Author Topic: Memory hole on modern hardware and USB 3.0 - Solutions?  (Read 4561 times)

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Memory hole on modern hardware and USB 3.0 - Solutions?
« on: August 10, 2018, 08:56:24 am »
On more recent Hardware I have Problems with a Memory hole in RAM. I know I read something About this before but can not find it.

Example: on the ThinkPad 25 (with latest QSINIT) there is only 1.3 GB of RAM available (please see Pictures attached) allthough 16GB are installed.

May be it is related to this (just a guess): the Thinkpad 25 has two graphic cards, the internal Intelchipset and in addition an 2GB Nvidia 940m. May it be that this two Gigabyte of the Nvidia are used or seen by the OS/2 RAM Management as some kind of RAM and therefore it reduces the possible 4Gb (3.5GB) to 1.3 GB? Unfortunately it is not possible to deactivate the NVidia in BIOS.

Is there any Clue about this Topic? Memory hole? And are there possible Solutions?

Thanks in Advance.

Obviously it does make no sence to use ArcaOS-OS/2 on such kind of Laptop if only 1.3GB of RAM is availeable.

And another question just for information: is there any information about the status of the USB 3.0 driver? My last one is from Warpstock Europe 2016, where David A. spoke about it and made a guess it would be at about 90%. I know that some new problems occured with this, but just to know: will it happen? Thanks for the great work!



« Last Edit: August 10, 2018, 09:08:17 am by Sigurd Fastenrath »

Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: Memory hole on modern hardware and USB 3.0 - Solutions?
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2018, 02:29:37 pm »
Hi Sigurd,

If that is due to the video drivers setting aside the memory due to the video hardware RAM size, you should be able to check and/or adjust how much of the main RAM is being used for that purpose.

I know this functionality exists in the SNAP drivers, see 'gaoption vidmem', I used this to force the driver to allocate only 32M on my machine instead of the full 256M which is present on the video card. Not sure how this is done on Panorama, nor whether it is even possible to do so.

Either way, the check is to look at the graphics driver LOG file, in case of SNAP you will find the following in the log:

Code: [Select]
Loading driver for device 0 (radeon.drv)
---------------------------------------------------------

Video memory limited to user supplied value of 32MB

Attempting to enable write combining, base = 0xD0000000, length = 0x02000000 ... Success!
Attempting to disable caching for MMIO, base = 0xFE9F0000, length = 0x00004000 ... Success!
Loading chipset filters...done.
Loading splash screen...done.

Graphics device configuration:
  Manufacturer......... ATI
  Chipset.............. Radeon X850 Series
  Bus Type............. PCI Express
  Memory............... 32768 KB
  DAC.................. ATI Internal 24 bit DAC
  Clock................ ATI Internal Clock
  Memory Clock......... 400 MHz
  Default Memory Clock. 400 MHz
  Maximum Memory Clock. 400 MHz
  Driver Revision...... 3.2, Build 29
  Driver Build......... May  2 2017
  Certified Version.... Not Certified

...as you can tell, the memory allocation has been limitted.

In comparison to the SNAP log above, I see the following in Panorama log (this is based on my very brief installation of said drivers, I ultimatley un-installed and went back to SNAP since Panorama had problems with my monitor):

Code: [Select]
Log for GID=0 started at 7.12.2017 14:2:6
Profile setting for Shadow...Enabled
VESA version is 300
BIOS-supplied information
OemVendorNamePtr  = C0000159
OemProductNamePtr = C0000094
VideoModePtr      = 86000044
TotalVramSize     = 1000000
OemVendorName     = (C) 1988-2003, ATI Technologies Inc.
OemProductName    = R480
EDID Version 1.3
Display size 52 cm x 32 cm
Display resolution is 1920x1200
Info: 15400,1920,1200,160,35,48,32,3,6
Setting custom resolution 1920x1200
CRTC Old: Clock=21825 H=1856 HTot=2528 HSO=1952 HSW=224 V=1392 VTot=1439 VSO=1393 VSW=3
CRTC New: Clock=15400 H=1920 HTot=2080 HSO=1968 HSW=32 V=1200 VTot=1235 VSO=1203 VSW=6
CRTC Old: Clock=28800 H=1856 HTot=2560 HSO=1984 HSW=224 V=1392 VTot=1500 VSO=1393 VSW=3
CRTC New: Clock=24659 H=1920 HTot=2623 HSO=2063 HSW=208 V=1200 VTot=1252 VSO=1200 VSW=3
VBE VRAM Base=D0000000 Size=B00000 (11264Kib) (rounded up)=1000000 (16384KiB)

...but the problem I see here is that neither the actual video hardware's RAM size, nor the final VRAM size appears to be calculated correctly, therefore I'm not sure how reliable the log information actually is.

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: Memory hole on modern hardware and USB 3.0 - Solutions?
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2018, 05:33:29 pm »
Example: on the ThinkPad 25 (with latest QSINIT) there is only 1.3 GB of RAM available
In my case, there's only 2 of 8 GB available. Dmitry, the author of QSInit, wrote that QSInit relies on that what the BIOS reports and that systems with PAE don't have that limitation.

If I got that right, without PAE, there's no chance to see up to 4 GB for machines with these BIOS versions.

Compared to your ThinkPad, I should be happy that at least 2 GB were recognized. I'm not. It's about 1 GB too little for me, Additionally, the browser situation gets worse with increased speed. Therefore I still use my old hardware and will probably virtualize sometime later, before switching the OS.