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Hi,
I have noticed that my Nexus' performance starts to drop after some hours on: going from one home screen to the other becomes quite choppy, and so do the animations of opening an application.
Have you guys noticed that too, or is it just me?
It was like this for me until I bought Advanced Task Manager. I have it auto end applications that I don't need to run all the time. It runs much better now.
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
But like stickerbob said, you should have Advanced Task Manager at the least.
Deathwish238 said:
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep but some people just don't get that, ah well...
efeltee said:
Yep but some people just don't get that, ah well...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that doesn't really explain the performance drops. Does the phone run out of RAM, or not? It seems to be snappy again after a reboot, so there must be something.
frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I have read, but it did not work for me. I downloaded the free version of advanced task man to troubleshoot the problem and found that most of my apps were still running in the background even when my ram was down to 10-20mb. That is about when the phone would start acting up on me. When I ended the tasks the phone would act normal again. So I just broke down and bought the app for $.99. If you do this make sure you exclude some system apps, if you don't your phone could freeze while it is trying to restart them.
10-20mb free is normal operation. This is how the OS is designed to operate, linux and even windows7 now also operate in this fashion (show very little 'free' memory). there is no performance problem with low free memory, purely a misconception on modern memory managment. Whats going on is that you have a buggy application, which is why 'killing' apps looks to be resolving your issue. You're only resolving the symptom, not the problem.
I never kill apps and have had weeks of uptime without any slow down. This gets rehashed over and over again by people claiming task killers help performance. The reality is they do nothing for performance, only nice to have around for that great once and a while an app runs away from you, or in troubleshooting if you have a poorly written app. It should not be anyones habit to do a kill all on a regular basis, if it were the OS would do this automatically.
btw, compcache has been known to cause this slowdown over time issue, it has since been removed from most of the popular custom baked rom's.
frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does...
bofslime said:
10-20mb free is normal operation. This is how the OS is designed to operate, linux and even windows7 now also operate in this fashion (show very little 'free' memory). there is no performance problem with low free memory, purely a misconception on modern memory managment. Whats going on is that you have a buggy application, which is why 'killing' apps looks to be resolving your issue. You're only resolving the symptom, not the problem.
I never kill apps and have had weeks of uptime without any slow down. This gets rehashed over and over again by people claiming task killers help performance. The reality is they do nothing for performance, only nice to have around for that great once and a while an app runs away from you, or in troubleshooting if you have a poorly written app. It should not be anyones habit to do a kill all on a regular basis, if it were the OS would do this automatically.
btw, compcache has been known to cause this slowdown over time issue, it has since been removed from most of the popular custom baked rom's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well then there must be many buggy applications. I had to rely on Advanced Task Manager to keep my G1 running acceptably fast. The N1 slows down without its full RAM available so I needed to use Advanced Task Manager then too.
If the RAM is not the issue, why does having the extra 200 MB available make the phone run much smoother with 20+ apps running?
frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well technically no, it reallocates what is being used and frees up memory for programs currently running but non the less the OS manages itself
personally i close apps that i do not have going with the task manager. i seem to notice a performance difference if i do it manually, it takes 2-3 extra taps for peace of mind rather than relying on the OS to figure it out for me...
Deathwish238 said:
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
But like stickerbob said, you should have Advanced Task Manager at the least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The speed benefits of CM's ROM isn't due to the HIGHMEM supporting kernel, but rather other tweeks he's done with his build. Extra ram is nice, but there is certainly no limitation with the 213 or so userspace memory that is available now. Android itself does not even use this memory, it has its own reserved memory space, userspace memory is only for applications to be loaded in. And there is speed for keeping as much of your applications loaded in memory as possible.
swetland said:
Roughly 220MB is available to userspace in the shipping build (ERD79).
Quite a lot of memory is dedicated to the radio firmware (41MB), dsp firmware (32MB), display surfaces (32MB), gpu (3MB), camera (8MB), a/v buffers (41MB), and dsp buffers. Much of this needs to be set aside for these specific tasks due to hardware requirements of very large physically contiguous buffers which can be difficult or impossible to obtain after boot once the physical memory space gets fragmented.
The big limitation though is that the Linux kernel needs to do a 1:1 physical:virtual map of general purpose memory used by the kernel and userspace (which excludes the special purpose stuff described above). This eats into the available kernel virtual address space, which is also needed for cross process shared memory used by the binder, etc. Run out of virtual memory and things get unhappy.
