8 MB PSRAM himem?

[jcw]

I'm trying to make the himem banking demo work. Tried with platformio and the arduino ide, see this forum discussion.

Latest IDE, github head https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32.git, latest MacOS, target is based on WROVER (TTGO T7 v1.3).

The test code I have is:

extern "C" {
#include <esp_spiram.h>
#include <esp_himem.h>
}

void setup() {
  esp_spiram_init();
  printf("spiram size %u\n", esp_spiram_get_size());
  printf("himem free %u\n", esp_himem_get_free_size());
  printf("himem phys %u\n", esp_himem_get_phys_size());
  printf("himem reserved %u\n", esp_himem_reserved_area_size());
}

void loop() {}

The output I see is:

entry 0x400806a8
E (121) spiram: SPI RAM not initialized
E (121) esp_himem: Cannot allocate memory for meta info. Not initializing!
spiram size 8388608
himem free 0
himem phys 4456448
himem reserved 262144

What I don't understand is the "himem free 0".

[nevercast]

E (121) spiram: SPI RAM not initialized
E (121) esp_himem: Cannot allocate memory for meta info. Not initializing!

These are errors. You need to work out why your spiram isn't working

[nevercast]

Are you able to compile arduino-esp32 and test the customized version? Using arduino as a component and changing the esp-idf. If spiram: SPI RAM not initialized doesn't help you figure out what is wrong you could try add more logging here:

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/blob/master/components/esp32/esp_himem.c#L159

I would check which of s_ram_descriptor, s_range_descriptor fail to allocate

[nevercast]

Futher, the example you linked requires changing the sdkconfig. https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/blob/master/examples/system/himem/sdkconfig.defaults

Last I checked, Platform.IO does not allow you to change the sdkconfig with the Arduino environment. This may have changed.

[nevercast]

I have tried the example myself on my own inhouse WROVER board and it works.

rst:0x1 (POWERON_RESET),boot:0x33 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
configsip: 0, SPIWP:0xee
clk_drv:0x00,q_drv:0x00,d_drv:0x00,cs0_drv:0x00,hd_drv:0x00,wp_drv:0x00
mode:DIO, clock div:2
load:0x3fff0018,len:4
load:0x3fff001c,len:6228
load:0x40078000,len:10180
ho 0 tail 12 room 4
load:0x40080400,len:6660
entry 0x40080764
I (30) boot: ESP-IDF v3.2-18-g977854975 2nd stage bootloader
I (30) boot: compile time 15:08:34
I (33) boot: Enabling RNG early entropy source...
I (36) boot: SPI Speed      : 40MHz
I (40) boot: SPI Mode       : DIO
I (44) boot: SPI Flash Size : 4MB
I (48) boot: Partition Table:
I (52) boot: ## Label            Usage          Type ST Offset   Length
I (59) boot:  0 nvs              WiFi data        01 02 00009000 00005000
I (67) boot:  1 otadata          OTA data         01 00 0000e000 00002000
I (74) boot:  2 app0             OTA app          00 10 00010000 00140000
I (82) boot:  3 app1             OTA app          00 11 00150000 00140000
I (89) boot:  4 spiffs           Unknown data     01 82 00290000 00170000
I (97) boot: End of partition table
I (101) boot: No factory image, trying OTA 0
I (106) esp_image: segment 0: paddr=0x00010020 vaddr=0x3f400020 size=0x1d7d8 (120792) map
I (157) esp_image: segment 1: paddr=0x0002d800 vaddr=0x3ffb0000 size=0x020c0 (  8384) load
I (160) esp_image: segment 2: paddr=0x0002f8c8 vaddr=0x40080000 size=0x00400 (  1024) load
I (164) esp_image: segment 3: paddr=0x0002fcd0 vaddr=0x40080400 size=0x00340 (   832) load
I (173) esp_image: segment 4: paddr=0x00030018 vaddr=0x400d0018 size=0x1e048 (122952) map
I (225) esp_image: segment 5: paddr=0x0004e068 vaddr=0x40080740 size=0x0eb84 ( 60292) load
I (250) esp_image: segment 6: paddr=0x0005cbf4 vaddr=0x50000000 size=0x0000c (    12) load
I (259) boot: Loaded app from partition at offset 0x10000
I (259) boot: Disabling RNG early entropy source...
I (263) spiram: Found 64MBit SPI RAM device
I (266) spiram: SPI RAM mode: flash 40m sram 40m
I (272) spiram: PSRAM initialized, cache is in low/high (2-core) mode.
I (279) cpu_start: Pro cpu up.
I (283) cpu_start: Starting app cpu, entry point is 0x40081214
I (0) cpu_start: App cpu up.
I (1110) spiram: SPI SRAM memory test OK
I (1110) heap_init: Initializing. RAM available for dynamic allocation:
I (1111) heap_init: At 3FFAE6E0 len 00001920 (6 KiB): DRAM
I (1117) heap_init: At 3FFB3688 len 0002C978 (178 KiB): DRAM
I (1123) heap_init: At 3FFE0440 len 00003AE0 (14 KiB): D/IRAM
I (1129) heap_init: At 3FFE4350 len 0001BCB0 (111 KiB): D/IRAM
I (1136) heap_init: At 4008F2C4 len 00010D3C (67 KiB): IRAM
I (1142) cpu_start: Pro cpu start user code
I (1147) spiram: Adding pool of 3840K of external SPI memory to heap allocator
I (161) esp_himem: Initialized. Using last 8 32KB address blocks for bank switching on 4352 KB of physical memory.
I (163) cpu_start: Starting scheduler on PRO CPU.
I (0) cpu_start: Starting scheduler on APP CPU.
I (172) spiram: Reserving pool of 32K of internal memory for DMA/internal allocations
I (272) spiram: Found 64MBit SPI RAM device
I (272) spiram: SPI RAM mode: flash 40m sram 40m
I (282) spiram: PSRAM initialized, cache is in low/high (2-core) mode.
spiram size 8388608
himem free 4456448
himem phys 4456448
himem reserved 262144

[nevercast]

I suspect you have not enabled spiram when building the firmware. Please detail how you're building the firmware and what config you may have changed.

