Do you plan to produce the 2GB pyra?


i thought ED said something like he might have enough sample 2GB ram chips to not even have to order a batch. but if that's the case, it would make sense to shut down the 2GB preorders at some point (i.e., the cutoff of the sample quantities...)
 
I ordered four gigs like most here, part because I don't want it to be a bottleneck, part because I run Firefox as if tabs were to-do lists, and part because of the unified memory architecture. I want to fiddle with 3D on it, and I'd like to see the PowerVR pushed to its limits, so if it can process a thousand megabytes of textures and models and whatnot, then why the heck not ?
 
true. what i was meaning was from say this point forward no more 2gb orders taken and only those guys that ordered the 2gb pyras get the upgrade for free. should have worded it better
ED needs to make benefits as fast as possible, because of the Pyra he owes money to investors, so it's not a good thing to do.

To me he better remove the 2Gb models from his website, people who ordered 2Gb keep their 2gb, if they want 4gb they have to pay for it.
 
Stupid question: what sort of effect on day to day usage would this have? Would a 4GB feel faster?
Every time a lot of bandwidth is used you would notice (loading big files into RAM for example). I would assume you would notice the missing 2GB more as this is hard limit, less bandwidth slows stuff down but eventually it works (so you might not even notice).
I think the GPU in the Pyra does not have dedicated VRAM, if so the GPU would use RAM and that is more effected by bandwidth.
 
Stupid question: what sort of effect on day to day usage would this have? Would a 4GB feel faster?
That's the key question IMHO.

I can see both sides as to whether to continue with the production of 2GB units.

If the intention is to continue with the production of 2GB units then it would be really useful to see some benchmarks / hear some real life experience of the differences between the 2GB & 4GB units (things like impact on battery life, Nand swap performance etc.).

One other thing to consider, if 2GB production goes ahead, would be raising the cost of 4GB units & lowering the cost of 2GB units so the 4GB only appealed to 50% of customers. This could perhaps be done when the Pyra is available from stock, with the relatively cheap 4GB version being seen as a pre order bonus.

However if the intention is to produce only the 4GB models then such comparisons & price considerations would be of 'academic' interest at best. Hence the initial question.....
 
This forums's habit of stripping the context of quotes strikes again; smokeown was not really asking if the 2GB units will be slower than the 4GB units; he was asking whether hypotherical 2GB units with half the memory bandwidth would be slower than 4GB ones with full bandwidth.

And the answer is; probably, yes. Maybe 10% of instructions read or write RAM in my experience, and as I understand it, this memory bandwidth would mainly be gained when reading or writing sequential blocks, such as the framebuffer. Things like the stress test that doesn't output anything for seconds at a time, and other working memory would mainly fit in the cache though probably wouldn't be as effected, but anything that uses the screen (like a game) or uses large data-sets would almost certainly be significantly slowed by only having half of the sequential bandwidth. Block copy using normal 32-bit ARM instructions would run at most at 32-bits per two clock cycles, which I assume would be faster than the maximum memory bandwith in dual channel mode, so it's simply down to how fast the memory runs how fast that will complete.
 
However...

The 2GB units built with four (4) 512MB chips should have the same memory performance of the 4GB units built with four (4) 1GB chips. I understand that the 2GB units are planned to have the (4) 512MB configuration.

The 4GB units will consume some small amount more power than the 2GB units. Although this consumption may be fractional during live run time, it could actually make a substantial difference in standby mode. During standby mode the RAM still has to be refreshed. What portion of standby power is consumed by the RAM, whether 2GB or 4GB, has yet to be determined and can not be determined until the power saving features are fully implemented - which may be after product release.

What we do know is that the operational capabilities difference between 2GB and 4GB RAM on the OMAP 5432 processor should be low. For actively 'running' tasks, the processor runs low on resources prior to the application load reaching 2GB. Where the additional 2GB may show additional benefits is as caching for open but not 'active' applications. This benefit may be marginal when compared to utilizing a /swap to either the eMMC or a fast memory card. There is a -lot- left to figure out and play with here.
 
More recent linux kernels (not all that recent - I think I started noticing this around kernel 3.2-ish) will use available quite agressively for filesystem optimisation and other stuff. On this system currently that's been up since this morning, I am using ~580MB of RAM for my processes, but the kernel is using 57MB for buffers and it's caching 632MB. I only have 2GB of RAM on this machine though, but theoretically on those ratios before I got to 2GB application memory I'd be able to use more than 4GB worth.

I'm curious as to why an OMAP 5432 with 4GB of RAM would detect low memory as it approached 2GB though. Is this total, or per process? The MMU should be able to map 4GB of memory into whatever configuration the chip wants I'd have thought, assuming it can use large enough pages. An ARM chip using 32-bit program counter should be able to address 8GB of contiguous memory per process I'd have thought.
 
As one of the (last time I checked) only 4 people who went for the cellular 2GB EU edition of the Pyra... I have to say that I've been seriously considering upgrading to the 4GB edition for a while now, just for the sake of contributing rather than any performance perks and whatnot.
Thing is, I don't like having to take up extra time and energy from people regarding my own issues if it's not absolutely necessary. So, I dunno if I'm gonna go for it but there's enough time to wait and maybe looking into sending an email to ED about this in the future.
 
It's a bit frustrating reading the earlier responses in this thread but I can understand the reasoning behind it. Why I decided to go for the 2GB edition was because of that "performance benchmark" video that was referred to previously, as well as that there might be an upgraded version of the motherboard within 1-2 years if the sales goes far beyond the initial calculations and expectations. To be honest I'm still not sure if it would be better or worse to upgrade, and it would still be just for contribution in the end and I wouldn't have any problems with that.

@Drezrek If you play Minecraft, it may be better to have a 4GB unit if you plan to play that on it.
I don't play Minecraft myself but it's a fair point, and one which makes me kinda reconsider a bit about this whole dilemma I'm facing..
 
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Well, do you want a standard model or an extremely rare one, or do you even care? I want one with everything so ptitSeb won't keep telling me that I can't use the stuff he ports.
 
Well, do you want a standard model or an extremely rare one, or do you even care?
Ehh... Hardware-wise I'm kinda split since it's "upgradable", and weather or not the model happens to be standard or rare would just be a very small extra plus to me.
However, when it comes to custom 3D-printed case designs on the other hand... Hmm~
 
I really don't think there will be much benefit to having a rare unit other than to you. It may not really matter (as testing has shown 2GB is probably more than fine for most tasks of an average user), but if you are concerned switch to 4GB.
 
Yeah, I went for the full spec model. I guess Its partially a notion that i might miss out if I had the lesser model. Also I want to be able to run everything well.
 
I really don't think there will be much benefit to having a rare unit other than to you.
Well, while that's true and a solid statement in it's own right you also have to remember that in order for me to upgrade; I'd need to contact ED and look into changing my order and that in itself makes more sense to wait with until the release is closer rather than stressing out over right now..
Not sure what made you draw that conclusion though, I've already said that the rareness of the device isn't much of a thing to me.
 
Oh, sorry. I meant a hypothetical "you" that would actually care. What I was getting at is that a unit with lower specs that is one of only a small handful will probably not sell for more money based on rarity alone, based on prices of other palmtops I know of. Unless you care about rarity, it probably wouldn't have any additional value. Still not sure if I am being clear. (It is fun to know that you have one of only 5 of a thing, though.)
 
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