128mb Of Ram...

[jdh2550]

I'd be surprised if the memory comes pre-soldered to the SoC for production quantity chips from TI.

For the development boards yes - but for the commercial product won't the fabrication plant just be buying a tape/roll of SoCs and another tape/roll of DDR memory chips? (along with the multitude of other components that will be placed on the pandora's PCB). These are all surface mount components designed for auto assembly and placement, right?

 

[Exophase]

What I'm interested to know is if the ram is used as the video ram too (for framebuffers and depth-buffers) and if this will impact graphical performance (especially fill rate).

I suspect the framebuffer is separate and probably has a low speed interface to the CPU.

This is what happened to PDA that started using 2700G (which is a PowerVR chip packaged by Intel/Marvell for Xscale). Suddenly the benchmarks that were supposed to say how fast the video chip was got very bad scores because these benchmarks were accessing the FB directly. That did not mean at all these video chips were bad, it's just that they were not used properly.

I am afraid the Pandora may look bad at first because of that (especially as I did not see anything an accelerated FB device driver in TI kernel).
But I am sure things will be much better after programmers get educated to the new rules

WARNING: all of what is written above is pure speculation, even though it's based on some facts


Of all the handhelds/SoCs that I've heard of that use PowerVR accelerators, Dell's Axim x50v+ is the only one I know of that has dedicated VRAM (in this case the 2700G came with a relatively massive 16MB). It'd be nice to have dedicated VRAM (so the 3D card can work w/o slowing down the main bus), although L2 cache alleviates this somewhat. It'd be even better to have the best of both worlds and have VRAM that's on a relatively fast path to the CPU, at least for writing.

 

[C B Felterbush]

I think it is a possibility that even the main production run will have the memory soldered on. If it is possible for craig n co. to get the SoC from TI with the memory pre-done, then it would be more cost effective. -CB

 

[Nr.56]

I'd be surprised if the memory comes pre-soldered to the SoC for production quantity chips from TI.

For the development boards yes - but for the commercial product won't the fabrication plant just be buying a tape/roll of SoCs and another tape/roll of DDR memory chips? (along with the multitude of other components that will be placed on the pandora's PCB). These are all surface mount components designed for auto assembly and placement, right?

Who cares? Pandora owns 128MB! If more memory would be possible, Pandora would have more ram.
By the way: it will be the handheld with the largest ram on the market and no developer deplored a lack of ram. Why should it be not enough?

Windows95 (the first edition) needs only 4MB ram. (in my opinion a over-the-top desktop for a handheld)
Nobody needs a complete KDE or GNOME desktop not to mention a complete kernel 2.6.X . Who needs ubuntu ("mobile" edition or not) on a handheld?? I am sure "only" 128mb is enough for my use. :rolleyes:

 

[jdh2550]

Who cares?

I do, and at least a few others. Thanks for asking.

Why should it be not enough?

That's not the question being asked - but once again it appears your answer to that question is purely console focused and the pandora is more than just a games console. Access to the vast amount of software available makes for some interesting possibilities.

 

[Nr.56]

Access to the vast amount of software available makes for some interesting possibilities.

Of course, but maybe the search for alternatives is interesting too. I need functional programs to serve every needed purpose, not every program.
... but that is only my opinion.

 

[Squidge]

That's not the question being asked - but once again it appears your answer to that question is purely console focused and the pandora is more than just a games console. Access to the vast amount of software available makes for some interesting possibilities.

Yes, its more than just a games however. However, we are not going to be running Microsoft Word and Internet Exploder under a bloated OS (It's not meant as a laptop replacement either), so 128MB is more than enough.

We know the primary focus is games and emulation, and the secondary focus is PDA-stuff.

Care to list the apps (or style of apps) you would use when not using the device as a games console? (Other than the obvious such as Web browser, email, news reader, calendar...)

 

[C B Felterbush]

I have nothing in mind, though I am sure if it were possible to get Diablo2 to run the extra ram couldn't hurt.

I know that 128MB of ram is more than enough, and no it isn't a full laptop replacement, but wouldn't it be nice if it could be 75% of the time.

 

[Squidge]

Yes, the extra ram wouldn't hurt, but at what price would we paying for this extra ram? It would use up battery life to keep it's contents, would add to the cost of the device itself, and who knows what else.

I guess we'll just have to see what turns up, the main people know whats been said, and its up to them to make a decision.

 

[C B Felterbush]

I am ok with 128MB, who wouldn't be. I don't program, nor am I any type of software developer, I wright game script, and tinker it hardware design.

But for those that are into software, it would be nice to see them succeed. Sometimes they need more resources than are offered. That is why I wanted to know if it was going to be upgradeable.

