WM5 Page Pool Info?

[Xdenwarrior]

hi, i actually have just a number of quick questions to ask, but they are also pretty difficult, i think. I really had trouble phrasing myself here,since i don't know much-kind of clueless. So, i need help!


Since its May now, there's very slight chance that Dell will release any more updates for the Axims as they discontinued them about a month ago, (and of course there will be no WM6 for Axims, unless somebody is smart enough to make it from scratch), but also i couldn't find any custom ROM upgrades besides the one made by Football from 4PDA (but, well, doesn't seem to be going that well). Inform me if there is any other ones?
Anyways, the issue is with the speed and stability of a WM5 device, which i quess everyone experienced at some point. Through i sometimes found it very snappy, my Dell Axim x50v with WM5 A02 still sometimes slows down (annoying if i'm in a rush).
The thing is that i had now smith's patch v 6.3 installed on my device for quite a while, but now i don't see anymore performance improvements with it. What is it really for?
What i really want to do is like many others to get rid of this sudden fast and slow downs on x50v Wm5 A02, which always seems to happen at the wrong time. Otherwise i'm happy.:)

I read somewhere on a Windows Mobile Blog that the cause of this is actually filesys.exe that also takes up most of the memory, and creates some "compaction threads" that creates it's own registry, or something like that. So, you cannot apply registry hacks to fix the speed issue.
But many changed the PagePool of their device instead for better performance.
I read that with 64MB Ram, it is important to have the PagePool set to 8MB, which is exactly what Dell Axim x51V has, but HP Ipaq hx4700 Wm5 upgraded has only half that. I would like to know the case with Dell Axim x50v WM5?
Should you change the PagePool of a device if i have A02 installed, since all of those threads are now kind of outdated? And how exactly?
Many users say that doing so will make your WM5 device work as fast as any device with 2003SE installed. Is it really true? Can somebody share their experiences who have done this?
I quess that smith's patch just suspends the "compaction thread". So is applying it actually damages my axim?

I really need someone professional who knows well about those components of WM5 to help me. The truth is i really want my device to perform at the full potential like every other axim user, and wondered, after reading many outdated posts on this topic mostly from 2005 and 2006, if there is currently any other ways to speed up and stabilize my device, through i already seen a significant improvements in A02?

[Xdenwarrior]

Come on, can somebody help me?

[makuu]

I don't know exactly what you want to know x50v A02 rom has a page pool value of 12 Mo. If you want to raise it higher you won't be able to get the 28 Mo on Ram that are mandatory to run the 2700G games like Tony Hawks and Call of Duty.

For the rest you can read Menneisyys advices about how to optimize your device in regards of the filesys.exe.

I already mentioned my configuration which is:

Install on SD, move cache to Ram and don't use Smith's patch.

It's all there.


You will also find a script Launcher for pie to use ramdisk.

[Mokubai]

From what I can tell Smiths patch does not suspend the thread, but lowers it's priority and restricts the amount of cpu time it can use so that compaction will take longer but be much less noticeable. I cannot say this for certain though as I do not use it as I do not have an X50 device.

As for the pagepool, increasing this only makes a difference going from anything less than 8MB, while it may improve things above that there is some critical point (below 8MB) where below that value WM5 performance suffers badly. Above 8MB it sounds like the performance increase is indeterminate and purely subjective to the user. I would expect Dell to have set the pagepool to 8MB on the WM5 X50, same as the X51.

Changing the pagepool requires altering a few bytes of the ROM image file and reflashing it to the device, and that has risks attached to it. If you change the wrong bytes then voila! Intant paperweight! ;) Sorry, it's not as bad as that... you should be able to just reflash the old ROM to get it back.

Pagepool info: http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=230392

[makuu]

From what I can tell Smiths patch does not suspend the thread, but lowers it's priority and restricts the amount of cpu time it can use so that compaction will take longer but be much less noticeable. I cannot say this for certain though as I do not use it as I do not have an X50 device.

As for the pagepool, increasing this only makes a difference going from anything less than 8MB, while it may improve things above that there is some critical point (below 8MB) where below that value WM5 performance suffers badly. Above 8MB it sounds like the performance increase is indeterminate and purely subjective to the user. I would expect Dell to have set the pagepool to 8MB on the WM5 X50, same as the X51.

Changing the pagepool requires altering a few bytes of the ROM image file and reflashing it to the device, and that has risks attached to it. If you change the wrong bytes then voila! Intant paperweight! ;) Sorry, it's not as bad as that... you should be able to just reflash the old ROM to get it back.

Pagepool info: http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=230392

Not only the patch restrict the amount of cpu of the filesys to 30 % but also it stick it to 30 % forbiding it to go down to 0%.

As for the page tool I already mentioned that it's value is set to 12 Mo for the x50v in A02. And if you want to increase it's value,you won't have enought memory to run the 2700G game.

[Mokubai]

Fair enough, thanks for the clarification. As I said I don't have the X50 so couldn't say anything for certain.

I tried to find out the exact pagepool value but the img2nb0f tool I had would not work with the X50v ROM image I got off the Dell website...

