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iPad 3 to Have 1GB of RAM?

Roy G Biv said:
With 4x the resolution and only 2x the memory, won't the iPad be forgetting stuff and losing track of information? I can hardly remember where I left my parked at Wal-Mart, and I read in a book once that my brain is the most powerful computer in the world! :eek:
Click to expand...

Well, perhaps not YOUR brain...:rolleyes: ;) :D
 
I think there is some lack of understanding regarding the memory situation and how it relates to the resolution of the screen. The RAM that we are talking about here is not necessarily RAM devoted to graphics. An application that requires four times the resolution won't actually take up four times more RAM than its standard-resolution version. The actual amount of RAM devoted to the graphical elements of an application might only be around 5% of the total running application's RAM slice or even less (or more, but you get the point). Multiplying that by four is still not a significant chunk of RAM. You are gaining tons of extra RAM even if the amount of RAM isn't being multiplied by four. Think of it as absolute advantage vs. relative advantage (if you've taken any economics course).
 
Leehro said:
Saw this too, made me look at the BGR photos again. Was this the photo set that led us to believe iPad 3 would have a quad-core CPU? Because I don't see it -- there are four "[NAND] Found Chip ID" lines, but wouldn't those be for NAND flash memory?

Kinda late in the game, I'm just wondering if that's where the quad-core rumor came from in the first place (meaning - there isn't one).
Click to expand...

Yeah... i came to same conclusion
 
carmenodie said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Wow! It's amazing the amount of crap you can decipher form a bunch of effing gibberish.
Click to expand...

To a developer it's not a bunch of gibberish.
 
Great news!
I was really afraid that Apple would cheapen out on the ram again.
If the iPad 1 would have had 1 gig of ram it would still be a top notch device in regards to the competition and I would not have to upgrade now.
Although Retina and new and shiny will make it all worth it.
 
Apple is minimalist mainly to force future upgrades. No fanboy likes it and no fanboy revolts.

Apple is infamous for "shared" graphics memory with main memory.

So if you absolutely insist on being crippled two different ways (and 2 cores not 4 because the 2C design is more evolved), would you PLEASE do a scheme to employ GPU memory as a coprocessor for SOMETHING?

Yes it is a consumer device not a real computer, but that does not stop you from leveraging recent tech or even Amiga tech to deliver outsized performance for undersized silicon.

For god's sake offer a 2x battery option!!

Rocketman
 
omgitscro said:
I think there is some lack of understanding regarding the memory situation and how it relates to the resolution of the screen. The RAM that we are talking about here is not necessarily RAM devoted to graphics. An application that requires four times the resolution won't actually take up four times more RAM than its standard-resolution version. The actual amount of RAM devoted to the graphical elements of an application might only be around 5% of the total running application's RAM slice or even less (or more, but you get the point). Multiplying that by four is still not a significant chunk of RAM. You are gaining tons of extra RAM even if the amount of RAM isn't being multiplied by four. Think of it as absolute advantage vs. relative advantage (if you've taken any economics course).
Click to expand...

Wrong.

Test:
Sameimage.PNG

at 1024x768 - 299kb
at 2048x1536 - 664kb

You would need double the ram just to hold the graphics in memory and retain the same usability. Don't think that 1GB is really going to help that much it's just enough to account for the increase in resolution.

As an app developer if you jump to retina you're going to have a double the graphics/ram footprint.
 
Kenrik said:
Wrong.

Test:
Sameimage.PNG

at 1024x768 - 299kb
at 2048x1536 - 664kb

You would need double the ram just to hold the graphics in memory and retain the same usability. Don't think that 1GB is really going to help that much it's just enough to account for the increase in resolution.

As an app developer if you jump to retina you're going to have a double the graphics/ram footprint.
Click to expand...

This is my fear too this thing need at least 1.5 gigs to compensate for the display and still leave enough available memory for apps and multitasking,the ipad3/hd needs to perform better than the ipad2 even with the high ppi Display so this thing better come correct spec wise, not to please the spec watchers rather to ensure that this truly is a upgrade because id take a well performing ipad2 than a poor performing ipad 3 with Retina it would be like ipad 1 all over again just prettier
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

This is great news. 1GB of ram packed into the iPad, with possible quad-core processor..can't wait to see great new FPS games come out this year.
 
1gb seems too little

Seems to me that for a device running a resolution of 1536 x 2048 it would need A LOT more than 1gb of RAM. Especially for more graphics intensive apps and games. There arn't too many desktop or laptop pc's that can even run games at that resolution and those usually have at least 4gbs of RAM along with a quad core processor. I predict that there will be very few apps that actually run at the full "retina" resolution. People will complain that their new "HD" iPad hardly has any "HD" content and Apple will add even more RAM along with a quad core processor for the "iPad 4".
 
Giuly said:
1GB = 1 Billion Bytes. It said so on my iPhone box.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me?

The marketed "gigabyte" is indeed 1000 megabytes but the actual gigabyte is 1024 megabytes (or 1,073,741,824 bytes)


EnlightenedOne1 said:
Seems to me that for a device running a resolution of 1536 x 2048 it would need A LOT more than 1gb of RAM. Especially for more graphics intensive apps and games. There arn't too many desktop or laptop pc's that can even run games at that resolution and those usually have at least 4gbs of RAM along with a quad core processor. I predict that there will be very few apps that actually run at the full "retina" resolution. People will complain that their new "HD" iPad hardly has any "HD" content and Apple will add even more RAM along with a quad core processor for the "iPad 4".
Click to expand...

