Low RAM

[alexasha]

Just discovered very interesting thing. Even though NX70 is advertised as having 16MB RAM, my NX70V shows only 11MB of total memory after hard reset. I actually called Sony and they, after long delay, claim that it is normal. Is it really normal to be cheated 5 MB of RAM?

[cbulock]

The 5MB is still there, it's just not avalible for use as storage as the system needs it for running apps.

[alexasha]

Well that actually makes sense. Thanks

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by alexasha
Well that actually makes sense. Thanks

Well, sort of makes sense, then again it's an issue with everyone :mad:!

[X420ACTIONX]

You can always use JackFlash

[n2ifp]

I just installed JackFlash, I got almost my 5.0MB of memory back, shame that I have to pay for it. I have PowerRun also, I now have 9.0MB free, not bad for having a 100+ apps, huh?

[Unregistered]

Larry, is the powerrun thing fast ? - does it feel like or almost like a regular app on ram?

[Dripps]

I think PowerRun is fast. There is very little delay to load up a program. Anything I use all the time I put in FLASH with JackFlash....but all others are loaded to memory card with PowerRun! Try it!

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Larry, is the powerrun thing fast ? - does it feel like or almost like a regular app on ram?

No, it loads about the same speed as if the app was in the /Palm/Launcher folder. It could even take a little longer if it has associated databases. PowerRun is good for those kinds of apps with DB's. Certain apps like NetFront can only be run from the MS using PowerRun. JackFlash is a different story, it's used to move the apps to ROM,  there they run as fast as if they were in RAM.

[alexasha]

I thought that JackFlash does not work with NX70. Am I wrong?

[prismatic]

Originally posted by alexasha
I thought that JackFlash does not work with NX70. Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong, when I had my NX70V, JackFlash worked great with it!

[msanto]

JackFlash is still in beta, though. If that matters to you. Currently beta 7.

[muldermx]

how much room in rom?

[cbulock]

Originally posted by muldermx
how much room in rom?

I believe it's 4.3MB of space.

[muldermx]

so its a pity the sony doesnt use that space for its uses and leaves us with the whole 16mb

[yorrick]

This topic seems to come up quite often, but it's actually good to see it come up often since it means people are still coming to CLIESource and more importantly, more people are upgrading! :)

This is a long post - the regular denizens of this page - I apologise for this. I feel that it's worthwhile to mention this once in a while for the benefit of newcomers to Palm OS devices.

A few tips to optimise your RAM...
1) Make use of the room in Flash RAM.
You will need JackFlash and JackSprat from Brayder (http://www.brayder.com) - costs around USD$28 for the two programs. Not the cheapest way to upgrade, but it takes advantage of all the room in Flash.

2) Take advantage of VFS aware programs
A lot of programs these days have the option of locating your programs in a specific location (apart from the default /Palm/Launcher) directory.
For example - MSDict dictionaries can be placed in /Palm/Programs/MSDict. Or Metro databases located in /Palm/Programs/Metro. Though there are a few odd locations - like /Palm/ebooks for PalmReader documents. But take advantage of this since it is referenced by that specific program and not others (which will save you on the search time).

3) Smaller programs should use the default /Palm/Launcher
All launchers can move programs into this folder on external memory. By placing everything there, you will slow down the launcher with databases etc. So DON'T!
Place smaller programs (up to 150kb or those you don't use often) in this location.

4) Use VFS managers
Programs such as PowerRun or PiDirect will trick the Palm device into thinking the program is in RAM. What it does is to copy the application/database into RAM and run it from there. Mind you - you need to free up some space for this to be done! A rule of thumb is the largest app/database memory should be kept free in RAM.
PiDirect is a bit better than other VFS managers since it copies parts of the program into RAM when it is needed. One quick test is to see how the VFS manager copes with a large database (1M or so) working with low RAM (say 500kb). Most will cause a soft reset on the Palm. PiDirect should work okay ... until you copy enough of it into RAM to cause it to crash!

5) Keep at least 1-2M of free RAM
Programs sometimes need scratch memory to operate ... and will crash if there is insufficient RAM available. Use the above suggestions and it should give you enough RAM to live in! :)

6) Use compression programs
This is not one of my favoured memory management techniques unless you have lots of databases or word/excel documents (DocsToGo etc). This will free up a lot of space if you have word docos and excel spreadsheets.

7) Cull! Cull again!
If you are like me and try lots of programs - make sure you erase them from RAM and MS. It's good practice to clean out programs that you haven't used for a while!
You may want to look at Uninstall Hack (http://www.northglide.com/palmos.html) to clean up leftover bits and pieces in memory from these programs too. It's worth the investment!

