/s, maybe more. When you're restoring an app to RAM, 20MB/s is plenty.
edit2: I'm sorry but this guide is too vague to be anything more than moderately informative. Comments like:
-"CompCache, or "compressed cache", is handled by the Linux kernel. It takes a portion of your memory, and use it as a cache space, but compressed. By using on-the-fly compression it is able to make your memory appear to be a bit larger than it actually is. However, the result is slower performance.
This is usually NOT tweakble without mod ROM such as Cyanogen Mod. The kernel also must support this feature, and not all do. This also slows your phone. "
-"...swap space by either creating a swap file or a swap partition. This adds a lot of read/write action to your SD card and may substantially decrease its usable life."
-"This really slows your phone."
People wouldn't be doing these things for no reason. Compcache does not "make your memory appear a bit larger", when it at least doubles the amount of usable RAM-- when you allocate 60MB, if you average 75% compression (I usually see between 65% and 80%), do you know how much RAM this effectively nets you? Over at least 60MB extra, usually about 80! So my phone goes from having 256MB ram to having 340 effectively. Having your processor overclocked minimizes any slowdown from the compression/decompression; I haven't noticed any slowdown, and having the "extra" RAM definitely has made my phone more able to multitask.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also seriously depends on your SD card. I've read reports on Phandroid that said class 6 or 8 microSD cards would provide almost lag-free swaps, but that's on a G1 (which is already a slow phone).
You basically discourage users from doing ANYTHING like swapping, compcaching, etc to their phone, saying it "slows it down" and "can substantially decrease your SD Card's life". My experience has been otherwise regarding slowing it down, and regarding the SD card, the only part that would actually go bad is the swap partition. If you put that at the end of the drive, when it goes bad, you'll know, and you can just move the partition back 300MB and put your 300MB swap there. We haven't heard of any users' cards going bad from this yet. Also, if you have a class 6+ SD Card, they implement wear leveling on the card, so you don't need to worry about wearing out any individual bits.
Sorry, I'm just not digging it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Constantly reading and writing the file will cause that area to get much heavier use and eventually cause it to fail the bootup "checking SD card". The only question is how much life is taken away.
I am running my Droid on 24% CompCache AND 128MB Swap right now. Occasional lag but otherwise runs quite well. It's also overclocked to 1.2 GHz with P3Droid's kernel. So I do practice somewhat of what I preach...

so if I have 512MB of ROM, and 256MB of RAM, and I fill up my ROM with programs, how much RAM do I have?
I don't follow how what you said can be.
SD Card writes-- SanDisk guarantees theirs for 100K writes to any given sector...that's good enough for the swap to not be a problem in the near future IMHO.

let's put it this way...
Here's the specs of Moto Droid from Motorola itself (http://developer.motorola.com/products/droid/)
RAM 256 MB
FLASH ROM 512 MB
USER STORAGE AVAILABLE (MAX) 256 MB
So the REST of the ROM clearly is to hold the Android OS itself. The actual programs you can load for running? 256MB. That's app storage.
I've always wondered if there's a way to read the actual ROM contents and enumerate that... But that's for another topic.

Found this useful post: boot process of Android OS
http://www.androidenea.com/2009/06/android-boot-process-from-power-on.html
Furthermore, I noticed that the "built-in" apps (i.e. bloatware) are actually just stuff left in the "system" dir which can only be accessed with root permission. So they are NOT store in "ROM" per se, but more like "part of boot rom".
I have to find explanation on how an app is loaded, but that helps...

Aha, so that's the term they used... Application Lifecycle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITfRuRkf2TM
Okay, I take back what I said. Apps are loaded into RAM, but HOW things are allocated wasn't that clear.
From what I understand, apps, when they are killed by system, some exit gracefully by writing their instance "state" (data and cache) to app storage. Some just exits.
Browser will write the URL, for example. When the browser is "resumed", the process is loaded, then the instance loads back the URL and it's as if nothing happened.
I'll have to revise the paper, AND I haven't figured out what to say about swap and compcache yet.

