Virtual RAM

[Meigus]

I know the openpandora has 256 mb 333 ram, but could it be expanded by using virtual ram on the SDHC cards?

The main scenario I can think of is you could dedicate one whole sdhc card as a ram stick (only 1 gb or lower), or at least a partition/dedicated file. (a swap)

The SDHC cards should have a high read/write speed, right?

Also, could an SDHC card be used for "shared" graphics memory, like laptops usually have, and certain desktop graphic cards can do?

 

[Meigus]

Err wait, nvm, I just remembered flash has a maximum amount of writes, so using a swap on flash is never a good idea... Well, could you use a USB hard drive, or even a USB graphic card or something in conjunction with the built in hardware? Just putting ideas out there.

 

[Kramy]

1) Yes, you'd trash your SD card pretty quick.
2) Read speed on most SD cards is sub-20MB/sec. Write speed on most SD cards is sub-10MB/sec. Using this as GPU memory or even system memory would be VERY slow. Most memory has bandwidth at least 100x faster than that. Desktop computer memory would probably be 600x faster. :wink:
3) Putting a swap file or partition on the card might work okay, except that all our Pandora apps are being customized to not use swap. ^_^

 

[WizardStan]

The fastest SD cards are slower than an average hard drive. I don't have a link to the benchmarks right now, just trust me.
The only time when swap space is really handy is when running multiple applications: the OS can swap background processes to disk while the foreground process runs. No, applications that use more memory than is physically available because they rely on swap space is not a handy feature, it's a hindrance.
If you find yourself running out of memory:
1) Close some of the programs you have running. Do you really need to have MPlayer, Open Office, Firefox, and Quake all running at the same time?
2) Close some tabs: Firefox will eat as much memory as you allow it, I've discovered. Keep it below a dozen tabs and it shouldn't try.
3) Find the programmer that designed such a bloated program and released it to the public, and beat him with a pipe wrench.

 

[hansfranz]

My SD cards are really fast! They can be used as RAM anytime and are even faster than the RAM on most Desktop computers! (even without Swap)

1) Close some of the programs you have running. Do you really need to have MPlayer, Open Office, Firefox, and Quake all running at the same time?

Well, Yes, of course! What kind of question is that even???

2) Close some tabs: Firefox will eat as much memory as you allow it, I've discovered. Keep it below a dozen tabs and it shouldn't try.

Well, if you use Firefox, you're most definetely a poor victim anyway and deserve your comupter being slow and shitty and broken all the time.

 

[cb88]

hansfranz I don't see how that could be true since the SD card interface itself isn't even as fast as USB its only25 or 50 Mhz iirc and ram has been running at 100+ Mhz with a far wider bus for over 15 years

 

[Dunny]

hansfranz I don't see how that could be true since the SD card interface itself isn't even as fast as USB its only25 or 50 Mhz iirc and ram has been running at 100+ Mhz with a far wider bus for over 15 years

Ignore him, he knows that SD is slower - he's just trolling again. It's all he does around here. Just put him on ignore, and all will be well again.

D.

 

[hansfranz]

Ignore him, he knows that SD is slower - he's just trolling again. It's all he does around here. Just put him on ignore, and all will be well again.

D.

No, No, No my good friend. Everything I said is actually based on facts and provable. So why are you telling other people to put me on their ignore list? Do you think that's a nice thing to do?! How would you feel, if I told other forum members to flush you down that silly toilet of yours, huh?

H.