A question that also comes to mind is the speed of the Ram? how fast is it. If you couldn't upgrade to a larger size maybe you could speed it up. don't get me wrong we don't need DDR3 I was just thinking out loud. -CB

 

[craigix]

you may think that it is impossible to get more than 128mb in this ram format but i could not possibly comment.

 

[Pickle]

you may think that it is impossible to get more than 128mb in this ram format but i could not possibly comment.

lol, read between the lines or what....

 

[goobers]

you may think that it is impossible to get more than 128mb in this ram format but i could not possibly comment.

lol, read between the lines or what....


You're so far from the line, the line is a dot to you! B)

 

[flatmush]

Well to answer my own question with respect to the fillrate, the SGX uses tile-based deferred rendering onto a tile in onboard memory which is then copied out to the framebuffer. Which leaves me wondering how you'd go about changing render-targets. Anyhoo the graphics chipset looks awesome, apparently its beyond the specs for opengl 2.0 and directx10 so it should be fun to play with.

 

[Zarneth]

Care to list the apps (or style of apps) you would use when not using the device as a games console? (Other than the obvious such as Web browser, email, news reader, calendar...)

Don't forget instant messenger(pidgin) video player (gxine?) music player/indexer (exaile?/xmms) file mannager (thunar or rox?), image view, (gqview) basic word processor (abiword), Python IDE.

I can just imagine myself lying in bed to all hours browsing the net, chatting, writing notes. I already sometimes do that on my mobile phone, so the Pandora's keyboard and screen will be a godsend.

For me the pandora WILL be a full laptop replacement. Except unlike a laptop it would be decent for playing games on.

 

[Squidge]

A question that also comes to mind is the speed of the Ram? how fast is it. If you couldn't upgrade to a larger size maybe you could speed it up. don't get me wrong we don't need DDR3 I was just thinking out loud. -CB

Well, you could always overclock it

 

[goobers]

In the end, I don't think that it matters how fast it is or how much RAM it has, because there could always be that little bit more.

What I personally think that matters is that it is affordable and developers get the most out of the hardware that we're given. Look at psx4gp2x and gpsp, both fine examples of what can be achieved with limited hardware. I'm sure that if some kind of app can't be directly ported due to RAM limitations, some dev will create a version specifically for Pandora if it is wanted enough.

The specs are already great for a handheld, and will hopefully attract some new devs to the scene that were previously uninterested in GP32 and GP2X.

 

[atomicthumbs]

you may think that it is impossible to get more than 128mb in this ram format but i could not possibly comment.

 

[jdh2550]

you may think that it is impossible to get more than 128mb in this ram format but i could not possibly comment.

See - even the mighty craigix isn't going to make an absolute statement. Glad to see he's happy to goose this thread - I might even get to join the "10 pages of replies club"! Thanks Craig (now get back to work) - and I like your sensor of humor (you evil SOB for tweaking us )

Squidge (and others) - stop asking me to list every app I want to run that takes more than 128MB.

(1) Like CBF I'm asking more for an understanding of the thought proces than for a specific something.

(2) I gave one something in my original post (Ubuntu Mobile) simply as an example and then everyone wanted to tell me how they would write a better OS in only 1 kilobyte (and they'd only use 1's and not 0's because we all know 1's are skinnier and more efficient). So, I'm certainly not going to list any app so that someone can tell me that the Amiga/BBC Model B/ZX-81 did it better with less memory already.

(3) One thing more memory <b>might</b> do is lower the bar for new ports. Some say that's a bad thing. I think that's not a bad thing. We can agree to differ, no?

See my next post for MWeston's reply.

I have my answer from the horse's mouth. I'll stop posting - unless others keep posting telling me how much ram such and such an OS uses or how much ram it takes to convert any particular game. Deal?



Like any email chain - read from the bottom up.

------------

Wow Michael - you guys never cease to amaze me - do you never sleep? This is a long and detailed answer. Thanks. I will post this verbatim and also summarize to some extent.

Now I finally "get it" about the specialized nature of the RAM. I daresay that the prices of it will tumble so maybe a "special edition" in the future? You could even paint the case gold ;-)

BTW you say "I hope this gives you what you need to feel comfortable with the choices made" - it wasn't so I get comfortable - it was so I could understand. But thanks for your generosity with your reply.

No doubt people will lambast me and point out that they told me all this already but I missed it because I missed the unique nature of the RAM (I assume you're saying it's not the same as the samples of Mobile DDR memroy chips (not packaged into a module) that I can buy online). At least I got one thing right though - the memory is coming from a seperate supplier than TI - which was my guess. ;-)

One thing that you again mention is the game aspect (referring to the PSX port) - and one of the things I'm most interested in is the ultra portable computer (but not a UMPC - I did learn that that moniker very much does belong to x86 based PCs). Getting ports up and running quickly I think is a good thing - even if the user does take a hit. If the port is worth optimizing then someone can still optimize it. However, if the port never happens in the first place then that detracts. I think you biased your view on the matter by tacking on "and considered final". This is just a different point of view - and I understand that if 256MB was simply too expensive then so be it.