Made some corrections.
On 256MB machine, 30MB is used by deep system buffers (not part of OS), another 32 for OS cache, so about 190 or so is available the OS itself to load apps and services, and just the default gapps, system, phone, and so on is about 60MB. So a fresh clean phone should ahve no more than 120-130 MB free. If you load a couple apps with autostart services, it'll quickly drop below 50MB.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2298208/how-to-discover-memory-usage-of-my-application-in-android

Another piece of the puzzle... The numbers at the bottom of "Manage Services" is as explained below:
(quoting from http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/02/service-api-changes-starting-with.html )
"Finally, along the bottom of the screen are some obscure numbers. If you know how to interpret them, this gives you a lot of information on the memory status of your device:
* Avail: 38MB+114MB in 25 says that the device has 38MB of completely free (or likely used for unrequired caches) memory, and has another 114MB of available memory in 25 background processes it can kill at any time.
* Other: 32MB in 3 says that the device has 32MB of unavailable memory in 3 unkillable processes (that is, processes that are currently considered to be foreground and must be kept running)"
The order is reversed in Android OS 2.2. Mine says
Other: 75MB in 5 Avail: 18MB + 20 MB in 3
Which should mean 75MB in 5 unterminable tasks, 18 MB free (or can be freed easily), plus another 20 MB used by 3 processes that can be killed to free up.
ProCrank says...
39911K System_server
15756K acore
12982K swiftkey
10136K DIY Screensaver (lock screen)
9392K Phone (system)
9093K ATKfroyo
6834K Terminal
3984K JuiceDefender
3785K Screebl
3482K system MMS
3329 SeePU
3244K Bluetooth
3199K SetCPU
1979K Zygote (which is Dalvik init)
1425K Mediaserver
and the rest is native system code well under 1MB in size.
If you add System_server, Phone, Zygote, Acore, and foreground app (terminal and procrank) you get about 75MB. It would be nice if that screen TELLS you which program it considers to be unterminable, but, oh well...

[Q] 768 RAM and Apps?

Does the 768 RAM on the MyTouch 4G allow installing more apps or is the memory reserved for apps/data the same as for a 512 device?
Thanks.

I think you are confusing the memory used for storage (1gb available internally) with the memory used for running apps (768mb).
You have 768mb of system memory (for running apps). 1gb of internal memory for apps/storage along with 8gb on the removable SD card.

What are you talking about man?
RAM = random access memory.
ROM = Read only memory.
Ram is what used to allocate the programs/app that is already installed on ROM, so it can run on the phone. In simple ROM is where you install it and to run the program when you load it then its allocated in RAM, I hope it make sense to you.

I've currently got an Acer Liquid E which has 512 MB RAM but I need an AWS phone now.
The phone has 512 MB RAM but only part of that is allocated for storing apps and their data. I believe after a clean wipe only around 70 MB is available for apps (I could be wrong about that number). I believe the rest of the RAM is reserved for the OS and various caches. Even though many apps can be moved to the SD card, there always remains part of the app taking up memory in RAM so if you install too many apps you'll eventually run out of space and things get ugly.
So my question is whether the larger amount of RAM (an extra 256MB) is (at least partially) available for a larger amount of app space, or whether the amount of space available for apps is the same as on a 512MB device, with the additional 256MB being used only by the OS...
I'm sure I've got some of the details wrong, but still the basic question: can the MyTouch 4G have more apps installed before going wonky than say a Samsung Vibrant?
Thanks!

No wonder you got confused I just looked up the spec for Acer Liquid E. It has 512MB ram and rom. Now you are saying that you installed alot of apps and its becoming sluggish? In that case disable some of the service and close some apps you don't use. Normally you won't have 512MB or the actual ram in any device as OS itself and other things use some memory some even used for accelerated graphic depending on the phone.
What you should look for is first remove all the boltware and run the phone barebone without running many things then you can see how much actual memory is available to you to run other service/apps. Also you can save the app as in installing in SD but that has nothing to do with the RAM which is just saving in SD and not in NAND. But when you run the app it will still have to be allocated on RAM thus enabling you to use it.

