MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework | Microsoft Share Point

MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework | Microsoft Share Point — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:11:49 GMT

PingBack from http://microsoft-sharepoint.simplynetdev.com/memmaker-for-the-net-compact-framework/

.NET CF e gestão de memória virtual – Será esta uma descoberta revolucionária?

Alberto Silva — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:29:08 GMT

Um título destes seria digno de abertura de um qualquer telejornal nacional! Recebi hoje pelo Newsgator

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Auri Rahimzadeh — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:02:44 GMT

Great article!

Where do we get that Virtual Memory mapper utility? That looks awesome.

More memory for managed apps.

Alex Yakhnin's Blog — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:58:37 GMT

Check out the Rob's blog post in which describes the technique that can help you to allocate less memory

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Auri Rahimzadeh — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:00:10 GMT

Great article!

Where do we get that Virtual Memory mapper utility? That looks awesome.

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Alberto Silva - Device App Development MVP — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:49:52 GMT

Auri,

The utility Rob has used can be obtained from a CodeProject article:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/mobile/VirtualMemory.aspx

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Paul Yao — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:18:54 GMT

Rob --

Cool tip!

I wonder if there is time for me to get a link to your blog into my book. Hmm.

Best,

Paul

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Raffaele Limosani — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:27:36 GMT

I always knew that managed DLLs are handled by the OS as files and therefore loaded into the LMA (Large Memory Area) instead of wasting my process slot’s virtual memory (see my very first post ever :-), but I’ve never tested this incredibly simple idea…

Thanks Rob for spreading it out!

~raffaele

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Jed — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:38:53 GMT

This winds up being a nice side effect of creating reusable code - see the old Mobile CAB stuff, for example.

Most companies building more than one app should tend towards this type of design anyway.

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Morten Damsgaard — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:03:34 GMT

Hi Rob,

Great article. I think your "empty" managed exe will take 64kb (and not 5kb) of virtual memory, because CE maps dll's and exe's into 64kb boundaries.

- Morten

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

dvescovi — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:28:41 GMT

Does all this hold true only for Windows Mobile up to 6/6.5 which uses the Windows CE 5.0 Kernel? I am wondering what your take on this or even if its even applicable under CE 6, which has a major memory archicture shift. My guess is Windows Mobile will adapt the CE 6 kernel sooner or later as I assume the reasion for the rearchicture probably came from the WM team as they are the biggest customer.

David Vescovi

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

robtiffany — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:30:39 GMT

You're correct David. This pattern is only needed for versions of Windows Mobile that run on top of Window CE 5.0. Those versions include 5.0, 6, 6.1 and 6.5. Windows CE 6.0 has a redesigned kernel that supports 32,000 processes and each process gets 2 GB of RAM.

-Rob

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

robtiffany — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:33:42 GMT

Morten, as of Windows Mobile 6, the CE 5.0 kernel was altered so that Module (Executable) DLLs could align to 4K boundaries which saved a lot of memory. File (Read-only) DLLs remained aligned to 64K boundaries though.

-Rob

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

monxalo — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:22:57 GMT

Greetings,

Does this behavior applies to dynamic loaded assemblies?

Using Assembly.Load ?

- Gonçalo

MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Dave Glover "Down Under (Oz)" — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:36:35 GMT

I twittered this awhile back, but appreciating not everyone twitters I wanted to share this on my blog

Mobile Buzz at Tech-Ed

The Windows Mobile RSS (Reed and Steve Stuff) Feed — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:48:29 GMT

There is a lot of good stuff going on a Tech-Ed this week in LA.   In you are here, come by and

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Andrew Konovalov — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:48:47 GMT

Hi, Rob!

I've recently translated your article into Russian and here is one interesting comment from an experienced guy:

>> But just like with DOS, you don’t get access to the whole space

>> because other things like system DLLs are already eating

>> into your free virtual memory.

Using the following function calls

SetKMode(1); SetProcPermissions(0xffffffff);

allows a developer to write anywhere (getting access to the whole space). It's better not to use other 32Mb because there is XIP, so it can lead to hard reset.

Translating address space of other processes can be achieved either using MapPtrToProcess() or appending dwVMBase value from Process structure (which can be fetched from aInfo[KINX_PROCARRAY] array of KData structure). The address is static and depends on architecture, but for ARM is always the same.

Enjoy!

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Andrew Konovalov — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:51:14 GMT

Here is also a good illustration of full address space mapping: http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/Aa450572.mm2(en-us,MSDN.10).gif

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Andrew Konovalov — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:53:50 GMT

Short amendment regarding not using "other 32Mb". It really meant to be the particular memory range 0x2000000-0x4000000 (the XIP location).

MemMaker для .NET Compact Framework

Русский блог Windows Mobile — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:14:43 GMT

MemMaker для .NET Compact Framework Оригинал: http://blogs.msdn.com/robtiffany/archive/2009/04/09/memmaker-for-the-net-compact-framework.aspx

More Memory for ALL in WM 6.x

The Windows Mobile RSS (Reed and Steve Stuff) Feed — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:13:16 GMT

Now that the Windows Mobile 6.5 DTK is available, you are probably starting to discover some of the new

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

simon.tamman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:53:19 GMT

Brilliant, and it just so happens that due to my rather pedantic architecture hat I have already done this (without even realising the virtual memory saving feature it provides). Our .exe just creates an instance of "App" and runs. :)

Nice to know this though. It may help some other projects here!

Reggies

Jax

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

robtiffany — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:01:17 GMT

I'm just glad to see folks from our mobile community are observant and curious and therefore point out bugs in our system. It's also nice to see people put forth workarounds to help everyone else. Raffaele Limosani in Italy was on to this issue over a year ago when he made it public on his blog. He knew that managed exe's whould take up slot space equal to their file size and that managed dll's wouldn't, which leads to the workaround of putting all your code in dll's. The only reason we're even talking about this issue is because Windows Mobile 6.x still uses our older version of Windows CE 5.0 and not our current version where this has been fixed. Thanks to Brian, Raffaele and all those inside Microsoft who have made subtle memory issues clearer to our developers.

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Faiyaz — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:20:39 GMT

Great finding sir. Thanks for sharing the info. Hope some of my issues will now be resolved.

re: MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

Sean Solt — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:35:04 GMT

Hi Rob!

I need a little support. I have a really huge .NET cf application. I fight with the memory limit for a while. I tried your method and used the memory mapper program to watch the changes but there were nothing changed. I put my program completly to a DLL as you advised and call it from an "empty" exe but the memory map remained the same as before the change. What can be the problem? (using WM5).

Thank: Sean