Question about Amiga memory management

Kenan · 18 June 2013, 02:41

Can the "graphics memory" use the "other memory" resources if needed?
For example, let's say you run a really demanding app and it uses up all the available graphics memory but have an accelerator ie. lots of "other memory", can the latter be used as a substitution in such circumstances OR "graphics memory" is a separate kind of memory and it can't be replaced/rebuilt from the "other memory"?

Just for the record, I'm not having any issues with it, simply would like to know how do things work.

Thanks.

ajk · 18 June 2013, 07:20

I'm not an expert on the exact details, but essentially you need to have things in chip memory if they are operated on by the custom chips. So generally speaking graphics and sound that are actively used need to reside there, everything else can (and, for speed, should) be in fast memory. Of course you can swap things in and out as needed, but it always takes some time.

On the hardware level it's due to the custom chips only being able to access that part of the address space, and it can't be extended (beyond 2MB) without a new chipset design.

18 June 2013, 02:41	#1
Kenan Registered User Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Rijeka, Croatia Posts: 194	Question about Amiga memory management Can the "graphics memory" use the "other memory" resources if needed? For example, let's say you run a really demanding app and it uses up all the available graphics memory but have an accelerator ie. lots of "other memory", can the latter be used as a substitution in such circumstances OR "graphics memory" is a separate kind of memory and it can't be replaced/rebuilt from the "other memory"? Just for the record, I'm not having any issues with it, simply would like to know how do things work. Thanks.

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18 June 2013, 07:20	#2
ajk Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 1,341	I'm not an expert on the exact details, but essentially you need to have things in chip memory if they are operated on by the custom chips. So generally speaking graphics and sound that are actively used need to reside there, everything else can (and, for speed, should) be in fast memory. Of course you can swap things in and out as needed, but it always takes some time. On the hardware level it's due to the custom chips only being able to access that part of the address space, and it can't be extended (beyond 2MB) without a new chipset design.

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