[makuu]

I tried to find out the exact pagepool value but the img2nb0f tool I had would not work with the X50v ROM image I got off the Dell website...

That's right the img2nb0f was developped for x51 because it was not possible to dump the rom from the device. That's why using a french X51v rom from support that I had, MarkYoung with his programming skill managed to write the img to nb0 converter, but it's only for x51 . I dumped the x50v rom and hexedit it and it says 12 Mo.

[Xdenwarrior]

Thanks a lot for the answers.:approve: Unfortunetly, this leads me only to more questions to ask you guys.

So, what i will do for sure is first of all get rid of the smith's patch v 6.3. I quess it really just destroys my Axim.

Thanks for clarifying that the PagePool of x50v WM5 A02 is 12MB, i was afraid that it will be more of a 4.8 MB like the one for Ipaq hx4700 WM5 upgarded. (that makes sense why so many ipaq users were so eager to change the PagePool of their device, as well as many x51v owners who wnated to change their PagePool value to 12MB or even 16MB, through 8MB was already enough). With 12MB, i will keep it the way it is.

Now for moving cach to RAM, well i have a few questions. First of all i believe that all the Internet Explorer Mobile Cash is being saved into the temporary folders, that's in RAM isn't it? Should i keep it the way it is?

I do not have an SD card right now, so it's true i do store most of the programs into my device memory, such Windows Live Messenger, Remote Desktop Mobile, Skype, A-Lex dictionary, Pocket RAR, Live Search, Qmail, x50mix, Photo Viewer, Adobe Reader LE, TCPMP v0.81 Beta, etc.... Still all of those programs use up just about 50MB of my ROM, with about 38MB free. But i do have a 512MB CF card, where i installed of my games, such as Call of Duty 2, Stuntcar Extreme, and Enigmo, as well as the Dell GPS Navigation System, with all of its maps, which wastes too much memory. If i don't have an SD card, should i store many of the programs into a CF card? Does it act in a similar way as SD does? Or should i keep everything installed the way it is? You see when I get an SD card, preferebly 4GB, i'm thinking of using it more for all of my media, music, videos.

Finnally, before installing the Ramdisk, i want to know if it is the best to have it set to 4MB, or to something like 6MB. i seen that youtube video that THUD asked you about. That HP Ipaq user set the RAMDisk to 2.5MB only. Is it better? Does this Ramdisk only needed for storing cash from PIE, or for everything else as well like storing more programs on it? Now very important!, without the Ramdisk, i already have only 27MB of available RAM maximum, not 28MB that most users have (while i can run successfully Call of Duty 2 even with only 25MB, it's impossible to run Tony Hawks ProSkater 2, which sucks). Now if i install Ramdisk with 4MB, would it make my available RAM for running programs only maximum to 23MB? If it does, than it will be awfull!!!

Now, Makuu, if your Axim runs as fast as that Hp ipaq on the Youtube, please can you share more tips (all of the things you applied to make your Axim so "ultrasonic""). I would really, on behalf of other users, would like to end all of those "compaction thread" slow downs on my axim! As i understand, that Ramdisk with those registries is only one of the tricks that you used to speed up your axim. Right?

[makuu]

The purpose of moving IEM cache is to Ram is to avoid having the filesys kicking the cpu. If you don't have SD use CF. You can install ramdisk do the change in registry to move IEM cache to RamDisk and use the IEM script Launcher, it will use 4Mo Ramdisk for IEM then when you will close IEM it will release the 4Mo free to use for Ram.
Yes my x50v runs as fast as the ipaq you saw in YouTube and even faster for launching PI, that is if the filesys is not running. But even with filesys running it's still usable.
Yes the main tricks I am using is trying to avoid using Permanent Storage and using Ramdisk.

[Xdenwarrior]

well, makuu, i've installed the 4MB version of Ramdisk. The problem is that everytime you do a soft reset, the folder for it dissappears. Anyways i did not experience any speed differences with it at all until i pasted the 4096. ink file into Windows/startup, that made a sudden increase in speed, and resolved the dissapearance issue. I also put all of PIE cash like you told me in Ramdisk, but decided not to use the mortscript. The reasons are, i have no clue how to use it (installed it on my pda, but it doesn't install on my PC) or even how it works; also i prefer to alwayse keep the RAMdisk on since at startup it seems to actually increase speed. It's true, as i thought with Ramdisk installed, i now only have about 23-22MB of free RAM maximum, don't know right now how it is going to affect other programs, but Call Of Duty 2 works perfectly fine with only 20MB of RAM ( i quess people were wrong that the game req uires 28MB to operate fully). I also found some other user put the TempPath in FileSys to Ramdisk as well, and did the same but didn't see any speed increases. Do you need that? ( well, actually i don't know how to modify registry at all, just wrote /Ramdisk after doubletapping on it using Total Commander). Should i transfer all of the cookies and history of PIE into Ramdisk as well?

[makuu]

Using Ramdisk is not only about speed but about avoid filesys kicking cpu.
Ramdisk is volatile so it should be for cache only.

[Xdenwarrior]

Thanks a lot for the info!