[SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

ismaelvc · 2012-06-22 02:55:44

I'm just following this instructions:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Swap_on_video_ram

But, i'm not sure if its possible for this old card:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 80f6
	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
	Latency: 66 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 5
	Region 0: Memory at e9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Region 1: I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
	Region 2: Memory at e8100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at 10100000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

Also I don't understand what does this entry means:

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 80f6
	Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR+ INTx-
	Latency: 8
	Region 0: Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: agpgart-via

Im confused because in my bios it reads:

Total Memory: 256M
Video Memory: 8M

Here is the complete output:

http://pastebin.com/dS0EFwWv

Last edited by ismaelvc (2012-06-22 22:35:21)

headkase · 2012-06-22 03:04:19

If that is correct, 16MB of video RAM, then that is just too small to do anything with. Don't use swap on that video RAM.

ismaelvc · 2012-06-22 03:21:26

Thank you very much for your answer, as I was saying in the post above (I edited it), I'm confused since the bios says something, and lscpi another, also I dont get what this memory is for):

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 03)
Region 0: Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]

Also the line that reads:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at 10100000 [disabled] [size=128K]

What does this virtual means? how could it be enabled?

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by ismaelvc (2012-06-22 03:22:49)

headkase · 2012-06-22 03:33:46

I'm rusty, but, the Host Bridge: that is not memory that would be suitable for swap. It is addressable memory - i.e. the bridge exposes it for other components to use.

The "virtual" memory, that is just a ROM and is only 128KiloBytes in size - again not the type and way too small to be used as swap.

Why can't you just create a swap partition on your hard drive? That would be the sensible thing to do, especially for older hardware which is constrained when it comes to system RAM.

Also, if you do have spare RAM - which given the antiquity of that video device is unlikely - then you could look at other options like a Ramdisk for storing files that need rapid access.

However, as previously noted, creating a swap partition on a physical hard drive is likely what you want and should be doing. It may be helpful to post your full computer specifications if you know them.

ismaelvc · 2012-06-22 04:19:54

Here is the complete output of lspci -vvv

http://pastebin.com/dS0EFwWv

Why can't you just create a swap partition on your hard drive?

Its not that I cant, I have alreay done it before with other distros, even though I find swap files more convinient now ;P , I'm also using zramswap.

I just want to educate myself, never really thought it would be useful in this machine video ram swapping, but the output of lspci and mybios confuses me, also I want to get to know my hardware better, thats all.

As of now it works flawlessly, I can't believe, I can do all the things I usually do in this old laptop, with up to date, software, and that my dad grins at me when I sit next to him and his computer with windows starts crashing and lagging like hell, and mine doesn't (his desktop is way better than this laptop) lol, I plan on studing something related with systems, adn coding in general, maybe next september I can get to university again.

simplicity+customization=performance

Thanks again for your answer!

headkase · 2012-06-22 04:45:39

You're welcome.

You don't actually need a swap partition given that you have enough memory to cover your use cases. For example, my desktop here has 8GB of memory. I don't have a swap partition at all. I just don't run enough programs in parallel to use all that memory so having one would be superfluous in my case.

Where you would want swap is when your system has say less than 1GB of memory. Even then you don't have to have it. What will happen when both your swap and RAM are exhausted (or just RAM if you have no swap) is that the kernel will begin to randomly kill user-land process'. It will do this until enough RAM has been freed so that the system can continue.

Your PCI listing doesn't tell me everything about your computer, mostly that it is a laptop, with the most important item missing being how much RAM is installed in it. If you have a smaller amount of RAM then you should definitely set up and use a swap partition. If you have a lot of RAM then you could either create a Ramdisk for specific folders or even mount swap directly into RAM. There is no point in mounting swap into RAM unless you also choose the options to make it a dynamic size and compress it at the same time. I'm really rusty about how to go about that but I know for certain it can be done.

headkase · 2012-06-22 05:02:04

Should have mentioned, type:

free -m

Into a terminal to get your amount of memory in MegaBytes. Post that here if you would like.

Last edited by headkase (2012-06-22 05:02:52)

ismaelvc · 2012-06-22 06:40:56

I'm sorry I thought you wanted me to post the complete output of lspci.

It's an old vaio laptop PCG-FXA679, cpu duron @1100:

ismaelvc@toybox ~ $ LANGUAGE=en freesp

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           246        241          5          0          0         29
-/+ buffers/cache:        211         35
Swap:          246        202         44

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          4,1G  2,6G  1,3G  67% /
dev             122M     0  122M   0% /dev
run             124M  264K  124M   1% /run
/dev/sda1       4,1G  2,6G  1,3G  67% /
shm             124M     0  124M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           124M  156K  124M   1% /t

I think you are talking about zramswap:

ismaelvc@toybox ~ $ swapon -s
Filename                                Type         Size     Used    Priority
/dev/zram0                              partition    252568   206356  100

But as you can see I really do need it!