On my system the RAM appears to be partitioned into /system, /data, and /cache. It seems the /data partition is what's available for use by apps. When this gets low (around 20 MB or so) performance is seriously affected and some apps don't even work right. On my system there is 200MB available for data. I assume it's similar on other devices with 512 MB RAM.
One way to check is install the free app "App 2 SD Free" and on the "On phone" tab at the bottom it will give you total and available memory. (I'm sure there are lots of other ways to check, but it's one app I've got installed that has this info. Here's a link: whoop's it won't let me post a link...)
Anyway, what I'm trying to find out is if there's more available memory on the MyTouch 4G. If someone with this phone could run this app let me know what the "total" memory "On Phone" is I'd appreciate it!
Thanks!

tmagritte said:
On my system the RAM appears to be partitioned into /system, /data, and /cache. It seems the /data partition is what's available for use by apps. When this gets low (around 20 MB or so) performance is seriously affected and some apps don't even work right. On my system there is 200MB available for data. I assume it's similar on other devices with 512 MB RAM.
One way to check is install the free app "App 2 SD Free" and on the "On phone" tab at the bottom it will give you total and available memory. (I'm sure there are lots of other ways to check, but it's one app I've got installed that has this info. Here's a link: whoop's it won't let me post a link...)
Anyway, what I'm trying to find out is if there's more available memory on the MyTouch 4G. If someone with this phone could run this app let me know what the "total" memory "On Phone" is I'd appreciate it!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have your definitions messed up:
You are talking about ROM (read only memory) which is like hard drive in your computer. MT4G has 2gb of memory with about 1gb available to end user. SD card can be used to supplement ROM, if app developers enable it (most do) so you have the potential to have up to 17gb of storage space for apps.
RAM (random access memory) is what used to actually run those apps (i.e ability to multitask) and so far this phone has more RAM then any other phone on the market (768MB).
In short: you have roughly 5 times more available memory for apps then on old phone and that does not even include SD card.
Does that help?

Ignore this post: read the one below.

OK, I think I've been confused because the Acer has 512 MB RAM and ROM. So as I understand it now, there's some amount of ROM on the phone that is available to install apps and separate from this is the RAM used to run the apps. I'm guessing the amount of RAM taken up by apps depends on the apps and services currently running, not on the total installed in the ROM?
So having more ROM will let you install more apps but having more RAM will be better for multitasking and speed since more apps can reside in RAM before being swapped out?
From what I've picked up on this thread and Google:
MyTouch 4G: 758 MB RAM, 1 GB user ROM
Vibrant: 512 MB RAM, 2 GB user ROM
Liquid E: 512 MB RAM, 200 MB user ROM
The Vibrant can have more apps installed but the MyTouch should be better at multitasking (and 1 GB space for apps seems like plenty). Either phone should be far better than the Liquid which is seriously constrained by the small ROM.
Is this generally correct? If so, I'm definitely leaning towards the MyTouch 4G.
thanks!

Yes thats some what correct. In this case you might want to go with MT4G due to superior hardware capabilities. Vibrant has issues and you will need lagfix before you can work it fully but on MT4G is good to go out of the box if you are android normal user.
If you look at quadrant benchmarks for Vibrant against MT4G. The MSM8255 (2nd gen snapdragon) CPU and Adreno 205 GPU blows away the Hummingbird CPU and SGX 540 GPU. ATM MT4G and DHD is the fastest android device in market. With MT4G you have elegant balance in ROM/RAM for nice performance. BTW MT4G has 4GB ROM but 1GB user accessible.

Thanks. I'm going to try and get the MT4G.

Default Swapfile on Optimus 3d

Hi,..sorry if its been asked before.
Ive looked for the swapfile thats been autoload on O3D, in froyo i found 120000 as default value, and on leaked gb by indoptimus i found 122880. Is it safe to raise the value, ive tried to raise it to 322680 (in my noob thought its 320mb), with default swappiness (60). then i open terminal and check free memory, its read as i changed. so im asking to the pro here (i mean any1 here except me /cause im noob), is it safe to change it? And where is the actual swapfile place ? Is it internal sd, eksternal sd, or inside internal sd partition (cause we lost much memory from our internal sd from the beginning).
thanks for all reply, pardon me for my bad english, and sorry for these noobs question.
edit : did my self an experiment,...idk but it seem the cpu clock is working better now / more efficient (checking with System tuner pro). do a multitasking (3 app / camera, dolphine browser, yahoo messenger, and the cpu remains under 60% usage /average.

