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RAM used by a GapîDraw App


RAM used by a GapîDraw App

Postby norwy » Nov 19, 2006 @ 8:37pm

Hi Guys,

I need information about the RAM memory space used by Gapidraw on Mobile Windows and specially for Symbian OS.
Is it the same that the one that we can see for the process of the application in the Windows-Desktop Task Manager ?

For example, the Minimal demo takes about 3.8Mo in the desktop version, and it's very little (few lines of code, no resources). Does it take the same space in the Windows Mobile version ?
And what about the Symbian OS platform (I don't know this platform), it seems that there is just a few memory (10Mo) ?

With a "full" application with a lot of stuff (sounds, surfaces, data, etc.), I estimate that it can take about 15-20Mo (based on desktop platform), Am I right ? In my app, I am trying to reduce this used memory space by allocating the datas needed when I need it but my limit is 15-20Mo, I guess it will be a lot for specially Symbian Platforms, won't it ?
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Postby Antony » Dec 12, 2006 @ 12:01am

Ant.
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Postby Johan » Dec 12, 2006 @ 4:22pm

Hi Norwy,

A typical GapiDraw application for Windows Mobile and Symbian just takes a few hundred kilobytes. The reason for the RAM requirements for the Minimal project for stationary PCs might be the use of DirectX.

Sincerely
Johan
Johan Sanneblad, M.Sc, Ph.D
GapiDraw Systems Architect
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Postby norwy » Dec 24, 2006 @ 5:42pm

Do you know how can I check the RAM used by my application ?
Comparing the amount of RAM memory before and during the execution of my application by doing a call to Minimize() ?
Does the memory used by my app stay the same because in the desktop version it seems compress when minimizing the application ?
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Postby InexorableTash » Jan 5, 2007 @ 6:43am

It's important to think about virtual memory (the total amount of memory allocated by an application) and real memory (the amount actually currently in the RAM chips, not residing on disk).

On Windows, all of an application's allocated memory (the total virtual memory) is stored on disk, with a subset in real memory. Ideally, for best performance, the amount of memory an application is actually using over time (called the "working set") is fairly small and fits in the real memory of the system with room to spare.

When chunks ("pages") of memory need to be used that are just on disk and not really in RAM they get "paged" in. When the system runs out of real memory, the in-memory chunks are "paged" to disk (really, they're just dropped out of real memory and the disk copy becomes the master). If an application does this to itself (say a system has 1GB of physical memory and the app is doing some operation that needs 2GB of memory), it's called thrashing.

However, on desktop Windows, it's very common for users to switch between apps that each want to use a fairly large chunk of memory. Say you've got 1GB of physical memory and 5 apps that each want 0.5GB of memory. As you switch between them, the 1GB gets shared between the apps in bits and pieces. As each app needs chunks moved in the system slows down as the memory is read from disks.

To make the system more responsive to users, when you minimize an application on Windows all of the app's memory is paged to disk, so it's real memory usage will instantly drop to zero. (If it's still processing and not simply idle waiting for user input them some of the memory will immediately page back in.)

There's no compression going on - you're simply seeing the OS try to make the experience better for the user who has just said "go away" to an app.
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