Apps unloading prematurely?

[John Cody]

I started to get worried when I noticed my new MPX-220 would not allow me to have more then one app running in memory at a time.

For example, I would run PIE, then run WMP, and if I tried to switch back to PIE, it wasn't in memory and need to be reloaded!

Then I found a post in HowardForums.com that shed some light on this issue...

There is a registry location:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell\LoMem

With a key name of: ProgramMem

I am thinking that this setting is a "Trigger" percentage of how much memory usage is allowed before the OS starts to close down apps to free more memory up.

When I checked this setting of my out-of-the box mpx-220, it was set to "18"!, which my guess would mean that as soon as my memory usage went above 18% (which any app would probably use that much when it loads), the OS starting killing all/any background apps. So, I set this to 80% and now multiple apps stay running in memory.

It is so ridiculous that the default setting was 18% :?

[Mike Temporale]

Nice find John!

That's crazy that it would be set to such a low number. On my C500 it's set to 96. That's a pretty big difference from 18 to 96. :?

Anyone have an original MPx220 that can check to see what this value is set at??

[Jerry Raia]

That is a great find. My Cingular 5600 was set to 96 also. I dropped to 75. We'll see how that works. Mine was called "LowMem"

[John Cody]

I just flashed my mpx220 to the newest 1.43 ROM and now the default is 70.

[Mike Temporale]

That's a huge jump! What ROM version was on the phone before? (when it was set to 18)

[John Cody]

The previous rom version was 1.30

[Jerry Raia]

I haven't noticed that this setting has any affect. My task manager shows all programs still open no matter what I set it to. Have you seen this also?

[John Cody]

I haven't noticed that this setting has any affect. My task manager shows all programs still open no matter what I set it to. Have you seen this also?

It may require a reboot after changing this setting, but I bet if you set that setting to "16" (and reboot), you probably won't be able to run more then one [average sized] app at a time...

[Jerry Raia]

Hmmm, well I have tried that, I even lowered it to "10" the only effect i noticed was that shortcuts came up missing in BattPro. Other wise all the programs show as running in the task manager no matter how many I start.

[John Cody]

Hmmm, well I have tried that, I even lowered it to "10" the only effect i noticed was that shortcuts came up missing in BattPro. Other wise all the programs show as running in the task manager no matter how many I start.

It may be that eVB and .net app use up a minimum of 2MB each, and since my mpx-220 has a maximum of 9MB free after a reboot, 2MB per pop is a significant chunck, so 16% of 9MB = 1.44, so it would equate to only being able to run one evb (i.e. my Alerts app) or a .net app (like tweaks2k2.net).

If you are running very small apps (like ones written in eVC), that use only 300k, then you probably can run quite a few of them even with a low setting.

Another possible reason you are not seeing any difference is that maybe your phone (if you don't have an mpx-220) may have more free RAM memory after a reboot, so your percentage setting will have a less effect then the same setting on my reduced free RAM memory.

For example, my i600 after the 2003 OS upgrade had 12MB of free memory after a reboot. Both my mpx-220 and i600 had a total of 24MB of RAM, so I have no idea why the 2003 OS in my i600 used up only 12MB, but the 2003SE OS on my mpx-220 uses up 15MB???

[Jerry Raia]

Hmmm, well I have tried that, I even lowered it to "10" the only effect i noticed was that shortcuts came up missing in BattPro. Other wise all the programs show as running in the task manager no matter how many I start.

It may be that eVB and .net app use up a minimum of 2MB each, and since my mpx-220 has a maximum of 9MB free after a reboot, 2MB per pop is a significant chunck, so 16% of 9MB = 1.44, so it would equate to only being able to run one evb (i.e. my Alerts app) or a .net app (like tweaks2k2.net).

If you are running very small apps (like ones written in eVC), that use only 300k, then you probably can run quite a few of them even with a low setting.

Another possible reason you are not seeing any difference is that maybe your phone (if you don't have an mpx-220) may have more free RAM memory after a reboot, so your percentage setting will have a less effect then the same setting on my reduced free RAM memory.

For example, my i600 after the 2003 OS upgrade had 12MB of free memory after a reboot. Both my mpx-220 and i600 had a total of 24MB of RAM, so I have no idea why the 2003 OS in my i600 used up only 12MB, but the 2003SE OS on my mpx-220 uses up 15MB???

On my 5600 I have about 9.5mb of "program memory" and 19.3mb of "storage memory" (not the storage card) left after reboot, so I suspect you are right about the types of applications make a big difference here. I must not be even close yet to the limit.

[ctitanic]

So... did this work?