I do see what you mean, and although a computer and an ipad are two whole different animals, I think you're mixing up two different aspects of ram, one being video ram and the other being system ram. Lets go with a graphically intensive ipad game such as Infinity Blade. The app itself is no more than a gig, whereas a typical pc game can take up to around 10 gigs of space (which is still probably compressed). This is why 4gb is needed on a tower pc system, the data, not necessarily the resolution.

And although there are games on desktops that can only run at their best settings with two top of the line vid cards, there are no games that come close to that graphical clarity on the ipad.

Also don't mix up resolution and grahics. I can have a cube at 640x480 and a cube a 1920x1200 and the cube will require relatively the same amount of graphical power. Of course it will need more to power the higher res version in order to anti-alias the **** out of it, but not as much as if that higher res cube had a **** ton of additional geometry, textures and bumpmapping.

well i hope that made sense =p
 
Last edited:
Kenrik said:
Wrong.

Test:
Sameimage.PNG

at 1024x768 - 299kb
at 2048x1536 - 664kb

You would need double the ram just to hold the graphics in memory and retain the same usability. Don't think that 1GB is really going to help that much it's just enough to account for the increase in resolution.

As an app developer if you jump to retina you're going to have a double the graphics/ram footprint.
Click to expand...

Wrong.

What the previous poster was saying is that your RAM is not only used by graphics. let me use an example:

Some game uses 10% of the iPad 2's RAM for graphics = 51.2mb
The game also uses 5% of the iPad 2's RAM for processing tasks = 25.6mb
RAM left over (ignoring system used RAM)) = 512mb - 51.2mb - 25.5mb = 435.2mb

The same game on a Retina iPad with updaded graphics:
RAM used by graphics = 51.2mb * 4 = 204.8mb
RAM used by processing tasks would be the same = 25.6mb
RAM left over (ignoring system used RAM) = 1024mb - 204.8mb - 25.6mb = 793.6mb

As you can see, the 1gb RAM Retina iPad has more leftover RAM than the iPad 2 when using the same app with Retina graphics.

This is VERY rough but should give you an idea of what the original poster meant. I have made several assumptions but the principle still holds.
 
Neodym said:
With 4x the pixels (Retina) compared to iPad 1/2 the "relative" usable Ram will be back to the iPad 1's meager 256MB, won't it? Wonder if that will be as noticeable on that new iPad as on the first one in everyday use...
Click to expand...

You're assuming ram is only used for graphics.
 
LaazyEye said:
The marketed "gigabyte" is indeed 1000 megabytes but the actual gigabyte is 1024 megabytes (or 1,073,741,824 bytes)
Click to expand...

I'm inclined to agree with the "marketing". Giga is a billion. A gibibyte is 1,024 mebibytes. I'm sure that non-computer scientists who hear "kilo is 1,024" must squirm in their skin. It's simply inaccurate.

In a perfect world we would have never even had the term "megabyte". It would have been "mebibyte" right from the beginning.
 
there's also nothing stopping you using vector art in your applications, that scale nicely to any resolution, for the same file size ;)
 
But will we notice any difference. As others have pointed out with a higher res screen having to load higher res files, will we the end user see any speed or peformance difference with 1gb?

Likewise is it not possible that even with more memory, and faster dual core CPU, peformance could be fractionally worse because of the extra oomph it requires to render the retina resolution! (I doubt it will be worse, but that doesn't make it theoretically impossible).

I'd have hoped 1gb would help with multi-tasking, but if it's used up with the extra rendering of the retina display then it may not help much at all and just be there out of necessity.

My hopes are high with iPad 3 and it will be day 1 purchase as was ipad and ipad2, but we will see.


The one thing I would like with iPad 3 is haptic feedback for the keyboard though.
 
locksmack said:
Wrong.

What the previous poster was saying is that your RAM is not only used by graphics. let me use an example:

Some game uses 10% of the iPad 2's RAM for graphics = 51.2mb
The game also uses 5% of the iPad 2's RAM for processing tasks = 25.6mb
RAM left over (ignoring system used RAM)) = 512mb - 51.2mb - 25.5mb = 435.2mb

The same game on a Retina iPad with updaded graphics:
RAM used by graphics = 51.2mb * 4 = 204.8mb
RAM used by processing tasks would be the same = 25.6mb
RAM left over (ignoring system used RAM) = 1024mb - 204.8mb - 25.6mb = 793.6mb

As you can see, the 1gb RAM Retina iPad has more leftover RAM than the iPad 2 when using the same app with Retina graphics.

This is VERY rough but should give you an idea of what the original poster meant. I have made several assumptions but the principle still holds.
Click to expand...

Not quite. Using your example, the iPad 2 can have 512/(51.2+25.6) = 6 of those applications in memory at once. The iPad 3 could only have 1024/(204.8+25.6) = 4 of those applications in memory at once.
 
Am I the only one who thinks that 1gb might not be much of an improvement?

The ipad 1 I have constantly kills the browser and other apps due to out of memory, and this happens in the ipad 2 far less often. Now, every gfx asset in the new ipad will be 4x as heavy due to the 4x pixel increase. While 2gb ram might not be required, as certainly not everything is gfx, i fear that the 1gb might be more comparable to an ipad 1 than to an ipad 2. Hope I'm wrong, and bus speed and video ram were also the cause of poor performance in ipad 1, but i think the amount of ram is more the issue.
 
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