Well it is a file swapfile partition that Andora used as paging. But here's where the theory, the bigger the better??? I take up room? etc, etc, etc.
Normally you use a paging 128 mg. This is how we have configured on your terminal. To say that the swap partition is created on the phone's internal memory, Osea in the 8 gigs. It saves space and from my point of view and experience of the HD2, not noticeable veneficios between 128 and 256, much less to 512mg.
Whether 128 is more than enough.

Thanks for your reply acura, its help me to know better. what i still dont understand is, o3d is come with 8gb of internal memory, and when we power on, its only give us less than 5gb free space, even if i uninstall bla bla bla apk from the system apk, its still not come even near 7gb. Does the rom took internal space?
do we have a chance to raise our ram to 1gb? Or is it a separated hardware?

danielkaboom said:
Thanks for your reply acura, its help me to know better. what i still dont understand is, o3d is come with 8gb of internal memory, and when we power on, its only give us less than 5gb free space, even if i uninstall bla bla bla apk from the system apk, its still not come even near 7gb. Does the rom took internal space?
do we have a chance to raise our ram to 1gb? Or is it a separated hardware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well you uninstallthis and that and still your phone boots ain't it? all in all at least one gig is reserved for system android etc

jimakos29 said:
well you uninstallthis and that and still your phone boots ain't it? all in all at least one gig is reserved for system android etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup,..still boot and running just fine,..1 thing i notice is that now the HotPlug govenor is doing its job faster,..i mean, open app a, b and c, then i go to system tuner pro to check cpu usage before i put it to standby mode, and its really fast to get lower from 1ghz to 800mhz, 600mhz and stay at 300mhz(mostly single core is active), and the usage is between 5% - 25%.
power on back, open 3d games, press home menu, and check again, its dual core are running in about 70%-100% on 800mhz-1ghz.
guess im more enjoying my phone now,..less overheat on the display when the screen is up for browsing, playing.
whats still bothering me is, is it safe to put it that way? i mean, ive heard that swapfile sometimes must be formatted to get clean,..is it true? and if its true, how can i formatted it (ramzswap0 located in /dev/block/ramzswap0). for now, what i did is just swappoff it and then swappon it,...in hope to get it clean file (LOL,..noob way). any suggestion?

acura2201 said:
Well it is a file swapfile partition that Andora used as paging. But here's where the theory, the bigger the better??? I take up room? etc, etc, etc.
Normally you use a paging 128 mg. This is how we have configured on your terminal. To say that the swap partition is created on the phone's internal memory, Osea in the 8 gigs. It saves space and from my point of view and experience of the HD2, not noticeable veneficios between 128 and 256, much less to 512mg.
Whether 128 is more than enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so basically whats better?

[Q] More RAM available

Hi! I try xdandroid rom from his official site.
Apart little things maybe fixed on other rom that i've found here, there's a method to increase the available RAM? Because I've a Raph100 and it use only 50/60 Mb (I saw that in the "running applications" menu).
Thanks!

TheXeno said:
Hi! I try xdandroid rom from his official site.
Apart little things maybe fixed on other rom that i've found here, there's a method to increase the available RAM? Because I've a Raph100 and it use only 50/60 Mb (I saw that in the "running applications" menu).
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well obviously to physically get more RAM you'd have to get the soldering iron out and be pretty brave.
To manage memory better, read my Speed Improvements thread. There's a topic that covers memory management - you can get as detailed as you want with it, or just use the SuperCharger script. Either way, depends on how much you want to learn it .

I don't understand very well, but i don't think this will change the physical ram used. I mean, if it runs under/with win mobile, maybe we can change one parameter to release more memory. Like the page pool setting: maybe applying this directly to haret.exe

But the problem is, winmo is shutdown completely; if I'm not mistaken. You know, the whole reason why you have to reboot your phone in order to get winmo back. Usually apps that run under winmo, you just shut down and either run cleanRAM to regain the memory or you could reboot at that time but you do it while winmo is still running in either case.

TheXeno said:
I don't understand very well, but i don't think this will change the physical ram used. I mean, if it runs under/with win mobile, maybe we can change one parameter to release more memory. Like the page pool setting: maybe applying this directly to haret.exe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't understand, WinMo is completely kicked out of memory - no trace of it is left. Many have done extensive tests, WinMo ROM speed has no effect on Android speed - why would it? It's not running "under" WinMo. HaRET is not a 'virtual machine' or an emulator. We're actually running Linux on the hardware - about all WinMo does for us is initialize said hardware.

