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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > Symbian phones > Demand Paging for UIQ3 would you want it now? Bookmark topic

This discussion IS academic in the sense that none of the existing SE phones will ever have it. If we are talking about the possible benefits for applications, all we can do is conjecture with regards to the current state of Symbian OS. No one has complete information on the APIs available, I doubt if SE has this info themselves.
Again, we do not have all the technical info regarding how Symbian really operates, therefore it would not be correct to assume that demand paging would or would not be beneficial - we just don't know the inner working of the OS. The only thing I am relatively sure about is that the memory used has to be internal RAM, there would just be too many problems using external memory. This also means that the amount of internal RAM is also a factor. Still, with good programming, I believe the benefits would be worthwhile.
We know that Symbian are working on dynamic garbage collection, which is not the same thing as demand paging, nevertheless it will prevent memory leak.
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Posted: 2007-12-10 00:12:50
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So.. since your first bombastic argument doesn't make sense, and you can't be bothered to actually pick apart what I said, or address the scenario that undeniably does have something to do with uiq3 - now we suddenly don't know anything? Really, that's not even arrogant, that's just cheek.

And aqualung, I respect what you have done with the open letter. But as I said, you won't have the opportunity to get both long battery life and stability, as well as a work- around for the ram. Neither does it suit anyone all that well to berate SE for not "giving" you the impossible.

But seriously, this is not worth it. If it makes you happy, believe what you want, and make up whatever "facts" you like. But I guess I can see why SE hasn't exactly jumped to the aid of the p990 users before, if this is the kind of frayed thinking that hides behind the self- righteous criticism.
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Posted: 2007-12-10 04:06:01
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@Nipsen, I can only argue with you if you base them on facts. As it is, you have built yourself an elegant scenario which you want to impose on everyone else without proof.
Even certified Symbian/UIQ programmers admit that most of the SE APIs are undocumented and they have to find them and use them based on trial and error.
How do you expect to come to a scientific conclusion when neither the APIs themselves or their behavior are known for certain? As I said, this is pure conjecture based on shaky information and general knowledge.
The only fact is that Nokia have actually implemented this and field tests seem to confirm an improvement as a result.
Now, unless you have facts, we can continue brainstorming with this academic discussion.

When you said:

...you won't have the opportunity to get both long battery life and stability, as well as a work- around for the ram...

are you referring to SE or is it a general comment? Clearly Nokia is proving you wrong.

Also, could you clarify what you mean in your last paragraph? I've re-read the posts and fail to see what you base this on? Apart from some wishful thinking that SE may do something more for the P990 (which I personally think will never happen), I haven't seen anything to support your statement.

[ This Message was edited by: makbil on 2007-12-10 09:58 ]
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Posted: 2007-12-10 10:48:31
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Normally i agree with nipsen, but not on this. Because:

- the P990/W950/M600 (with their latest firmwares) main problem is lack of RAM...not any other thing

- Nokia has proven that backporting some feature from a higher symbian/s60 version to an older device is perfectly doable

- Demand Paging did have the clear effect of increasing available RAM on the N95 classic, that like the first UIQ3 devices, really needed such thing. From around 20mb at boot, it jumped to 30mb. Such kind of thing would make wonders on the mentioned UIQ devices, not forgeting the other benefits from demand paging.

- Its clear to me that this should be done, and its a question that should be made to SE/UIQ.

- Regarding the new UIQ3 devices, W960 and P1, well...right now its clear that we won´t see any new UIQ3.x/4 devices before at lest the second semester of 2008, so i say its perfectly logic to expect from SE that demand paging is implemented on their flagship smartphones - even from a marketing point of view, makes total sense


Finally, nipsen, i think you weren´t around, but in the P990 days, before the P1 was out, SE did consider to backport a new UIQ version to the older devices. However, they completely changed plans, probably because the delays development process of the new UIQ (not out even now) together with pure financial considerations. So...once they did think on doing the same Nokia just did, i don´t see why they can´t do it in the future.

One last thing: its not like Nokia is giving this to every single s60 v3 device...how about the N93??? The N80??? All would also benefit from demand paging in same way like the N95...anyone thinks they will do it??? Well, i don´t...