(usual usage is midori 8-10 tabs (only 1-3 if its either youtube or facebook) open all the time, qterminal allways running drop down mode with various splitted subterminals and right now I'm trying various lightweight qt apps from AUR so that means compiling, but I like to let it rest if it gets to too hot usualy 65-70 C (really a laptop design issue), vlc playing music, a text editor (usualy medit or tea) and the ocasional game (prboom, scummvm or emulated consoles (everything between atari and gameboy advance))

but at least now I don't need a swapfile or swap partition, and since I only have a 4GB hard drive and 1.29G free as of now (I plug a usb drive if I need extra storage, and burn CDs to free also), its perfect for me, I'm still looking for the other 256M ram module and another hard drive tough

headkase · 2012-06-22 06:45:31

Oh my. Your system only has 256MB of RAM. You really need some physical swap on a hard drive. You should also choose a desktop environment that is very light on the resources like LXDE or OpenBox.

But, definitely, you need some hard drive swap. It is working so perhaps for your use cases you do stay within that, but, someday your process' will be randomly killed and having swap will decrease that likely-hood quite a bit.

Edit: I totally missed where you first said you were using zramswap.. Sorry! And.. Laptop.. That I got from looking at your PCI devices - one of them was a cardbus interface.

Last edited by headkase (2012-06-22 06:54:37)

headkase · 2012-06-22 07:02:03

If I'm understanding those numbers right: your compressed RAM disk based swap is using all your memory and your system is using that for all its activities. Basically, you are using "compressed RAM" for your entire system. So, you can run more programs at the same time than normally would be possible using just 256MB of RAM at a trade-off of lower-time-performance (CPU Usage is higher) by constantly compressing and decompressing your RAM/Swap.

Last edited by headkase (2012-06-22 07:03:10)

headkase · 2012-06-22 07:32:19

Ok, I found a link which supports the hypothesis that you are using "compressed RAM": Here. It mentions ramzswap by name but by now you will be using a much later version of it - they are talking kernel 2.6.32 there.

You ingenious devil you..

ismaelvc · 2012-06-22 15:59:43

lol Ingenious the guys who deviced this, personally I still dont understand completely how it actually works:

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/increase … -with.html

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=52958

Bsically right now I'm trying all of this performance optimiations (where possible)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ma … erformance
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Im … erformance
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Im … erformance

I'm using xfce now, it consumes around 100M at start but thats because I have all kind of gadgets turned on right now, for montioring things (without all this it consumes about the same than lxde, and a little more than openbox(crunchbang style), I really like it and when I find the other 256 ram module I will try it again (with zram too of course!), openbox is nice, I'll try maybe something even lighter, and thats why I keep trying more and more lightweight apps right now.

I LOVE qterminal, now I have a yakuake drop down style terminal that is light and featured!

Also even though using zram comes at the cost of lower-time-performance, it's still faster than swaping to disk, and I can feel the difference, if I also actiate an aditional 128M swapfile (with lower priority), I can even open more progrems, but it starts lagging if it starts to get full both ram and swaps, in those cases all I do is log out and in again, but I never let it get to those stress conditions unles I feel like testing it! lol

Also this script is useful:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Empty_Swap

(the last one is the one I use)

here is the beast (a.k.a toybox):

headkase · 2012-06-22 16:35:51

I'm impressed that Linux can perform so well with such memory constraints! If you had told me what you are doing and with how much RAM I would have looked-twice, but reading a bit about it - yeah, just awesome it can be done!

Still: get that extra 256MB RAM module..

ismaelvc · 2012-06-22 22:34:45

I've just upgraded from 4 to 20G hard drive lol , I will also try looking for the athlon processor!

Still: get that extra 256MB RAM module..

Yes I will!

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-22 02:55:44

[SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#2 2012-06-22 03:04:19

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#3 2012-06-22 03:21:26

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#4 2012-06-22 03:33:46

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#5 2012-06-22 04:19:54

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#6 2012-06-22 04:45:39

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#7 2012-06-22 05:02:04

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#8 2012-06-22 06:40:56

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#9 2012-06-22 06:45:31

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#10 2012-06-22 07:02:03

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#11 2012-06-22 07:32:19

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#12 2012-06-22 15:59:43

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#13 2012-06-22 16:35:51

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

#14 2012-06-22 22:34:45

Re: [SOLVED] Swap on video ram ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x

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