Develop Bugs

Siemens Sx66 And "phantom Missing Memory"

Please forgive me if this post has a "newbie" feel to it, but I was actually referred to this site from another site, because this site is said to have the "tech wizards" regarding pocket pcs. I have a pocket pc phone that is doing something that no one on the other site can quite figure out. The phone I have is an Siemen SX66. It seems to be only using HALF of the amount of RAM allocated to it. When I go to start->settings->(then click "systems" tab at bottom), then click the "device information", "then click Hardware" tab, the line that says "RAM size" says "128 mb". But when I go to start->settings->(then click the "systems" tab at bottom), then click the "memory" icon (which is where you can actually change the allocation of the memory on your unit), at the top, it says "total main memory 61.79 mb" and it's allocating half of that to programs, and the other half to storage.
So in the hardware section it's reporting that I have the 128 megs of RAM that I'm supposed to, but in the memory section where memory is allocated out to the unit, it's reporting that I only have 62 megs of RAM to allocate. Because of this, the unit runs unstably and many programs fill the memory before they can finish running. I have no idea how this could be possible. Is there a firmware update that could fix this, and if so, where can I get it? Is there an adjustment on the unit I can make, and if so, how do I do it. ANY help regarding this would be greatly appreciated!

Gastro Man said:
Please forgive me if this post has a "newbie" feel to it, but I was actually referred to this site from another site, because this site is said to have the "tech wizards" regarding pocket pcs. I have a pocket pc phone that is doing something that no one on the other site can quite figure out. The phone I have is an Siemen SX66. It seems to be only using HALF of the amount of RAM allocated to it. When I go to start->settings->(then click "systems" tab at bottom), then click the "device information", "then click Hardware" tab, the line that says "RAM size" says "128 mb". But when I go to start->settings->(then click the "systems" tab at bottom), then click the "memory" icon (which is where you can actually change the allocation of the memory on your unit), at the top, it says "total main memory 61.79 mb" and it's allocating half of that to programs, and the other half to storage.
So in the hardware section it's reporting that I have the 128 megs of RAM that I'm supposed to, but in the memory section where memory is allocated out to the unit, it's reporting that I only have 62 megs of RAM to allocate. Because of this, the unit runs unstably and many programs fill the memory before they can finish running. I have no idea how this could be possible. Is there a firmware update that could fix this, and if so, where can I get it? Is there an adjustment on the unit I can make, and if so, how do I do it. ANY help regarding this would be greatly appreciated!
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actually what your talking about isn't a fault it's normal with Wm 2003. as it dynamically adjust total memory allocation to accomodate when saving within main memory that's why most of my applications i installed to the "STORAGE" folder or to "Storage Card" so as to keep as little in main memory as possible. Alot of this though was resolved recently with the new Helmi Wm 6 rom as memory allocation works diffrently. and he's made program memory like 100mb or so. and let storage be mainly on SD card. which in effect speeds up the device as far as wm6 was concerned. but in reality you can't change the settings for this without modifying the rom and reflashing the modified rom to change inital and total allocation i don't believe.

CE7/Windows Phone 7 - The Kernel, Memory Management, etc.

Similar to the CE5 kernel that we're used to, the CE7 kernel is a 32 bit OS and runs a 4GB Virtual Address space. Similar to CE5, 2GB is reserved for the kernel and 2GB is reserved for user space.
This is where it begins to differ. CE5 handled the user space by splitting the process memory up into 32 slots of 32MB each. (This accounts for 1GB of user space, the rest is used for memory mapped files, fixed up modules, etc.) Any app currently in the foreground was swapped into slot 0 during execution, and swapped back into it's slot while it's backgrounded.
CE7 similarly uses 1GB for the process code, however now it's handled differently. Each running process is mapped to the entire 1GB space, allowing the full 1GB of VM available for use without the trickery needed to accomplish using more than 32MB of VM in CE5. This should allow for much more rich apps to be developed (whenever MSFT decides to allow us to write native code, which is coming at some point...)
This 1GB VM space will be dedicated to the process, and not accessible by any other process. The remaining 1GB of user space has to be utilized for inter-process memory sharing.
There are 256 priority levels as with CE5, for each individual thread within an app. Scheduling is handled on a round-robin basis for threads sharing the same priority level. Priority level 0 functions as a "real time" priority level and any thread running at this level will run through til completion before the scheduler runs another thread. True multitasking will not be accessible to programmers initially, though MSFT intends to unlock that later down the line (presumably around the time native code is allowed). There is no hard limit to the number of threads a program can utilize, it is only limited by the system resources available.
Regarding the limited APIs available to us "normal" programmers - OEMs and MOs will have access to an extended set of Managed APIs and a limited set of Native APIs that "normal" programmers won't get access to. This likely includes things like RIL.

