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Some second-level CPU caches run slower than the processor core. When the processor needs to access external memory, it starts placing the address of the requested information on the address bus. It then must wait for the answer, that may come back tens if not hundreds of cycles later. Each of the cycles spent waiting is called a wait state.
This was widely used for updating the display using main memory as a framebuffer. Common RAM of the late 1970s ran at 2 MHz, so most machines had a CPU running around 1 MHz. The BBC Micro secured a supply of 4 MHz RAM which allowed its CPU to run at 2 MHz. Another common solution was to use separate banks of memory that stored instructions vs ...
Video random-access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. [1] It often uses a different technology than other computer memory, in order to be read quickly for display on a screen.
A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. [1] A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which stores copies of the data from frequently used main memory locations.
Pages of memory from expanded memory hardware were accessible through an addressing window placed into a free area in the UMA space, and by exchanging it for other pages when needed to access other memory. EMS supported 16 MB of space. Using a quirk in the 286 CPU architecture, the high memory area (HMA) was accessible, as the first 64 KB above ...
Multiprogramming is a computing technique that enables multiple programs to be concurrently loaded and executed into a computer's memory, allowing the CPU to switch between them swiftly. This optimizes CPU utilization by keeping it engaged with the execution of tasks, particularly useful when one program is waiting for I/O operations to complete.
Traditionally, low-memory-footprint programs were of importance to running applications on embedded systems where memory would often be a constrained resource [1] – so much so that developers typically sacrificed efficiency (processing speeds) just to make program footprints small enough to fit into the available RAM.
Thrashing is when the CPU performs 'productive' work less and 'swapping' work more. The overall memory access time may increase since the higher level memory is only as fast as the next lower level in the memory hierarchy. [2] The CPU is busy swapping pages so much that it cannot respond to users' programs and interrupts as much as required.