iPad Guys, did you try Virtual Memory on ipad ?

[Dorkington]

Did you read the entire thread? Lots of discussion. I'm not convinced either yet.

Sorry, glanced over some posts and it seemed everyone was rushing to do this... now that I've read more, I see more discussion.

 

[mixvio]

Excuse me if I'm mistaken... won't this sort of VM hack harm your storage memory? I heard of such discussions on the iPhone, is it different on the iPad?

I'm not entirely sure why everyone is always so afraid of flash memory. Their reliability is at least as good as hard drives (though I would say flash is better since the lack of moving parts means you can handle them a bit harder) but at any rate the salient point is Apple themselves will be implementing the same system for "multitasking" in the 4.0 update, so it can't be that dangerous.

 

[scirica]

I'm not entirely sure why everyone is always so afraid of flash memory. Their reliability is at least as good as hard drives (though I would say flash is better since the lack of moving parts means you can handle them a bit harder) but at any rate the salient point is Apple themselves will be implementing the same system for "multitasking" in the 4.0 update, so it can't be that dangerous.

Well said.

 

[Dorkington]

I'm not entirely sure why everyone is always so afraid of flash memory. Their reliability is at least as good as hard drives (though I would say flash is better since the lack of moving parts means you can handle them a bit harder) but at any rate the salient point is Apple themselves will be implementing the same system for "multitasking" in the 4.0 update, so it can't be that dangerous.

They'll be implementing Virtual Memory? This is news to me...

 

[dynalmadman]

I gotta say thit I am impressed. I am a relative noob and I was able to follow the directions in the link from the first page and got it running first time.

I went to my atomic browser and opened 10 iPad related blogs/forum/shopping sites. They all opened quickly and smoothly. And switching between the pages was fast and done without reloading.

Really impressed

Michael

 

[Diversion]

Programs don't silently quit when you run out of memory.

From a performance perspective, the storage flash is not that much slower than the flash RAM in the device being used for memory. When running multiple programs I find the processor is more of a bottleneck than the RAM or the pagefile.

But the big advantage for me is that I can run as many programs as I want, and stuff doesn't quit when it runs out of memory. If I find that the device is being sluggish, I can quit stuff on my own and not have something shut down randomly on its own, like an IM client when I launch a video, or an IRC chat when I open up Pages.

Actually all programs still do a "true" quit even with VM turned on.. Except for apps like Safari, iPod, Mail, etc. which run backgrounded already full-time. The advantage is being able to use Backgrounder and leave apps running in virtualMemory and run a whole lot more backgrounded apps.. In fact, I ran 15+ apps and none of them flinched or got dropped out of memory.

 

[cRuNcHiE]

I've just enabled this and it definitely works well.

I was starting to get a little annoyed at the lags when tapping the address bar while atomic or safari were loading a page. Also pages didn't seem to load as quickly as I'd expected on the iPad, now it's definitely dare I say it, snappier!

I compared it with a friends non JB iPad and with VM turned on it's clearly smoother at loading the pages, it doesn't just sit partially loaded then have The rest of the page jump into place, it loads more like my desktop.

Webpage buttons are more responsive/ doing things like tap to highlight is a lot quicker than it used to be.

I'm not so annoyed that the iPhone 4 has more ram now!

 

[lokerd]

Ok, I think I am ready to try this.

When I am in iFile, and I navigate to the correct directory, I can't seem to find an option to create a new list. I do see edit...but that just makes the ones there active. I have also searched all the clickable options around the screen. What am I missing??

Also, how are you all getting the text into the file? Do you create the file, then close it, go to a webpage on the iPad? Or email and copy and paste? What is the easiest way to get the info over???

Thanks!!

Oh...and has anybody tried this to help make even more memory available: http://xsellize.com/topic/67320-ipad-optimization/

 

[mixvio]

They'll be implementing Virtual Memory? This is news to me...

That's the crux of how their form of multitasking works. Status states of recently used applications are suspended to "disk," stored in a pagefile to be accessed again whenever that application is opened. When you pull up the dock of "background" items, it shows you which programs have stuff stored in the pagefile; when you open those programs again it just fetches that out.

 

[mixvio]

Actually all programs still do a "true" quit even with VM turned on.. Except for apps like Safari, iPod, Mail, etc. which run backgrounded already full-time. The advantage is being able to use Backgrounder and leave apps running in virtualMemory and run a whole lot more backgrounded apps.. In fact, I ran 15+ apps and none of them flinched or got dropped out of memory.

Silently quitting is an app crashing when it runs out of memory, or the OS forcibly shutting something down when a new application requests more memory than is available.

Ofcourse you can still truly quit something when the pagefile is enabled, depending on how you set up Backgrounder, but that wasn't what I was talking about. I have no need to run fifteen applications, but without the pagefile enabled three or four could hit the RAM wall depending on what I was doing, which would cause something else to quit on its own in the background.

 

[DAMNiatx]

false.

