Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

Michel Verhagen — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 05:28:52 GMT

Note: OEMAddressTable for x86 based BSP's need number of BYTES as length for address table mapping.

BSP's for other processors use number of MEGABYTES for length.

Don't you think it's time to get rid of this terrible inconsistency? You have to make it really clear in the text above, especially since you are first listing the OEMAddressTable for an ARM based BSP (Mainstone), which uses MB's, and later show an example for CEPC which uses bytes. Really confusing for anybody new to all this...

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:57:07 GMT

Thanks for the note. I'm not sure I would call this inconsistency "terrible", but I certainly agree that it's unnecessary and that we should make it consistent. It's likely to remain as-is for CE6.0, but I've noted it so we can take a look at it for the following release.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

Michel Verhagen — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 05:21:16 GMT

Yeah, terrible was a bit over the top maybe... :D Must be the frustration, I just spent another 30 minutes just to find out I had specified nr of bytes in my ARM addresstable, instead of MB's there (brainwashed because I've been working on x86 hw a lot in the past...).

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

Michael — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:24:42 GMT

You say that RAMIMAGE section needs to be virtually contiguous.

In my experience I found that it also has to be physically contiguous.

For example this won't work:

NK 80220000 009E0000 RAMIMAGE

RAM 80C00000 03400000 RAM

_OEMAddressTable:

dd 80000000h, 0, 02000000h

dd 82000000h, 08000000h, 02000000h

And by the way, the line

RAM 80C00000 0C400000 RAM

should be

RAM 80C00000 03400000 RAM

in your example. Right?

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:09:34 GMT

Thanks for the correction - I've fixed the text and updated the diagram to the correct values.

As for the physically contiguous requirement - I'm actually not certain of that. I'll post another comment with the answer as soon as I can.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 00:11:27 GMT

I've confirmed that the regions are NOT required to be physically contiguous. We have a bug if what you posted isn't working for you, and I will follow up on that internally.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

Michael — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 09:28:02 GMT

In the thread http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder/browse_thread/thread/7e053a74fedcc8ce/029a41790b480429?lnk=gst&q=physically&rnum=9#029a41790b480429

Dean Ramsier says:

Note that NK and RAM sections can be physically discontiguous from each

other, they just can't be physically discontiguous within themselves.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:34:24 GMT

I've confirmed that this is a bug. The regions are not required to be physically contiguous, but there is a bug in the CE kernel which requires them to be physically contiguous. Hopefully we can get it fixed in the next release.

Out of curiousity, does anyone actually have some hardware with RAM that is not physically contiguous?

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

Jerry — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:55:39 GMT

I understand the MEMORY section but have another question. How can I reserve a section of memory at a particular addrees for a "const string". I need to have in my kernel image a string that contains a version number and then in my bootloader look at that address to retreive the version. My kernel image will be on a SD disk which I can get to.

In other compilers/linkers I can reserve object files at a particular address in memory. So I can have a C file and only have one const declaration in it which will put it in the "text" section of memory.

Not sure how to do this with Windows CE, any ideas?

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

steve — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 11:48:55 GMT

Out of curiousity, does anyone actually have some hardware with RAM that is not physically contiguous?

We have a new "low-end" Version of our Hardware which has Memory that has like all SDRAM gaps in it, our blocks are 8MB big.

So as of now there is no way to place a NK.BIN bigger than 8MB on it as the Kernel needs to be in physically contiguous ram, right ?

Could you atleast give a hint where the bug is ?

As we are tight on schedule and can`t do Hardware changes anymore and 6.0 is no option theres only the following left for us:

a.) Fix that Kernelbug

b.) Drop the > 100 ready built pieces of Hardware and loose a good customer.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:00:41 GMT

steve - take a look at the OEMEnumExtensionDRAM function. Here is a link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wcehardware5/html/wce50lrfoemenumextensiondram.asp

You should be able to use this function in 5.0 to support multiple physically noncontiguous blocks of memory.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 02:36:05 GMT

Jerry - sorry about the slow response. You're asking how to reserve not a section in the device's memory but in the image layout itself. I don't know of any ways offhand, but this would be a great question for the newsgroup microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder - there are many helpful people there who can assist you in finding the right tricks.

re: Understanding Memory Sections in config.bib, boot.bib, and OEMAddressTable in Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0

ce_base — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:44:17 GMT

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/articles/AT7569756651.html