Confused about memory usage - memory

I'm working with a small Pololu 3pi robot. It has 32KB of flash, 2KB of SRAM and 1KB of EEPROM. I ran the following code on the robot:
#include <pololu/3pi.h>
int main(){
int nums[1000];
nums[0] = 50;
nums[999] = 100;
clear();
print_long(nums[0]); // prints 50
lcd_goto_xy(0, 1);
print_long(nums[999]); // prints 100
while(1);
}
My expectation was that it would crash because it's run out of RAM
to store the entire nums array. But not only did it not crash, it also printed the numbers correctly as they were allocated.
How come? Isn't this using 4000 bytes of memory?

Related

STM32 - Reading I2S to record a .WAV file. Audio choppy, what is causing it?

I'm using an STM32 (STM32F446RE) to receive audio from two INMP441 mems microphone in an stereo setup via I2S protocol and record it into a .WAV on a micro SD card, using the HAL library.
I wrote the firmware that records audio into a .WAV with FreeRTOS. But the audio files that I record sound like Darth Vader. Here is a screenshot of the audio in audacity:
if you zoom in you can see a constant noise being inserted in between the real audio data:
I don't know what is causing this.
I have tried increasing the MessageQueue, but that doesnt seem to be the problem, the queue is kept at 0 most of the time. I've tried different frame sizes and sampling rates, changing the number of channels, using only one inmp441. All this without any success.
I proceed explaining the firmware.
Here is a block diagram of the architecture for the RTOS that I have implemented:
It consists of three tasks. The first one receives a command via UART (with interrupts) that signals to start or stop recording. the second one is simply an state machine that walks through the steps to write a .WAV.
Here the code for the WriteWavFileTask:
switch(audio_state)
{
case STATE_START_RECORDING:
sprintf(filename, "%saud_%03d.wav", SDPath, count++);
do
{
res = f_open(&file_ptr, filename, FA_CREATE_ALWAYS|FA_WRITE);
}
while(res != FR_OK);
res = fwrite_wav_header(&file_ptr, I2S_SAMPLE_FREQUENCY, I2S_FRAME, 2);
HAL_I2S_Receive_DMA(&hi2s2, aud_buf, READ_SIZE);
audio_state = STATE_RECORDING;
break;
case STATE_RECORDING:
osDelay(50);
break;
case STATE_STOP:
HAL_I2S_DMAStop(&hi2s2);
while(osMessageQueueGetCount(AudioQueueHandle)) osDelay(1000);
filesize = f_size(&file_ptr);
data_len = filesize - 44;
total_len = filesize - 8;
f_lseek(&file_ptr, 4);
f_write(&file_ptr, (uint8_t*)&total_len, 4, bw);
f_lseek(&file_ptr, 40);
f_write(&file_ptr, (uint8_t*)&data_len, 4, bw);
f_close(&file_ptr);
audio_state = STATE_IDLE;
break;
case STATE_IDLE:
osThreadSuspend(WAVHandle);
audio_state = STATE_START_RECORDING;
break;
default:
osDelay(50);
break;
Here are the macros used in the code for readability:
#define I2S_DATA_WORD_LENGTH (24) // industry-standard 24-bit I2S
#define I2S_FRAME (32) // bits per sample
#define READ_SIZE (128) // samples to read from I2S
#define WRITE_SIZE (READ_SIZE*I2S_FRAME/16) // half words to write
#define WRITE_SIZE_BYTES (WRITE_SIZE*2) // bytes to write
#define I2S_SAMPLE_FREQUENCY (16000) // sample frequency
The last task is the responsible for processing the buffer received via I2S. Here is the code:
void convert_endianness(uint32_t *array, uint16_t Size) {
for (int i = 0; i < Size; i++) {
array[i] = __REV(array[i]);
}
}
void HAL_I2S_RxCpltCallback(I2S_HandleTypeDef *hi2s)
{
convert_endianness((uint32_t *)aud_buf, READ_SIZE);
osMessageQueuePut(AudioQueueHandle, aud_buf, 0L, 0);
HAL_I2S_Receive_DMA(hi2s, aud_buf, READ_SIZE);
}
void pvrWriteAudioTask(void *argument)
{
/* USER CODE BEGIN pvrWriteAudioTask */
static UINT *bw;
static uint16_t aud_ptr[WRITE_SIZE];
/* Infinite loop */
for(;;)
{
osMessageQueueGet(AudioQueueHandle, aud_ptr, 0L, osWaitForever);
res = f_write(&file_ptr, aud_ptr, WRITE_SIZE_BYTES, bw);
}
/* USER CODE END pvrWriteAudioTask */
}
This tasks reads from a queue an array of 256 uint16_t elements containing the raw audio data in PCM. f_write takes the Size parameter in number of bytes to write to the SD card, so 512 bytes. The I2S Receives 128 frames (for a 32 bit frame, 128 words).
