Android only sees 256MB of RAM?

[FlyPenFly]

So it seems the Nexus One which has 512mb of ram physically but can only address 256mb... does the Incredible suffer from the same problem?

http://androidforums.com/nexus-one/76206-nexus-one-specs-possibly-wrong.html

edit: To confirm, the kernel that was shipped with the phone can't see more than 256mb of RAM, we have to wait for .33 and up to actually use half the RAM the phone shipped with.

 

[Nytemare]

Android 2.2 is said to correct the issue.

 

[Haelous]

I can't find any evidence that what's said in that thread is true. I would expect something like this to be noted on Google Code somewhere.

Can someone provide a link?

Also, OS Monitor on my phone shows 404MB of memory. Is there another app that's recommended for seeing available RAM?

Edit: System Panel roughly agrees. Says 9% free, 37.3M available. 37.3 / .09 = 414.

Edit2: Device Information, also available on the market, says 404 MB with 37MB free.

Edit3: System Monitor, obviously using the same libraries as the above, also says 404MB.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Hmmm with Advanced Task Manager, after a reboot, I seem to have only 235mb of "Free Memory" so when you take into account OS overhead, it seems only 256mb of memory is actually usable by the OS.

 

[retiredberry]

So you have 748MB and you are only able to utilize around 256 after the phone takes its share???? Sorry if that is a dumb statement/question--noob.

 

[Haelous]

So you have 748MB and you are only able to utilize around 256 after the phone takes its share???? Sorry if that is a dumb statement/question--noob.

You're mixing up RAM and internal storage memory. There's 748MB application memory and 512MB of RAM.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Other interesting hardware stats:

Taylor over at AndroidAndMe did some digging as to what Samsung meant at their keynote when they said that their new device, “has 3x the power of other smartphones.” and “can process a staggering 90 million triangles per second.” Holy hell, that’s a lot of triangles! As it turns out, the Snapdragon platform can only push out 22 million triangles per second. So where are the 68 million triangles coming from? Further research lead him to find that the Galaxy S is using a specific Cortex-A8 processor, that is coupled with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. This specific application processor, codenamed Hummingbird, is only found in the Galaxy S, and the Samsung Wave.
He also shows a good chart, comparing the top smartphones right now, and some gaming consoles for contrast:
Here is a GPU comparison for some of the leading smartphones:

• Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid: TI OMAP3430 with PowerVR SGX530 = 7 million(?) triangles/sec
• Nexus One: Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) QSD8

 

[retiredberry]

I appreciate the quick response. I am still a little confused. I guess its coming from a blackberry. When i would install an application on my bb-- i could go to my memory and see where that application had taken away so many mb's. So I guess what the task manager is showing is ram that actually powers the phone?? And the space I have for installing new apps is the 748?? Sorry again but just trying to learn.

 

[jwm2]

Yeah but unless the PowerVR GPU becomes an industry standard in android phones from here on out the extra power will be nearly useless. Without apps to take advantage of the extra hardware horsepower, it might as well not be there at all. Maybe down the road this will be of use, but for now most of our android games don't even come close to using the full power of what we've got. I mean take for example the iphone games which are a couple steps ahead of androids games, so imo what we've got now should suffice for some time to come. Of course if and when the new technology is commonplace we'll start to see the benefits of it.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Think of your computer. You have hard drive space and you have RAM.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Yeah but unless the PowerVR GPU becomes an industry standard in android phones from here on out the extra power will be nearly useless. Without apps to take advantage of the extra hardware horsepower, it might as well not be there at all. Maybe down the road this will be of use, but for now most of our android games don't even come close to using the full power of what we've got. I mean take for example the iphone games which are a couple steps ahead of androids games, so imo what we've got now should suffice for some time to come. Of course if and when the new technology is commonplace we'll start to see the benefits of it.

NFS Shift is coming to Android at the same time as the launch date for EVO.

Nobody will ignore Android anymore and I would bet in a year, quality apps will be as prevalent as the iPhone.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

Good to know 2.2 fixes this. I did get some lag going back to the home screen a couple times.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Any source on 2.2 fixing this issue?

After using my iPhone 3G with just 128MB of RAM, the 512mb in the N1 and Inc have been a major selling point to me. Really disappointing that Android can only address 256mb, the same as the iPhone 3GS and 4G.

 

[jwm2]

I appreciate the quick response. I am still a little confused. I guess its coming from a blackberry. When i would install an application on my bb-- i could go to my memory and see where that application had taken away so many mb's. So I guess what the task manager is showing is ram that actually powers the phone?? And the space I have for installing new apps is the 748?? Sorry again but just trying to learn.

The 748mb is flash memory which acts like an sd memory card, it can be written to and read. The ram is what your phone uses for immediate tasks, such as running apps, multitasking and etc. The rom is where the firmware (bios) is stored.

