5.5G iPod 80 GB - Possibility and/or usefulness of RAM upgrade?

[G. Dicky Cheezums III]

Hi!

First of all, Rockbox, well... rocks! Thank you so much for a highly enhanced iPod experience.

But now for the real topic: Loading the database to RAM, using the folder cache and/or having to use a long anti-skip-buffer so on take RAM away from "normal" operations, if I am not mistaken. Would the player/rockbox benefit from more RAM?

According to http://ipodlinux.org/wiki/Generations#Fifth_Generation_.285G.29_.2F_Fifth_Generation_Enhanced_.285.5G.29 the RAM chips used are Samsung 256 Mbit chips, the one on the 60/80 GB version being the "K4M51163PC".

Does anyone know whether there is a higher capacity chip available (and the part number), with which one could replace the stock one? Could the iPod even recognize more than 64 MB? If it could, would Rockbox have to be modified to use it? And would there even be advantages of more RAM, or is it just a pipe dream?

Thanks in advance for reading (and hoepfully shedding light on this)

[Buschel]

Rockbox cannot decide between 5G iPod's with 32MB or 64MB RAM. So, adding some more will need code changes. The advantage of more RAM is that the HDD will spin up less often (but longer) while buffering for playback. This will lead to increased runtime. The savings depend on the bitrate of the files you are listening to but will not be that much.

[Llorean]

For probably less money, and certainly less work, you could simply put in a larger battery and get a lot more increased battery life.

[AlexP]

It also depends on listening patterns - if you skip around alot, or change playlists etc. then the added buffer will not help, and in fact will decrease battery life as everytime the disk needs to spin up to refill the unused buffer it needs to be working for longer to fill the bigger buffer.

[G. Dicky Cheezums III]

For probably less money, and certainly less work, you could simply put in a larger battery and get a lot more increased battery life.

That's precisely the impression I got from Buschel's response, but my interest in increasing memory size was sparked by wanting to use all caching options rockbox has to offer and offsetting it with more RAM, as not to impare "basic" operations (music playback/buffering/skip protection).

But I guess it's not worth it. And if one's database isn't abnormally huge, using both "folder cache" and loading the database to RAM won't use up too much memory, I guess.

Thanks!

[Llorean]

More RAM just increases battery life. The only impairment you'll see from enabling all of those is possibly reduced battery life, which can be offset, again, by a larger battery.

[soap]

All this being said - the only tests I ever did (see the Ipod Runtime page (60GB 5G)) showed very little improvement with the 64MB buffer.  Improvement only at (or very near) the resolution of my testing.

Apple firmware also seems to have little or no runtime improvement due to the larger buffer, as a simple AdvertisedRuntime / BatteryCapacity math will show.  (The fact I actually got closer to 21 hours of Apple runtime vs the 20 advertised only makes the math stronger.)

As others have said - get a new battery.