The following is the configuration for the I2S and clocks:
Any help would be much appreciated!
Solution
As pmacfarlane pointed out, the problem was with the method used for buffering the audio data. The solution consisted of easing the overhead on the ISR and implementing a circular DMA for double buffering. Here is the code:
#define I2S_DATA_WORD_LENGTH (24) // industry-standard 24-bit I2S
#define I2S_FRAME (32) // bits per sample
#define READ_SIZE (128) // samples to read from I2S
#define BUFFER_SIZE (READ_SIZE*I2S_FRAME/16) // number of uint16_t elements expected
#define WRITE_SIZE_BYTES (BUFFER_SIZE*2) // bytes to write
#define I2S_SAMPLE_FREQUENCY (16000) // sample frequency
uint16_t aud_buf[2*BUFFER_SIZE]; // Double buffering
static volatile int16_t *BufPtr;
void convert_endianness(uint32_t *array, uint16_t Size) {
for (int i = 0; i < Size; i++) {
array[i] = __REV(array[i]);
}
}
void HAL_I2S_RxHalfCpltCallback(I2S_HandleTypeDef *hi2s)
{
BufPtr = aud_buf;
osSemaphoreRelease(RxAudioSemHandle);
}
void HAL_I2S_RxCpltCallback(I2S_HandleTypeDef *hi2s)
{
BufPtr = &aud_buf[BUFFER_SIZE];
osSemaphoreRelease(RxAudioSemHandle);
}
void pvrWriteAudioTask(void *argument)
{
/* USER CODE BEGIN pvrWriteAudioTask */
static UINT *bw;
/* Infinite loop */
for(;;)
{
osSemaphoreAcquire(RxAudioSemHandle, osWaitForever);
convert_endianness((uint32_t *)BufPtr, READ_SIZE);
res = f_write(&file_ptr, BufPtr, WRITE_SIZE_BYTES, bw);
}
/* USER CODE END pvrWriteAudioTask */
}
Problems
I think the problem is your method of buffering the audio data - mainly in this function:
void HAL_I2S_RxCpltCallback(I2S_HandleTypeDef *hi2s)
{
convert_endianness((uint32_t *)aud_buf, READ_SIZE);
osMessageQueuePut(AudioQueueHandle, aud_buf, 0L, 0);
HAL_I2S_Receive_DMA(hi2s, aud_buf, READ_SIZE);
}
The main problem is that you are re-using the same buffer each time. You have queued a message to save aud_buf to the SD-card, but you've also instructed the I2S to start DMAing data into that same buffer, before it has been saved. You'll end up saving some kind of mish-mash of "old" data and "new" data.
#Flexz pointed out that the message queue takes a copy of the data, so there is no issue about the I2S writing over the data that is being written to the SD-card. However, taking the copy (in an ISR) adds overhead, and delays the start of the new I2S DMA.
Another problem is that you are doing the endian conversion in this function (that is called from an ISR). This will block any other (lower priority) interrupts from being serviced while this happens, which is a bad thing in an embedded system. You should do the endian conversion in the task that reads from the queue. ISRs should be very short and do the minimum possible work (often just setting a flag, giving a semaphore, or adding something to a queue).
Lastly, while you are doing the endian conversion, what is happening to audio samples? The previous DMA has completed, and you haven't started a new one, so they will just be dropped on the floor.
Possible solution
You probably want to allocate a suitably big buffer, and configure your DMA to work in circular buffer mode. This means that once started, the DMA will continue forever (until you stop it), so you'll never drop any samples. There won't be any gap between one DMA finishing and a new one starting, since you never need to start a new one.
The DMA provides a "half-complete" interrupt, to say when it has filled half the buffer. So start the DMA, and when you get the half-complete interrupt, queue up the first half of the buffer to be saved. When you get the fully-complete interrupt, queue up the second half of the buffer to be saved. Rinse and repeat.
You might want to add some logic to detect if the interrupt happens before the previous save has completed, since the data will be overrun and possibly corrupted. Depending on the speed of the SD-card (and the sample rate), this may or may not be a problem.