Understand. And ok... but the question remains: my raph has 288Mb of RAM. Why Android use only 60? (in application menu: (plus or minus) "xx Mb used of 60 total")

TheXeno said:
Understand. And ok... but the question remains: my raph has 288Mb of RAM. Why Android use only 60? (in application menu: (plus or minus) "xx Mb used of 60 total")
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well 288mb is the total amount. In WinMo, you don't have that much total because of various things like video etc. Lots are beyond me.
Perhaps RAPH doesn't have all the banks available? I doubt it. Have you checked with free? In the terminal.
My RHOD says 171mb total, when I also have 288mb physically. I would think it would show more than 60 tho... Perhaps you've done something wrong? Using the wrong startup perhaps...?
You say you have a RAPH100, that isn't one of the crippled models.

So it's not only my diam100 who can not use all the RAM! I'm relieved!
I knew that even with 192MB, 64MB were blocked for VRAM (I think)
Winmo 6.5 shows a total of 111.66Mb
In settings, xdandroid 2.3.7 (compiled by me) shows only 30Mb, with free 0Mb
using the command FREE in the ADB, however, shows a total of 103Mb, with 1 or 2 MB free
In these days I'm doing some tests with compcache off, 24Mb (1 / 4 of RAM) or more
using Compcache the maximum memory is increased, but free is always 1 or 2Mb!
In the next days I will try with FRX07.1, we will see

Fabiett83 said:
So it's not only my diam100 who can not use all the RAM! I'm relieved!
I knew that even with 192MB, 64MB were blocked for VRAM (I think)
Winmo 6.5 shows a total of 111.66Mb
In settings, xdandroid 2.3.7 (compiled by me) shows only 30Mb, with free 0Mb
using the command FREE in the ADB, however, shows a total of 103Mb, with 1 or 2 MB free
In these days I'm doing some tests with compcache off, 24Mb (1 / 4 of RAM) or more
using Compcache the maximum memory is increased, but free is always 1 or 2Mb!
In the next days I will try with FRX07.1, we will see
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Based on free, that sound accurate. Settings -> About Phone might be using some different metrics (I honestly don't know).

And what about the 1 or 2 Mb free? they're too less to be ALWAYS 2 Mb, or not?

TheXeno said:
And what about the 1 or 2 Mb free? they're too less to be ALWAYS 2 Mb, or not?
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What is this, I don't even...

I mean that it isn't normal which there are always 2Mb free, in according to Fabiett83 (he says this)

I'm sorry, before i meant 1-2 mb of uncompressed ram, there was still free memory in compcache
I think android needs more than 100Mb of ram, so it keep closing open apps and processes when i/it need ram for anything else
this could explain the ever full ram and the long time needed for opening apps
even answering to calls needs more than a minute if the phone app is not open!
Edit:
This is the result of ADB Free command in a fresh FRX7.1 install
_____ ---- total --- used --- free - shared - buffers
Mem: -- 103160 - 101116 -- 2044 ------ 0 ----- 72
Swap: - 102392 -- 64004 - 38388
Total: - 205552 - 165120 - 40432
Android uses a total of 165Mb of ram
Now with compcache set to 80Mb in froyo.user.conf
_____ ---- total --- used --- free - shared - buffers
Mem: -- 103160 - 101332 -- 1828 ------ 0 ---- 256
Swap: -- 81912 -- 54032 - 27880
Total: - 185072 - 155364 - 29708
Here uses 155Mb, but leaves less compcache free
Last with compcache set to 64Mb
_____ ---- total --- used --- free - shared - buffers
Mem: -- 103160 - 101812 -- 1348 ------ 0 ---- 352
Swap: -- 65528 -- 34356 - 31172
Total: - 168688 - 136168 - 32520
I Don't know... seem to always use the max possible uncompressed ram and thel load the rest in compcache
what i can clearly see is that the less compcache i use the more responsive the system is!
I will stick to 64mb for a while, i hope 168Mb is enough for normal use