I'm definitely buying one of the first ones I can lay my hands on - even if you cut the memory in half ;-) - and I don't blame you for not committing to dates!

Many thanks,
John H.

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Weston
To: 'John Harding'
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 6:44 PM
Subject: RE: MWeston? 128MB question

Hi John, I did take a few minutes here and there this week to check out the GP32X forum and saw your topic. Since TI has publicly released the OMAP35xx (basically an updated part number for OMAP34xx, nothing to be concerned about) parts this week with the start of TIDC, I can be a little more open with the responses to this question then the ones I have given in the past, but the memory parts are still very much under NDA so I can’t say too much there.

One of my answers still stands. We went with 128MB because it was always going to be 128MB. We saw some wild demos this week running all kinds of software and not one of the kits had more than 128MB. Honestly, when we preview Pandora running real apps soon (not committing to any dates with this email, I just got home!) you will be blown away. This chip is unlike anything anyone has ever seen. It truly is a PC grade chip with an ARM core. If the dev kit was hidden behind the monitor, you would swear it was just your PC running a variation of some linux desktop complete with an amazingly full speed Firefox browser. There was no lag or scroll issues whatsoever, even at 720p. Again, I point out only 128MB J

So hear is the scoop on the RAM situation. 256MB chips would be, for sure, at least twice the cost of the 128MB version. The memory chip is a custom design made to fit on top of the OMAP processor so it is VERY NEW. This isn’t your usual LPDDR memory you can order online since 2006. When I emailed responses to other people saying that 128MB was what we had the ability to buy, I meant just that. It has the price point and availability we needed to move into production with Pandora during 2008. Memory is purchased completely separate from TI which is part of the reason the NDA still prevents me from saying anything else. I won’t say who is making it (but you can soon guess if you see pictures of a dev kit) and I can’t say when and what capacities are/will be available. I don’t have the right to go public with that.

The OMAP3 line can handle much more memory than 128MB. The datasheet is online now, free for anyone to download so you can verify this yourself. I did mention to others that I think some kind of “special edition” Pandora sounds like a neat idea to me. There will be one on my desk for sure J

I hope this gives you what you need to feel comfortable with the choices made. Honestly, this entire project needs to move away from the idea that “let’s have more so we can just be more wasteful and get quick and dirty ports running and considered final”. We have so much potential to run almost anything on Pandora without a second glance for optimization. Zodttd will have PSX full speed going without even touching the 3D core. From what I saw this week, I can see that being quite likely! 256MB of RAM could run more memory hungry apps without optimizing a thing. The end result is that the user (customer) takes the hit on it. In the first example, the battery life is less which reduces portability. In the second example, the cost of the system goes way up. I’d like to see Pandora out there for a while before we re-asses the memory requirement and if the customer response is overwhelming, we may have to consider the upgrade for some time in 2009. I wouldn’t advise holding out on buying a system just to get 256MB of RAM though. You would be keeping yourself out of the loop for a long, long time! J

Please feel free to post my response on the forum as a way to finalize the answer and maybe redeem yourself. I have no idea where the topic stands at the moment Bye for now.


Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: John Harding
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 10:12 AM
To: feed_back
Subject: MWeston? 128MB question

Hi,

Pickle on the forum suggest I send an email directly to you. I figure your busy so I didn't want to intrude - which is why I posted the question to the board - but alas it all went down in flames (and I accept my fair share of pouring gas onto the fire).

Feel free to delete this if you don't have the time!

Anyway - I (and at least a couple of others) are interested in the reasoning for 128MB of RAM.

Looking at the OMAP SOC diagram it appears that the memory is Mobile DDR. Looking on the web it appears that Mobile DDR is available in 128MB to 1GB packages. No one has been able to find a definitive document on how much the 3430 can address.

I understand that a socket is out of the question

So, was it simply cost? If so I'm surprised that this RAM is still so expensive

Is it availability? Do you get the OMAP's from TI with memory installed? I kind of figured that you didn't and that you source your RAM seperate from the OMAP.

Is it power draw? Or size of packaging? Or some other physical limitation?

Is it just because that's what you all figured was "enough"?

Thanks - and despite what others might think I'm simply amazed at how you've managed to pull this off. You three should write a book about this when you're finished (really - it's very much like early days of Apple).

Good luck - and put me down for one of the first 100! ;-)

Respectfully,

John "I'm not really a bad guy" H.

 

[Sphinxter]

Shit, you all knew that and just wanted to argue.