Just give me an ARM build of it that is already ported over to run MSM7x00.
Thank you

Bump for visibility

good bump message too short grrr

Da_G said:
Similar to the CE5 kernel that we're used to, the CE7 kernel is a 32 bit OS and runs a 4GB Virtual Address space. Similar to CE5, 2GB is reserved for the kernel and 2GB is reserved for user space.
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Are you sure it's CE7 and not CE6? Tweakers.net (which appears to have received the same docs you have) says it's 6 and 6 makes much more sense to me being that CE7 hasn't RTM'd yet.

Yes, i'm sure it's CE7. The docs do in fact say CE6 but the docs are dated, things move fast, and that's no longer the case
CE7 "Chelan" will likely RTM around the same time WP7 does.

Interesting. That's a lot of risk for the WP7 team to take on.

Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, so CE must be 7
What do u mean by "much more rich apps". 3D Games or what? I think that aplications on WM 6.5.5 are good and fast. Can u explain that rich applications?

where do you get this info from.. it does sound interesting
Keep it coming

CE7 supports directx 9 acceleration. XNA & SL 4. Do they sound any familiar?

Awesome information! Thanks and keep it coming; I can't wait for WP7 to be released!

Da_G said:
This should allow for much more rich apps to be developed (whenever MSFT decides to allow us to write native code, which is coming at some point...)
[...]
(presumably around the time native code is allowed).
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what makes you think that microsoft is going to allow developpers to write native code on windows phone 7?
the whole wp7 sandbox architecture is based on .net, so it's hard to imagine that microsoft would allow native code...
aren't they going to allow it only on windows phone 7 "business edition", which much users won't have ? that would make sense...

if they do that then we are in luck the guys on here will eventually pull it apart and give it to us all, i serously doubt thats going to happen tho, i suspect 6.5 code base will continue side by side until devs support WP7 at which point there wont be such a big outcry.

FWIW I was told by members of the WP7 team that it's CE6. They weren't directly related with that aspect and weren't 100% certain (more like 99%) though.

RustyGrom said:
FWIW I was told by members of the WP7 team that it's CE6. They weren't directly related with that aspect and weren't 100% certain (more like 99%) though.
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A MS spokesman has confirmed it is running on a hybrid CE6 R3 (meaning CE6 R3 + added features that are from CE7). No doubt in my mind that a update in a year or so after launch they will update it to the full CE7.

According to the OS Version that the device returns, its running CE 7. Check around the 6 minute mark here: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL16

Sangheili said:
According to the OS Version that the device returns, its running CE 7. Check around the 6 minute mark here: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL16
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It says 7 as in Windows Phone 7.

While this is quite interesting, I have a couple of questions about this. First, since each process is now free to use the entire slice of memory assigned to userspace, does this mean that it now conducts multitasking similar to iPhoneOS and Android where it saves the application's state when backgrounded instead of the entire process itself? How does the OS handle background activities, such as background network transfers and job completions?
This leads me to my second question. Since memory allocation is done on a round-robin basis, does this mean that all backgorund activity (if backgrounded) must be completed within a certain amount of time? (For those unfamiliar with OS concepts, round-robin scheduling is a method some OSes employ where it gives a pool of jobs a set amount of time, a quantum, to complete their work. If some job in the pool doesn't finish by the end of that quantum and another job needs resources, that job is killed off in favor of the new one. More information here.) Or is the activity suspended until whatever process needs the memory is finished using it?
Thanks for the scrutinous research!

If you're referring to 3rd party apps, there is no multitasking for 3rd party apps. Depending on what the user does, the app will be "tombstoned" (application state saved).

RustyGrom said:
It says 7 as in Windows Phone 7.
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Why would it say "Windows CE" and then append a version number that doesn't apply?
Anyway, even if it runs a WinCE 6 hybrid kernel, I hope there's SMP support there. I'd like to see a Tegra based phone. Such a device however would be a terrible waste of CPU power, if the system can't use both cores.

Max 2GB storage access for app !

There you go!
http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=15451
Techticker.co.uk have published this summary of the recently held UK TechDays seminar held by Microsoft to introduce developers to their new mobile OS.
While the 9 minute video by and large cover information we have heard earlier, one issue of note is that apparently each application will only have access to 2 GB of storage on the device, irrespective of the actual size of storage.

Don't really see that as a problem; the main storage hogs are going to be music/videos/pictures, which are handled through accesible libraries without this 2GB limit. Maps for GPS apps could hit the limit, although I think I see the envisaged scenario being more on streamed data with caching.

Yeah I don't see what's the problem here. Just more BS drama from WMPoweruser to generate traffic.

Tito662 said:
Yeah I don't see what's the problem here. Just more BS drama from WMPoweruser to generate traffic.
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The problem is that it's just heuristic restrictions on the usage of the operating system.
Why would you limit the size of the space an application can use? Is the underlying OS FAT32 and Microsoft is worried that stupid app developers will store everything as one monolithic file and therefore break their app when the store reaches 2GB?
It doesn't make sense, and restrictions that don't make sense -- regardless of what they are -- are a problem.

