Memory - 1 GB?

[icebike]

Different GPU takes a different amount of RAM for VRAM.

The T3 is taking some as well, but it doesn't report it the same way. This is perfectly normal. The missing ~320MB is for radio, kernel, GPU, and cache and allocated at boot.

They still should add to almost a Gig, No?

Tegra has radio, kernel, and GPU as well. Why would the OS not hide the allocation for those on Tegra but some how it hides them on S4?



If you go to Settings / About / Hardware
It should show one gig down there.

If you go to Settings / Apps / Running-tab
It should show numbers at the bottom that total pretty close to 1 gig.

And if you launch the Task Manager that came on the phone
It should show a total at the top that is pretty close to 1 gig.


So there are three places you can check, an on the Tegra version these are all tallying pretty close to 1 gig. There is no huge chunk missing.

 

[icebike]

I know the kernel, cache and GPU have to be loaded into RAM or it wouldn't be running.

Why would a GPU load into ram?

Its a separate piece of hardware built into the processor. At most it needs a small dual-ported memory space (about 32kb for Tegra 3 as I recall.) between the GPU and the main processor.

 

[cd36]

The T3 has to take a bunch as well. For some reason it doesn't get reported the same way. My TF Prime shows the same thing, the full 1GB available, but I know the kernel, cache and GPU have to be loaded into RAM or it wouldn't be running.

More than likely NVIDIA reads and writes from a different place in /proc for RAM allocation, and nobody ever thought to tweak the build to reflect it.

I understand that but if you add up the running apps in the task manager they only add up to about 100-150mb on my phone, yet it still shows about 600 used, so I figured the defference, about 450mb was what the os required.

And what I don't understand is if there is another 300mb dedicated to the os on the s4 devices that don't show it, then tegra devices should have an extra 300mb of used ram, not extra free ram. That would mean the task manager on the tegra is incorrectly showing the amount of free ram.



Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

The OS is supposed to "hide" the RAM used by the GPU, the kernel, the cache, and the radio. It's allocated before the system boots, and isn't able to be used. It doesn't do that with T3 devices -- that's a bug. The RAM is still being used, or your device would not be running.

The GPU uses RAM because it has no on-board VRAM. It shares the system RAM. Different models will use different amounts.

As far as what's "free", that's not what i was talking about. Install Elixir2 from the Market. Run it, and look at the info about your RAM. One the S4 version, it will say about 650MB total to be used -- because the rest is allocated by the kernel and can't be touched. On T3 devices, it doesn't work properly, but they are still using RAM (probably very close to the same amount). Since the OS isn;t using this RAM, it appears as unused when reading from /proc

tl;dr -- because the T3 doesn't report properly, it appears to have ~350MB more total RAM than the S4.

EDIT: If the T3 version shows less RAM with Elixir, someone shoot me a screenie. I'll forward it along and verify that it's right

EDIT 2 -- someone hook up to their computer and run the "top" and "free -m" command while in a shell.

 

[boaman69]

Just under 1GB on my unlocked UK one x.