[jcw]

Many thanks for these comments - I will investigate further.

PS. How do you change ESP32's logging verbosity in the Arduino IDE or in PlatformIO? Also, how do I change the sdkconfig.h in the Arduino IDE? My apologies, I'm not familiar at all with ESP32 in the IDE.

[jcw]

Fromm what I can tell, all the required settings are appropriate in the arduino-esp32 setup:

https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/master/tools/sdk/include/config/sdkconfig.h

UPDATE - ah wait, one difference:

#define CONFIG_SPIRAM_USE_CAPS_ALLOC 1

vs

CONFIG_SPIRAM_USE_MALLOC=y

[jcw]

I suspect you have not enabled spiram when building the firmware. Please detail how you're building the firmware and what config you may have changed.

In PlatformIO, I have the following:

$ cat platformio.ini
[env:esp32]
build_flags =
    -DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM
    -mfix-esp32-psram-cache-issue
platform = espressif32
board = esp-wrover-kit
framework = arduino
upload_port = /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART
monitor_port = /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART
monitor_speed = 115200

I've tried rebuilding in PlatformIO with these changes, but it made no difference:

/*#define CONFIG_SPIRAM_USE_CAPS_ALLOC 1*/
#define CONFIG_SPIRAM_USE_MALLOC 1

(in ~/.platformio/packages/framework-arduinoespressif32/tools/sdk/include/config/sdkconfig.h)

In Arduino IDE, i cloned esspressig/arduino-esp32 from github, into the hardware/espressif/esp32/ directory.

So my questions to you are: did you do your test in the Arduino IDE? And how do you get the verbose logging showing all the "I" messages at boot-up?

[nevercast]

I am not using the Arduino IDE, I am using Arduino as an ESPIDF component. The Arduino IDE uses prebuilt libraries and does not compile the IDF, only your application code. Platform IO when I used it some months ago, did not work correctly in Arduino mode, only in ESP32 mode (The Arduino sdkconfig could not be modified, this was a bug)

It seems you are using the espressif pio environment so you should be able to modify the config but in the end I stopped using Platform.IO for plain Arduino on IDF Component. This has been the most reliable

[nevercast]

Note, sdkconfig and sdkconfig.h are not the same. Sdkconfig is used to generate the header file. Modifying the header file may not work as expected

Also some config settings in sdkconfig generate multiple lines in the header file.

[jcw]

Aha, clear, thanks. Trying espidf in pio now. I can't switch away from pio (it's far too convenient). If himem can't be made to work under pio, then I'll have to stick to 4 MB SPI RAM. Not the end of the world, but it'd perhaps be good to leave this issue open, to await future enhancements.

Let's also ping @ivankravets for completeness ...

PS, Note that SPI RAM in itself is working fine, it's just the himem setup that's fighting me.

[nevercast]

Are you using the paid features of PIO? If not, I can help you setup VSCode to work with Arduino as a component.

[jcw]

Ok, for reference, here's what I get with framework = espidf under PlatformIO. First off, I had to change a few headers, the himem example does not match what pio has - these three changes fix it:

#include "esp_spiram.h"
#include "rom/cache.h"
#include "sdkconfig.h"  // <-- not changed
#include "esp_himem.h"

Then, linking fails:

Linking .pioenvs/esp32/firmware.elf
.pioenvs/esp32/libesp32.a(esp_himem.o):(.literal.esp_himem_get_phys_size+0x4): undefined reference to `esp_spiram_get_size'
.pioenvs/esp32/libesp32.a(esp_himem.o):(.literal.esp_himem_unmap+0x1c): undefined reference to `esp_spiram_writeback_cache'
.pioenvs/esp32/libesp32.a(esp_himem.o): In function `esp_himem_get_phys_size':
esp_himem.c:(.text.esp_himem_get_phys_size+0x3): undefined reference to `esp_spiram_get_size'
.pioenvs/esp32/libesp32.a(esp_himem.o): In function `esp_himem_unmap':
esp_himem.c:(.text.esp_himem_unmap+0x88): undefined reference to `esp_spiram_writeback_cache'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
*** [.pioenvs/esp32/firmware.elf] Error 1

Which is odd, since it does seem to be present:

$ grep -rl esp_spiram_get_size .
./.pioenvs/esp32/esp32/esp_himem.o
./.pioenvs/esp32/libesp32.a

UPDATE - ah no those are references, the declaration is in spiram.o, which is missing. Weird.

[jcw]

No, free pio. Using command line, not vscode/atom gui.

[ivankravets]

Maybe this PR will help platformio/platform-espressif32#142?