Finally, congrats to doggman for finally acting in a balanced way when refering to SE, and starting a really interesting topic.

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[ This Message was edited by: ares on 2007-12-10 10:31 ]

[ This Message was edited by: ares on 2007-12-10 14:14 ]
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Posted: 2007-12-10 11:26:40
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I am pretty sure the time is near when the questions like this would be irrelevant or fairly irrelevant...
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Posted: 2007-12-10 11:45:40
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@ares. No, I agree that the p990's biggest problem is the ram, and of course I would love to see SE fix that problem. It would be even better if the customers would force them to, if it's not done in a way that makes SE abandon their typical first concerns for all phones - i.e., battery life and stability.

And I seriously hope noone thought I was serious when I referred to the guy who apparently thought I must hope the p990 is doomed - because I don't think demand paging would cause much improvement. I mean, obviously, whether you think the p990 should be fixed or not should have nothing to do with whether demand paging would actually work.

@makbil: Other than the comic reference to me trying to convert people by trumping a specific scenario, and drowning out all rational thinking - Thank you. After a bunch of messages and impossible scenarios where demand paging will never work, we have a possibility, at least, where it can. That the APIs in the core, which we do not know the behaviour of, might be constructed in a way that would save ram if they were loaded in bits and pieces.

I addressed this earlier, when I made the point that the most likely reason demand paging gives a high boost on the n95, is that the feature pack is designed in a way that agrees with the special demand paging model we're talking about. In the sense that the libraries in the feature pack were read and optimised for having one program open at a time, and therefore were not designed very efficiently in respects to the ram.

As we know, this is not the case on UIQ. And I at least have not seen UIQ programs grow in size because objects created from API calls are more bloated than they have to be. So that's the reason from the outset, as I've said several times now, why I seriously doubt the way demand paging improves ram on s60, can be automatically translated to success on UIQ. Why I have to make this point over and over, I do not know.

So in real terms, I suppose we can say this for demand paging on UIQ: there will be minimal improvement on the smaller programs. That is obvious. But, at best, we /may/ see some improvement on the sizes of new objects on runtime for some types of objects. Meaning that the program's work- ram will be smaller. And it's likely that the ram- requirement for the OS on startup will be smaller.

I don't dispute that, and I haven't. I've disputed the idea that it would automatically improve ram in all conditions, which it will not. I also would think it's great, if it works.

And what's clear is that this is not an obvious possibility (after all we have to assume that UIQ is designed with the same general object- foundation as s60, which we know is not actually the case), as well as that it would come at the cost of greater response- time, less stability, and greater battery- drain on program- execution. From overhead on every memory- operation, from the added wrapping functions, and increased load- times for every time the page- fault occurs successfully.

So I'm just saying "this is not a fix- all". And I would dearly like to see something a bit more rational come up if people are serious about pushing SE to not abandon firmware- development for the p990/w950/m600 than "we want demand paging, because that worked on Nokia, and SE is just too lazy to backport a SOLUTION, even though they know it works!", etc.

Ok?
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Posted: 2007-12-10 15:07:35
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Ok...now i understand your point

Anyway, is funny because last week i was talking with Mizzle from the Unofficial SE Blog, and later with Asri from UIQ Evangelist blog, and this question came up...will the fact that Nokia/S60 backported/used demand paging with great success on a "old" phone make SE/UIQ do something similar...lets see if we can find the right people to answer this...no promises though
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Posted: 2007-12-10 15:19:31
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*crosses fingers*
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Posted: 2007-12-10 15:37:43
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@nipsen:



There is an irony here. I have seen someone posted that the messaging app in UIQ3 has a RAM foot print of 3.9Mb. I have just check my N95 and the messaging RAM use is only 0.7Mb. So maybe the reason you did not see UIQ "grow" in size is because it is already "bloated" in the first place.
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Posted: 2007-12-10 15:44:34
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I have messaging open on my P1, and it reports "242k" in use, and "162k" stack



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[ This Message was edited by: ares on 2007-12-10 14:50 ]
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Posted: 2007-12-10 15:49:09
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