Writing a program to count process memory pages in xv6

I'm trying to write a system call that returns the number of memory pages the current process is using but I have no idea where to start and which variables I should look at.
I saw two variables sz and pgdir in proc.h. But I don't know what each of them represents exactly.
Looking at proc.c, you have all you want to understand the memory management:
// Grow current process's memory by n bytes.
// Return 0 on success, -1 on failure.
int
growproc(int n)
{
uint sz;
struct proc *curproc = myproc();
sz = curproc->sz;
if((sz = allocuvm(curproc->pgdir, sz, sz + n)) == 0)
return -1;
curproc->sz = sz;
switchuvm(curproc);
return 0;
}
growproc is used to increase the process memory by n bytes. This function is used by the sbrk syscall, itself called by malloc.
From this, we assert that sz from struct proc { is actually the process memory size.
Reading allocuvm from vm.c, you can see two macros:
PGROUNDUP(size) which transform a memory size to a memory size that is rounded to next page size,
PGSIZE which is the page size.
So, the number of pages actually used by a process is (PGROUNDUP(proc)->sz)/PGSIZE.

Stop computing when Metal kernel output buffer is full?

I have a metal compute kernel that takes input points from a buffer particles, and populates a new buffer particlesOut. My compute kernel is defined as:
kernel void compute(device DrawingPoint *particles [[buffer(0)]],
device Particle *particlesOut [[buffer(1)]],
constant ComputeParameters *params [[buffer(2)]],
device atomic_int &counter [[buffer(3)]],
uint id [[thread_position_in_grid]]) {
This works fine, so long as the output buffer has room for the number of records populated.
So, for instance, if the input buffer has 10,000 records, and for each of those records I create 10 output records, and the output buffer has a length of 100,000, then all is fine. In other words, if the number of output records is fixed and is large enough, all is fine.
But for some input records, I would like a random number of output records to be populated. For instance, some I would like to populate 5, and another I would like to create 200 (and any number in-between).
I am using an atomic_int for the output record's position in the buffer. Again, this works if I have a fixed number of records populated per input record.
I am populating the output buffer like this:
//Output buffer is 10 times the size of the input buffer
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
int counterValue = atomic_fetch_add_explicit(&counter, 1, memory_order_relaxed);
...
particlesOut[counterValue].position = finalPoint;
}
This works fine.
If I try to make it work on a variable number instead of the fixed value, the buffer is way under populated (instead of getting say 100,000 particles populated, maybe only 10,000 are populated).
For example:
int numberOfOutputPoints = someRandomValueBetweenFiveAndTwoHundred();
for (int i = 0; i < numberOfOutputPoints; i++) {
int counterValue = atomic_fetch_add_explicit(&counter, 1, memory_order_relaxed);
//particleCount is the size of the output buffer
if (counterValue > params->particleCount) {
return;
}
...
particlesOut[counterValue].position = finalPoint;
}
When I do that, only a small number of the particles in the output buffer are actually populated.
I looked at using different options for atomic_fetch_add_explicit, but only memory_order_relaxed will compile.
I tried using:
int counterValue = atomic_fetch_add(&counter, 1)
But, the compiler reports that there is no matching function. Other than having the buffer output large enough for every record to populate the maximum number of possible particles populated (e.g. 200 times 10,000), is there any way to make it dynamic?
In other words, I just want to stop populating the output buffer when it is full.

