Reserved memory for Gemini on Pixel 9 Pro XL, Android 16

[John Dallman]

Preface: I am not producing an Android app. I work for a software component business, creating shared libraries, compiled from C and C++ code, for use in third-party customers' apps. I test my libraries in a command-line test harness, which I run in the ADB shell. I am only producing software for 64-bit ARM, because none of the customers want 32-bit code. 

This question is verging on off-topic, but having looked at the Pixel Community site, I don't expect anyone there to understand the problem. People here will at least understand it, and hopefully can suggest a sensible place to ask it. 

I acquired a Pixel 9 Pro XL yesterday, for validating libraries with Android 16, 16KB pages and MTE. It does all of those fine, but I don't have access to all of its 16GB RAM. Larger RAM than the 12GB on the Qualcomm SBCs I use for daily testing would be very advantageous. However, I don't have that larger RAM, for practical purposes. With about 3GB reserved for Gemini and more services running than in the AOSP on the SBCs, I have about the same usable memory on the 16GB pixel as the 12GB SBC. 

I quite appreciate why Google wants to reserve RAM to improve AI responsiveness for personal devices. However, that's not my use case. This Pixel is a dedicated test device, locked in a security cage in airplane mode and doing all its work via USB. It doesn't have a SIM or a Google account; nobody will use it as a personal device. 

The libraries I produce are too low-level to integrate with an LLM: they don't deal in text, images or videos at all, just geometry and topology. AI integration belongs at the UI level of apps that include my libraries. 

The 3GB reserved for Gemini is simply being wasted. Is there a way to recover it?

Thanks, 

John

[Dime Bar]

Interesting 

Have u looked at alternatives ?

Some NOCs have TPUs and npu. 

You could try installing vanilla Android OS

maybe that will not have as many recourse used ?

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[enh]

i'd have assumed it would be like other kernel carveouts (for the
modem, say) and not something you could do anything about, but
articles like https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/simple-trick-gave-pixel-10-140015535.html
claim you can just disable AICore. i haven't tried it myself, and i'm
not aware of any official documentation from either the Pixel team or
the Gemini team, so YMMV...

[John Dallman]

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try - I had rather assumed it would be harder.

Best,

John

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