Yea, this is pretty restrictive, but you guys make it sound like 512MBs. How many apps do you have installed on your device as of now?

Spike15 said:
The problem is that it's just heuristic restrictions on the usage of the operating system.
Why would you limit the size of the space an application can use? Is the underlying OS FAT32 and Microsoft is worried that stupid app developers will store everything as one monolithic file and therefore break their app when the store reaches 2GB?
It doesn't make sense, and restrictions that don't make sense -- regardless of what they are -- are a problem.
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No, it's Silverlight Isolated Storage for saving stuff 'on disk'. SIS stores have specificed, finite sizes. Who knows, it might be fat32, might be exfat.

Spike15 said:
The problem is that it's just heuristic restrictions on the usage of the operating system.
Why would you limit the size of the space an application can use? Is the underlying OS FAT32 and Microsoft is worried that stupid app developers will store everything as one monolithic file and therefore break their app when the store reaches 2GB?
It doesn't make sense, and restrictions that don't make sense -- regardless of what they are -- are a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is limited by Silvelight...
but i don't think this is a big problem,this limitation can easy change by update

This isn't really accurate. They haven't fully decided on a max space. WP7 uses exFAT and isn't limited to a single file size. I believe this can be configured per app and developers will be able to request more than 2GB if their app needs it for whatever reason. 2GB is just the 'default' and isn't even enforced in the CTP. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402541(v=VS.92).aspx

My bigger problem with this isolated storage is that for no reason at all other than bad engineering it's incredibly slow. sviluppomobile.blogspot.com/2010/04/wp7-isolatedstorage-speed.html about 127x slower.
When I posted about this on the msdn forum, some MVP just basically told me to "use a webservice" and if i don't than this is not the platform for me.

I had issues with that when i was making some silverlight apps some time ago. But i figured them out. What microsoft is doing here with windows phone 7 is that they are using the phone to marry apps with their cloud counterparts. Apps like netflix ap mobile nytimes will use if at most 10 mb of local storage on the device. anyone that need more than 512 mb of local storage for their app, is doing something really wrong. in regards to speed of the local storage i have realised that each local storage created is essential a true isolated storage area. meaning its essentially a small partiton formatted in some format (might be fat) and all the process of reading from that and storing to it really gets some painful io problems. But it seems with windows phone 7 the unified storage engine seems to fix that. Essential from my views of the way my programs are working. when an app is launched. all other apps are essentialy frozen in their last state, so only essential apps and stacks are running. during this process the local storage is put into ram and the application access the program at close to the native speed of the ram. when a user hits the back button it essential takes the local storage and saves back to the slower storage medium and saves the state of the application..
hope this makes sense.

What do you plan on installing on your WP7? World of Warcraft?
Imho, you don't need more than 2 gigs per app, hell, even my Tomtom with all Europe installed on it fits on my 2 gigs microSD card.
Remember, it's a freaking phone!

"SD memory" becomes smaller and smallerHi

Hi guys,
I've got "an error" and I don't know how to handle this. We have got ~25 GB of memory to use and if I take look how much free space I've got ... there are only 5 GB.
That means that nearly 20 GB data are in this drive. I have a look into settings to see the memory usage and it shows me the same as above. If I mount this drive within windows or linux I can see that only 11 GB of data are on this drive. So there has to be a free space of nearly 14 GB.
My question is which is correct 20 or 11 GB of usage? If 20 GB is correct where can I find this on this drive if I mount it within windows or linux (there are no hidden objects)?
Thanks in advance
Chris

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1630914
Know issue.

Difference with Internal Storage and Whats Shown on Device

I am not sure where the deal is here, nor do I know what would be proper search values to mull through XDA. But why is it when I look to see what my phone storage is at, it first shows the picture where the memory says loading, but in the bar there seems to be about 2/3rds of the memory used up. Then once the data has loaded, the memory storage goes down quite a bit, but down at the bottom, it says available storage to only be like 3 GB?

adamhlj said:
I am not sure where the deal is here, nor do I know what would be proper search values to mull through XDA. But why is it when I look to see what my phone storage is at, it first shows the picture where the memory says loading, but in the bar there seems to be about 2/3rds of the memory used up. Then once the data has loaded, the memory storage goes down quite a bit, but down at the bottom, it says available storage to only be like 3 GB?
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Mine does this as well. The amount of space used by the different categories listed + the free space isn't any way near the capacity of the internal storage (13.33GB). For some reason the 'misc' category is gone once calculating the space used by the categories has finished (you can see the misc category while it's calculating). I prefer to use an app for more accurate readings: Storage Analyser