 

[Ral67]

I think you've got that wrong

yes Apple uses virtual memory but NOT backed by a pagefile as this hack does

Its confirmed, Apple use Virtual Memory for iOS 4.

 

[bluedog3401]

I like the hack after applying it. I don't see it affecting my usage other than giving a smoother safari experience. Well, some apps crash during launch but then work on second attempt. I think it's crashing because it may be paging memory out during the launch.

I'm going to try temporarily disabling it to return and see the difference. Anyone suggest a good method for disabling it without simply deleting the files? (I am likely to just move the files, but could simply changing the filename from ending in .plist to .plist_bak work?

 

[mixvio]

I think you've got that wrong

yes Apple uses virtual memory but NOT backed by a pagefile as this hack does

Everything I've read says otherwise.

Do you have a citation?

 

[jayjayn]

just to post up i love this modification i don't know how i could multitask on the ipad without this.. i know it sucks not being able to use sbsettings but circuitous compensates a bit for it.. anyone know if the new update to sbsettings doesn't make the ipad crash as much with this hack?

 

[xraytech]

just to post up i love this modification i don't know how i could multitask on the ipad without this.. i know it sucks not being able to use sbsettings but circuitous compensates a bit for it.. anyone know if the new update to sbsettings doesn't make the ipad crash as much with this hack?

Huh?!?

Can't use SBSettings?!?

I'm using it right now with the VM Hack.

 

[FirePak]

Is it supposed to make a bunch of page files? I have 4 in /var/vm 2 64mb and 2 128mb ones. Im not worried if this the intended use im just curious. Thanks

 

[DoFoT9]

Is it supposed to make a bunch of page files? I have 4 in /var/vm 2 64mb and 2 128mb ones. Im not worried if this the intended use im just curious. Thanks

yes lol its meant to do that. you might want to real up about virtual memory

 

[bluedog3401]

Well, I've had the vm-hack uninstalled for a little while now and find it a little more stable. I'm guessing its not just the vm causing it but also SBSettings. It seems if I have SBSettings open and another system process needs some access (like a popup notification or some other service) I sometimes get a crashed Springboard.

I'd rather have stability for now. The JB apps are a great way to extend functionality, but I don't want to do that and sacrifice stability. I like these devices *because* there's little to make them crash.

 

[Fonzmeister]

I have vm hack and sbsettings for 6 weeks now, and the springboard crashed a couple of times, tops! (never really used the ipad without being jailbroken )

 

[bluedog3401]

I have vm hack and sbsettings for 6 weeks now, and the springboard crashed a couple of times, tops! (never really used the ipad without being jailbroken )

I love the jailbreak for using SBSettings and having quick access to on/off bluetooth and changing brightness. CategoriesSB is also great until iOS4 comes to the iPad, but I don't want to have periodic crashes if I can help it.

The VM hack seems to introduce a little less stability than I'm willing to give up for the feature.

 

[iThinman]

Some ramblings of mine today on another forum regarding this....

Ive got the virtual memory hack running now and initial reports are positive. It has created two 64mb and three 128 mb swap files in my quick stress test where I opened a jump session, MLB with audio running, Flipboard and then started opening pages in Safari. Got a bit laggy once i got 5 pages or so, but was semi expected. Once it leveled off, it was fine. Nothing has auto closed on me yet.

I'm sold on the VM hack. I've had MLB open for the past 2 hours, listening to the World Famous San Francisco Giants game in the background, 6 windows open in Safari. Popping in/out from Safari to Flipboard or to a Jump session and back. Each time I pop back into Safari, i check each page and not once has any of them reloaded without me telling it.

Good stuff.

Switching between apps, you will notice the brief lag as it catches up. Once cache is read (5-10 seconds, no real big deal), everything responds as expected.

Not worried about the extra read/write cycles on the flash at all. Life cycle of product will be well over before that is ever close to an issue.

I should point out that the lag noticed is only if you pop out and do something substantial, such as watch a video, or open a jump session, that will use a lot of memory. Afterwhich, going back to Safari, the lag is noticed for a moment.

Normal things like piping out to read email, or anything else, is unaffected and performance is normal in most all cases.

Unit was jail broken 3.2.1 with the recent method and had all the usual suspects installed prior to the hack. Winterboard, infinidock, iconoclasm, categories, sbcategories, backgrounder, plus.....

No issues what-so-ever. Very happy.

Thanks everyone for the research material.

 

[mattpreston11]

Granted I've only been using this for about 10 minutes,but this "hack" works wonders for the tabs issue in safari! Deffinately recommend anyone with an iPad should do this.

 

[WesCole]

Been using this for ~2 days now and I have to say I like it. I use it to run LogMeIn, Safari, and Pandora with no problems. Before, LogMeIn would crash after a few minutes due to running out of memory...no longer. I noticed a little lag right after I did the hack, but it seems to mostly go away after everything runs for a bit.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants to run 3+ apps at a time.

Thanks,

Wes

 

[lokerd]

Has anybody developed an easy way to get the vm working?

Thanks!