If you like the world of tech and smartphones in particular, you’ve surely read a lot in recent weeks about virtual RAM or dynamic RAM. The name changes depending on the manufacturer (at Samsung it is called RAM Plus), but the concept is the same and more and more brands are integrating it as an improvement to their mobiles either from the factory or with a subsequent upgrade.
The last to integrate it was the POCO M4 Pro 5G joining the list of other brands such as Vivo, Realme, Samsung, OPPO, Xiaomi … An easy to use technique that you are looking for increase and improve mobile performance through virtualization using phone storage.
What is RAM and what is it for?
Virtualizing RAM using physical memory is nothing new. In the PC market it’s been in the works for years, but in mobile it’s something new
RAM stands for Random Access Memory or Random Access Memory. This is one of the differential factors when a device works more smoothly because in it and instead of saving and storing information long term and statically, what is done is store instructions and data temporarily. Information that is erased when we turn off the device and whose characteristic is that it is a memory with fast access and which is linked to the running processes at all times.
This speed is justified because it stores all the instructions related to the processes under development at that time. The more processes or the heavier, the more RAM memory we will have occupied and the more free memory, the more operations we can perform without resorting to the internal storage of the phone.
But they can happen case of RAM running out and it is at this point that it will be the system which will determine which processes it will have to load in virtual memory to free RAM. You won’t notice any of this, but you can perceive how it all goes more slowly. And that’s where virtual RAM comes in.
Advantages and disadvantages of virtualization
What virtualization does is block a certain number of GB of storage that will be used to run processes when “normal” RAM does not have enough capacity. Some manufacturers call it RAM Plus like Samsung and others Virtual RAM in the case of Vivo.
Each manufacturer is responsible after establishing the parameters that determine its operation and, for example, Vivo allows that through the parameters we indicate to the system the amount of storage that we want to virtualize as if it were RAM memory. It is generally allowed to increase the RAM with values between 2 and 4 GB maximum.
Newer batch phones already ship with this feature enabled, while others were already on the market is being deployed remotely via a software update. This solution is a solution to the lack of RAM issues in some cases, but it is not a panacea, as it is slower than normal RAM in its execution.
In addition, and although it is not easy to notice it if you change your mobile frequently, physical memory has a limited number of reads and writes, so the more it is overwritten (the use of RAM requires it to be repeated constantly), the less useful life it will have.
In this sense, it is always advisable to look for phones with a good amount of RAM. In the case of Android at least 4 GB currently requiredAlthough it is common for mid-range or high-end models to use amounts ranging from 6 to 16 GB of RAM up to 8 and 12 GB.
Virtual or dynamic RAM, as we like it, is an emergency solution for phones that runs more just on RAM, but it’s far from the perfect system, so it’s always worth looking for the terminal that has the best specs.