Ipad ram memory question

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Level 1

10 points

Ipad ram memory question

Hi there,

My ipad, and so is everybody elses, is said to have 256 mb of ram memory. Now I downloaded the app Pad info, which shows me how many of my memory is wired, active, inactive and free. But these four together is never 256. It Mostly is between 165 and 200. How is this explainable?

Thanks for the explanation

16 gig ipad, Mac OS X (10.6.2), quad i5

Posted on Nov 30, 2010 12:19 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 30, 2010 2:00 PM in response to Roy 27inch

You should ask the App maker why their numbers do not add up.

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Answer 2

Nov 30, 2010 4:56 PM in response to Roy 27inch

Poorly written app.
The real question is why would you download something like that?

The ipad dynamically controls memory usage.
There are no user adjustable memory management settings.

Message was edited by: Johnathan Burger

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Answer 3

Philly_Phan

Level 7

20,725 points

Nov 30, 2010 5:09 PM in response to Roy 27inch

That app, if accurate, should be named "TMI" and, if inaccurate, well the mods will get upset with me if I use that word.

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Answer 4

Chris CA

Level 10

82,476 points

Nov 30, 2010 5:27 PM in response to Roy 27inch

Adding those four things does nothing.
Kinda like adding, watermelons, lemons, fish and cars.
It is meaningless.
-> http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Performance/Conceptual/Man agingMemory/ManagingMemory.html

From -> About.com - OS X Memory Usage
Free. This one is pretty straightforward. It's the RAM in your Mac that isn't currently in use, and can be freely assigned to any process or application that needs all or some portion of available memory.

Wired. This is memory your Mac has assigned to its own internal needs, as well as the core needs of applications and processes you're running. Wired memory represents the minimum amount of RAM your Mac needs at any point in time to keep running. You can think of this as memory that's off limits for everyone else.

Active. This is memory currently in use by applications and processes on your Mac, other than the special system processes assigned to Wired memory. You can see your Active memory footprint grow as you launch applications, or as currently running applications need and grab more memory to perform a task.

Inactive. This is memory that's no longer required by an application but hasn't yet been released to the Free memory pool."

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Answer 5

Nov 30, 2010 5:57 PM in response to Chris CA

Chris, best answer I have seen on the memory usage question. While it may an interesting academic exercise to try and assess the memory in a particular computing device, in the real world it is not relevant. Well written software and OSs work together to use the available memory and mass storage to accomplish a task. If you are concerned about speed, then the more memory the better because it feeds the CPU fastest. But, you can get the job done via mass storage, i.e., HD or SSD, swapping.

Back in the old days, when memory was outrageously expensive, we had to fool the computers by using overlay specifications...made a program and OS think there was more physical memory than actually existed. But that is probably boring you all.

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Answer 6

Nov 30, 2010 6:39 PM in response to Chris CA

+ 1

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Answer 7

Roy 27inch Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 2, 2010 2:16 AM in response to mauijiminar

I guess my knowledge is just to small, I assumed when I add all types of memory, It would be 256 all together, because it also adds the free memory. (the app does that actually)
I downloaded this app to see how much ram the apps are using, and it shows it pretty well, when I close apps, I see which is using lots and which aren't

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Answer 8

Dec 2, 2010 10:12 AM in response to Roy 27inch

To what end?
What does it matter?
Why?

You cannot adjust any settings or alter memory usage at all, so why bother monitoring it?

Using something like this makes no sense at all.

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Answer 9

Dec 2, 2010 11:22 AM in response to Roy 27inch

Hi Roy, I'm not 100% certain, but I think the missing memory maybe that given over to the graphics chip.

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Answer 10

Chris CA

Level 10

82,476 points

Dec 2, 2010 12:36 PM in response to roryobryan

I think the missing memory

What "missing memory"?

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Answer 11

Dec 2, 2010 1:20 PM in response to Chris CA

The difference between the total the Roy is seeing in the application and the 256mb in the iPad.

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Answer 12

Dec 2, 2010 2:02 PM in response to Chris CA

I was under the same impression as Roy, that Free, Wired, Active, and Inactive memory accounts for the total amount of system RAM. I'm no expert but the System Memory tab in Activity Monitor on my Mac shows these 4 as a pie chart adding up to the 2GB total I have in my MacBook.

I understand that iOS doesn't have virtual memory like a mac, and I believe, though as mentioned I'm not 100% certain, that the graphics memory is shared. In which case in iOS the calculation would be Free + Wired + Active + Inactive + Graphics.

Message was edited by: roryobryan

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Answer 13

Roy 27inch Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 6, 2010 1:39 AM in response to Roy 27inch

I think that's it, the graphics! I asked the question, because on my mac I also like to know what applications are heavy and which not. and it has a graphics card with own memory, the iPad hasn't, so there's the gap.

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Answer 14

msuper69

Level 6

8,691 points

Dec 6, 2010 6:45 AM in response to Roy 27inch

RAM = Random Access Memory.

So RAM memory is Random Access Memory memory.

Sorry, feeling a bit obnoxious this morning.

The other posters are correct in that it's pointless to use an app like that.

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Answer 15

Jul 4, 2011 3:37 PM in response to Roy 27inch

Hi Roy, I've come to this discussion very late so probably no one will read this. Whatev...After reading some of the posts I'm wondering why some folks felt the need to critique your motivation for downloading that app and your curiosity about why the numbers didn't add to 256. I found the responses from those who actually supplied information very interesting. After reading this thread I downloaded the app and saw the same thing as you...the total RAM only added to about 200. The graphics chip explanation was helpful. I DO see value in knowing this information, contrary to popular feeling. When I ran the app I noticed that I had very little "Free" RAM available. I also noticed that my iPad was running a bit balky at the same time. I thought the two might be related. So I opened the apps in the background bar and started to shut down those apps. For a lot of the apps, shutting them down didn't free up a lot of RAM...until I got to SAFARI! Shutting down Safari freed up an incredible, relatively speaking, amount of RAM. I experimented further and found out that for each open web page I closed there was a big jump in Free RAM. Turns out it wasn't so much Safari eating up my RAM as those web pages that were still open. My point...Using this app told me that one of the best ways to keep your iPad running smooth with sufficient Free RAM is to close down open web pages in Safari (all browsers I suspect) if they are no longer needed. You can always just go to the apps in the background and totally shut down Safari, but that really is not necessary as long as you watch those open web pages and delete the ones not being used. Without using your app I'm pretty sure I would not have realized how easy it is to maximize your free RAM and keep the iPad running as best possible.

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