Navigator 3 and SD Cards

rich33 · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 12:12 pm Post subject: Navigator 3 and SD Cards

Hi

I was wondering if it was ok to run the Navigator 3 application from my SD card (256mb), maps are already on there. I seem to have a lot of applications (email, contacts etc..) that tell have to be added to the Ipaqs own memory, thus space is always an issue.

Oh and why is this?!?

Many thanks

Richard
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Ipaq 4150 - Fortuna Clip On BT - Lexar 256mb SD Card / Kingston 256mb SD Card - TomTom Nav 3.05T - Traffic - CheckPOInt 2.0.2.0 - Mapopolis - Memory Map 2004 UK - Brodit Mount - & BT Registry Fix (recommended!)

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 1:41 pm Post subject:

Your SD card is a "good" card (means it's not a Sandisk) so you should have no problems to install th paalication onto the SD card. The only thing tha refuses to install to the SD card is the GPS driver.

Do you already have a task manager like Wisbar or Vbar? They help you to REALLY close programs that are sitting around in the background and eat into your RAM. The operating system does't close programs, it only moves them to the background when you tap the X
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Lutz

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DavidW · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 1:43 pm Post subject:

The recommendation not to put applications (and the requirement that certain software must not be put) on a storage card is for two reasons. Firstly, a storage card is much slower to access than main memory, also there's a delay between the Pocket PC powering up and the memory card becoming available.

You may get away with putting the main Navigator application on your storage card - actually putting the voice files on the storage card is likely to be more troublesome. However, if you get any instability with this, your first step should be to return the application to main memory.

David

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:54 pm Post subject:

DavidW,

only one of your arguments does really make a difference - The wakeup does indeed take longer for storage cards, and if any shortcuts point to the storage card they may be missing the icon because the icon list is created before the storage card gets attached.

Putting the application on storage card doesn't make the application slower. The only thing that is slower is the inital transfer of the application from storage memory into the program memory. I am pretty certain that applications do not run in situ in the SD card, they always are copied into main memory for execution.

I have been running a good dozen GPS programs and all my other utilities from the storage card since a good year now (and it is even a pooh-pooh SanDisk card) and never had problems running software. Quite on the contrary - because I have kept the main memory clean all running applications have more space at hand and run more stable.

As far as the WAV files are concerned - these are small, and you can't really feel the difference between storage Card and main memory for those. If you leave them in main memory you lose 2.7 MB of space.
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

rich33 · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 3:14 pm Post subject:

Many thanks to both of you for the advice. I think it'll now be worth having a little play around with all my applictions on the SD card, worst case scenario at least I will have done a back up!

Regards

Richard
_________________
Ipaq 4150 - Fortuna Clip On BT - Lexar 256mb SD Card / Kingston 256mb SD Card - TomTom Nav 3.05T - Traffic - CheckPOInt 2.0.2.0 - Mapopolis - Memory Map 2004 UK - Brodit Mount - & BT Registry Fix (recommended!)

DavidW · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 9:45 pm Post subject:

It's true that the main issue is the unavailability of the storage card all the time (it's not kept powered up).

I can't remember if applications in RAM are executed from storage, or whether they're copied to program memory first, and I can't lay my hands on definitive information either way. If it's the former, then this changes the memory footprint of big applications like Navigator if you copy it to a storage card.

With the voice files, if there's an access speed issue with them being on a storage card, it can crash Navigator. I remember at least one thread I was involved in on the forums where the reported symptom was crashing when Navigator 2 was trying to speak, and the problem was that the voice files were on a storage card (moving them back to main memory solved the problem).

David

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