So you have 3 (sorry i mean 4) different kinds of memory being used.

ROM = Read Only Memory (rarely ever written to, is read when the device first boots)
RAM = Random Access Memory (needed to run apps, tasks, etc)
Flash = Disk space where data can be read and written to as often as needed. This area is where the os is stored and also stores your app settings and etc.
SD Flash (Extrernal) = SD memory card, an external form of data storage. (Mostly used for media storage ie: photos, music, videos)

So you have it accessing the memory in this order:

1. Boot - ROM is read and tells the device how to power up and what to do next (load os, etc)
2. Startup - OS is loaded from the flash memory, this is where the operating environment comes to life.
3. Home Screen (SenseUI) Bootup - The home screen is booted and then starts loading apps into RAM for use.
4. Apps Startup - Apps are loaded into RAM so they are quickly accessable to the device when they are needed.
5. Application Runtime - The application is read from the internal Flash memory and then does what its suppose to.

 

[jwm2]

Any source on 2.2 fixing this issue?

After using my iPhone 3G with just 128MB of RAM, the 512mb in the N1 and Inc have been a major selling point to me. Really disappointing that Android can only address 256mb, the same as the iPhone 3GS and 4G.

Are you currently suffering due to needing more available memory? I don't see why you'd be complaining, its pretty much a non-issue unless your apps are in need of it and the android os is not currently managing your memory to your satisfaction. Sure it'll be nice when it is made available, chances are its an os limitation and not due to the phone or hardware itself. Everything software related can be fixed or enabled when they are ready for it.

 

[retiredberry]

Appreciate the lesson. This forum has some great members.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Are you currently suffering due to needing more available memory? I don't see why you'd be complaining, its pretty much a non-issue unless your apps are in need of it and the android os is not currently managing your memory to your satisfaction. Sure it'll be nice when it is made available, chances are its an os limitation and not due to the phone or hardware itself. Everything software related can be fixed or enabled when they are ready for it.

Without a promised date, seems sketchy. Yes, a major competitive advantage of Android is multitasking and if you're actually going to do that you need a lot of RAM or else Android will automatically start closing apps. If you have multiple tabs, it crawls or just wipes the other pages out requiring a refresh.

 

[Crow]

Other interesting hardware stats:

Taylor over at AndroidAndMe did some digging as to what Samsung meant at their keynote when they said that their new device,

 

[KoukiFC3S]

Any source on 2.2 fixing this issue?

After using my iPhone 3G with just 128MB of RAM, the 512mb in the N1 and Inc have been a major selling point to me. Really disappointing that Android can only address 256mb, the same as the iPhone 3GS and 4G.

The phone still feels super snappy with only 256MB. You'll be pleased!

 

[Haelous]

Do you even know what all that means? It means it will be faster only in stupid video games. Your apps and phone will NOT be any faster. Nobody cares about games.

+1.... I'm kind of confused about where this thread is supposed to be going now.

There's no hard proof that it only sees 256MB. I can't find a single app that will display used / max ram both and say 256MB max. They all say 404MB. I can't find anything on Google Code or formal specifications for the Android 2.6.29 kernel.

Then it goes on to arbitrary fill rate performance...?

 

[FlyPenFly]

Why are you relying on an application that isn't even reporting the actual total memory correctly?

 

[Haelous]

Why are you relying on an application that isn't even reporting the actual total memory correctly?

I've posted four different applications that list 404MB.

Can you provide one that reports 256MB total memory?

 

[jwm2]

Well having previous android devices with known parameters is where the speculation is coming from. The Droid Eris has 128mb of RAM built in and after rebooting the divice it would show between 100-110mb free depending on how many apps loaded into memory on bootup. So if we take roughly the same number and deduct it from 256mb we come up with roughly 210-220mb of free available RAM after bootup, less if you have a bunch of apps loading themselves. Which means the os is eating up roughly 15-20% of the available RAM with senseui enabled or 25-30mb.

Honestly its not a big deal right now, i don't notice apps losing anything once another is being loaded into memory. Then again i don't use 10 apps at once, i usually focus on just one at a time and close out of them when i am finished.

 

[jwm2]

I've posted four different applications that list 404MB.

Can you provide one that reports 256MB total memory?

Well we are going by what ATM or ATK is reporting, which may not be correct, i don't know i did not code either of them so i can't say for sure. However it would stand to reason that they are getting their numbers from the system functions built into the os which are available to all apps, widgets, and etc. So i have no idea why we are getting different results with different apps, i wish i did.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Advanced Task Manager shows just about the correct amount of free memory available (corroborated by the other apps you mentioned) that makes sense for free available application memory after OS overhead for a system limited to 256mb.