Total RAM not 512MB?

[DMBFan5]

I just looked at the hardware using the system view app and it says I only have 358MB of ram... Does anyone else have this problem? Isn't it supposed to have 512MB?



Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[jd914]

I'm not even going to try to explain this

 

[DMBFan5]

I only ask because my surround had 568 or something like that. More than 512.

Its just odd, please explain it. Its not free ram, I mean total ram.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[jimski]

Same numbers on my Surround and same L900 question.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[7inchesNBPEL]

did you know that the operating system uses ram? along with any active running apps!!!

 

[mayoo]

did you know that the operating system uses ram? along with any active running apps!!!

hold ur horses .. OP has a point .. if 512MB is correct then it was worded wrong on that app. it should be 'available ram' or 'free' or 'cached' or 'used' etc etc

Just open your task manager -> performance on ur PC and look what total tells = total physical ram loaded in the box !!!!

 

[SoloXCRacer]

I'll have to side with the OP on this one. Either the wording is very misleading, or something's not right.

 

[jimski]

Same app System View: On my Surround- Total Ram 485 - Free - 465. On the L900- Total 358 - Free 342. Now I know the Surround had (reported in specs-not verified) more Ram than most other Gen1 devices, but not 127MB.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[sting7k]

Mine says the same thing. What's up with that?

 

[SoloXCRacer]

I have a theory. A portion of RAM will always be reserved for the OS. So the "total ram" being report is actually the total ram avaliable for everything else (apps, etc). I'm going to write a program this evening when I get home to test this out. But I think I know what's going on.

 

[sting7k]

I have a theory. A portion of RAM will always be reserved for the OS. So the "total ram" being report is actually the total ram avaliable for everything else (apps, etc). I'm going to write a program this evening when I get home to test this out. But I think I know what's going on.

I have the same feeling. The OS is only letting apps report the total they could use; while the OS is using up the rest.

 

[SoloXCRacer]

Alright, I couldn't wait til I got home. Wrote a quick dirt little app and deployed it to my Lumia 900 and the DeviceStatus.DeviceTotalMemory property does indeed report back the total amount of RAM that is avaliable for all non-OS apps. Microsoft also has this documented on MSDN (under "Remarks"):

DeviceStatus.DeviceTotalMemory Property (Microsoft.Phone.Info)

For all you developers out there, I did this as an example:

txtBoxDeviceTotalMemory.Text = (Microsoft.Phone.Info.DeviceStatus.DeviceTotalMemory / 1048576).ToString() + " MB" ;


The API names and the label names on the apps are misleading, but rest assured that your Lumia 900 does have 512MB total physical RAM. So move along now, there's nothing else to see here.