Help me to understand PPC memory

[buzzard]

After using my PPC for awhile I usually delete records via MemMaid and if I look at a meter on the Today screen it shows 48% available memory (not SD or CF cards, not file store). I use SPB Pocket Plus and when I close a program, it's closed (I've often looked in running programs and it will be blank so there's nothing running). As I said, MemMaid cleared everything. If I soft reset memory changes to 61% even though I didn't do anything, other than the soft reset. The only other thing I've noticed is the megabytes listed for "gwes.exe" shown in MemMaid running processes is always changed to a few megabytes less following the soft reset. I have no idea what gwes.exe does or is.

What makes the memory change from 48% available to 61% following a soft reset ?

[Nurhisham Hussein]

gwes.exe is the windows component that runs the graphics subsystem and it also caches all images used by programs. As a result, ANY program you open will have its graphic resources (icons, images etc.) cached in memory, and this will not be released when the program is halted. This is particularly noticeable with games, which tend to have fully graphical UIs - not to mention all the rest of the graphics used. Obviously on a soft reset the cache is cleared, which explains the drop in memory consumed you noticed in the running process.