8) Backup your RAM!
Sometimes - things will go wrong and a hard reset occurs. On the Sony Clies, there is MSBackup. There are third party programs that can backup databases and programs. I suggest that you try MSBackup since it will backup everything in RAM to ensure you have a snapshot of RAM once in a while. This will save you a lot of heartache restoring all those programs, reconfiguring the settings and entering the passwords/rego codes all again.

Hope all this helps!

[*YellowRose*]

Originally posted by yorrick
A few tips to optimise your RAM...
1) Make use of the room in Flash RAM.
You will need JackFlash and JackSprat from Brayder (http://www.brayder.com) - costs around USD$28 for the two programs. Not the cheapest way to upgrade, but it takes advantage of all the room in Flash.yorrick ~ this is in the NX forum ~ OS5 ~ there is no JackSprat that works on OS5. :(

[muldermx]

So what should be used to use the NX rom?

maybe jacknicholson or jackiechan beta 2 ?

[*YellowRose*]

Originally posted by muldermx
So what should be used to use the NX rom?JackFlash works just fine to let you access unused ROM. You just can't delete anything.

[Raybot]

Originally posted by muldermx
so its a pity the sony doesnt use that space for its uses and leaves us with the whole 16mb

I presume 'that space' you refer to is the 4.3 or so meg of ROM ... the problem is that, as the name suggests, ROM is 'read only' ... to write to it takes a long time, its only fast to read from (but then again it keeps its memory even if you lose power). The 5 or so meg of system RAM that the operating system (and Sony apps) takes up, AFAIK, is used for scratch space and system heap (an area of memory that is read and written to a lot) ... it'd be really quite impractical to put it into ROM if only for write-time reasons (the other reason is the flash memory in ROM can't be written to as many times as system RAM before it starts failing).

Of course the thing I would like to know is why Sony seems to want to reserve quite so much space for its heap when other PalmOS5 devices make do with less ... it'd be nice if it were somehow adjustable (so those of us who run programs that need a lot of heap space can set it to 5 meg, those of us who don't use such programs can wind it back to the 3 or so meg of other PalmOS5 devices) ...


- Raybot

[tantousha]

Well...the 4Mb you are getting back is different from the 5Mb that sony uses. The 4Mb is located in the ROM whereas the 5Mb is located in the main RAM. the point behind the 5Mb is that the photo editing programs and video programs need the space as a quick place to store those files...kinda like the page file that windows uses...

But of course you all knew that right?

P.S. knew I should've finished reading the rest of the thread...

[n2ifp]

Originally posted by *YellowRose*
yorrick ~ this is in the NX forum ~ OS5 ~ there is no JackSprat that works on OS5. :(

PiDirect does not work in OS5 either. You would need one heck of a lot of apps in the /Palm/Launcher folder for it to slow down in OS5. I have over a 100 and haven't noticed any difference.

YR is right, you cannot remove the Sony apps from ROM, the apps that you place there via JackFlash can be removed by you though :).

[cbulock]

Originally posted by Raybot
Of course the thing I would like to know is why Sony seems to want to reserve quite so much space for its heap when other PalmOS5 devices make do with less ... it'd be nice if it were somehow adjustable (so those of us who run programs that need a lot of heap space can set it to 5 meg, those of us who don't use such programs can wind it back to the 3 or so meg of other PalmOS5 devices) ...


- Raybot

I notice that the Tungsten C also uses 5MB instead of the 3MB used on the Tungsten T. So it's not just Sony anymore.

[n2ifp]

Palm wants to get more into multimedia, so I suspect that's the reason :).

[Bobbyn]

The tip about using the MS to store databases like for MetrO is very good... with that you don't really need to use much more... the big issue when it comes to free memory space is mostly the ".pdb" files... today there is not one totally debugged software that can create virtual internal memory on the MS for the NX seires...

[nekrataal]

Originally posted by cbulock


I notice that the Tungsten C also uses 5MB instead of the 3MB used on the Tungsten T. So it's not just Sony anymore.

right, but the T|C has 64MB of RAM to throw arround so they can afford to do that. Those of us with a measly 16 can't. WTF was sony thinking when they did that?! Somebody ought to hack a program to cut that back down to 3MB just like everyone else. I don't even use half the crap that $ony put in my palm. I can definately live without Piscel if it means an extra 2MB

[muldermx]

i just think hat all the patches and sony programs and sont replacement programs should have been naturally on the rom

[nekrataal]

they could have done that....they've always done that....but guess what? most TG50s have masked ROM, which is not rewritable. So all thier patches for crap they screwed up on eats up even more of our precious RAM