Tracking iOS memory usage

I am looking for a way to track iOS memory usage from within my app as accurately as possible. After many trials I end up with the following code:
uint64_t memory_usage (void) {
task_vm_info_data_t vmInfo;
mach_msg_type_number_t count = TASK_VM_INFO_COUNT;
if (task_info(mach_task_self(), TASK_VM_INFO, (task_info_t) &vmInfo, &count) != KERN_SUCCESS) return -1;
return vmInfo.internal;
}
When executed from a real device the value returned is in sync with the value reported by the Xcode debugger.
The behaviour that I cannot explain is when allocated memory reaches about 500MB the value returned by this function do not increase (it continue to report a value in the 450/450MB range) while the Xcode debugger continue to grow up until 1.3GB and then a memory warning is notified to my app.
The code I used to test this function is fired every 0.5 seconds from within an NSTimer with the following action:
- (void) checkMemory {
uint64_t mem_usage = memory_usage();
// allocate a 5MB buffer to test memory usage
uint32_t buffer_size = 5 * 1024 * 1024;
char *buffer = (char *)malloc(buffer_size);
memset(buffer, 0, buffer_size);
p[i++] = buffer;
}
Am I missing something?

How do I increase the size of EZAudio EZMicrophone?

I would like to use the EZAudio framework to do realtime microphone signal FFT processing, along with some other processing in order to determine the peak frequency.
The problem is, the EZmicrophone class only appears to work on 512 samples, however, my signal requires an FFT of 8192 or even 16384 samples. There doesnt appear to be a way to change the buffer size in EZMicrophone, but I've read posts that recommend creating an array of my target size and appending the microphone buffer to it, then when it's full, do the FFT.
When I do this though, I get large chunks of memory with no data, or discontinuities between the segments of copied memory. I think it may have something to do with the timing or order in which the microphone delegate is being called or memory being overwritten in different threads...I'm grasping at straws here. Am I correct in assuming that this code is being executed everytime the microphone buffer is full of a new 512 samples?
Can anyone suggest what I may be doing wrong? I've been stuck on this for a long time.
Here is the post I've been using as a reference:
EZAudio: How do you separate the buffersize from the FFT window size(desire higher frequency bin resolution).
// Global variables which are bad but I'm just trying to make things work
float tempBuf[512];
float fftBuf[8192];
int samplesRemaining = 8192;
int samplestoCopy = 512;
int FFTLEN = 8192;
int fftBufIndex = 0;
#pragma mark - EZMicrophoneDelegate
-(void) microphone:(EZMicrophone *)microphone
hasAudioReceived:(float **)buffer
withBufferSize:(UInt32)bufferSize
withNumberOfChannels:(UInt32)numberOfChannels {
// Copy the microphone buffer so it wont be changed
memcpy(tempBuf, buffer[0], bufferSize);
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(),^{
// Setup the FFT if it's not already setup
if( !_isFFTSetup ){
[self createFFTWithBufferSize:FFTLEN withAudioData:fftBuf];
_isFFTSetup = YES;
}
int samplesRemaining = FFTLEN;
memcpy(fftBuf+fftBufIndex, tempBuf, samplestoCopy*sizeof(float));
fftBufIndex += samplestoCopy;
samplesRemaining -= samplestoCopy;
if (fftBufIndex == FFTLEN)
{
fftBufIndex = 0;
samplesRemaining = FFTLEN;
[self updateFFTWithBufferSize:FFTLEN withAudioData:fftBuf];
}
});
}
You likely have threading issues because you are trying to do work in some blocks that takes much much longer than the time between audio callbacks. Your code is being called repeatedly before prior calls can say that they are done (with the FFT setup or clearing the FFT buffer).
Try doing the FFT setup outside the callback before starting the recording, only copy to a circular buffer or FIFO inside the callback, and do the FFT in code async to the callback (not locked in the same block as the circular buffer copy).

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