In 2.6.32, HIGHMEM support for ARM will allow us to avoid this requirement for a 1:1 mapping which will allow us to increase memory available to userspace without running the system out of virtual memory adddress space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The speed difference I'm talking about is what I experienced when running CM beta3 and CM beta3 w/ highmem. The difference was huge. I assumed the change was mainly attributed to the double RAM available.
Even now with the full RAM available, things run faster when I end the other apps running. It's not necessary, but the difference is there.
It would be nice to be able to pinpoint which apps caused slow downs.
The best way I've seen this put I found in a thread where someone wanted to disable apps from auto-starting entirely. I saved it, because I though it was very elegant way to explain androids mem management.
equid0x said:
I just wanted to chime in here about the whole apps on startup thing....
Android has the concept of services which are programs that typically have a frontend piece, like a GUI for IM that you would normally use, that only runs when you are using it, and a background piece, the service, which is constantly running to keep you connected to your IM servers. This will account for some portion of the things you see running on startup, depending on how many apps you have installed, and whether or not they were written to run as a service.
There are also some, usually older, android programs that existed before "services" were really used.. that basically use triggers to keep reloading themselves. These programs are less efficient, and probably should be re-written to use the official service method of operation, caveat emptor.
Android also makes several modifications to the stock process handling that comes with any Linux kernel, which is already radically different from what most would be used to seeing on Windows as it is. Android attempts to keep commonly used applications running(loaded into memory), but in a sleeping state (using no cpu), so that they may be quickly resumed on request. Android also contains some agressive modifications to the behavior of the OOM(out of memory) task killer in Linux, that seem to cause it to keep applications running until nearly all memory is consumed, killing apps it deems unnecessary only when absolutely necessary. However, Android also supports a methodology of saving the running state of a program, so that if it is killed due to an OOM condition, it may be restarted with relevant data restored, to give the appearance of never having been killed at all.
This functionality is not all to alien to Linux as a platform in general, though Android has many modifications which tend to favor aggressive app management in memory, and less so filesystem cache. This was likely a design choice made to suit the low-speed/low memory platforms Android targets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good read.
So then given that...only services running should slow down the phone and not the background apps running.
However, this doesn't really answer the OP's question. If it's not a memory issue...what's causing his slowdowns?
Could be too many widgets on the home screen, I don't run that many but its possible that while in an app for a while, and switching back to home the OS may have to kill a whole bunch of apps to allow it to reload all the widgets on the home screen.
I tested this, and loaded the crap out of my home screens with widgets, and then launched a game. When I exited the game there was a good 500ms - 800ms delay in my homescreens from displaying anything other than the background. However, after it loaded, scrolling between screens looks smooth. The new kernel with highmem support can help this, but I would suspect some crazy widget filled homescreen with a 3rd party live wallpaper (star's configured with too many stars) and all of that combined could be an issue even still. Apple combats this by allowing only one app at a time, they know people will go overboard if allowed.
Well, that doesn't really explain the performance drops. Does the phone run out of RAM, or not? It seems to be snappy again after a reboot, so there must be something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's probably no easy answer to this question. There could be IO contention, a runaway process, high CPU usage, a memory leak, shoddy code in some app, etc etc... One would really have to take a look at the whole state of the system at the time the problem is happening to be able to ascertain what is causing the slowdown.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Android. I'm sure nearly everyone is familiar with the common complaint "my computer is running slow". The reasons that can happen on a common PC are the very same reasons that can be happening here, and unfortunately there are many of those reasons. While in many cases, throwing memory at the issue may appear to solve the problem temporarily, it often is not a permanent fix.
The amount of userspace memory available really amounts to 1 thing and 1 thing only -> the total number of running processes that we can keep totally in memory at any given time. On stock android, slowdown due to an OOM condition should be minimal, since stock android doesn't swap. Discounting any other bottlenecks, there is a practical limit to the number of programs once would be able to run in the memory space that is available. Realistically speaking, android programs tend to be fairly small, so you'd really have to be running a lot of them to exhaust this space. It is far more likely one or 2 poorly written programs are hogging huge amounts of memory (and probably other resources), which is causing constant killing and restarting of other apps you are trying to run concurrently. You end up with contention on the slow flash, resulting in poor performance.
You can't even really compare the Nexus One to the G1 in this regard, because the G1 truly is terribly deprived of memory. Though, the argument in both cases could really be made that you are attempting to run the hardware beyond its design specifications...
Its been my experience that the culprit is usually one or 2 specific programs. Sometimes the best, although inconvenient, way to figure out which programs these are, is to keep watch of your usage habits, and if you suspect something is the problem, uninstall it, and see if the issue persists. Its time consuming but there really isn't any better way to figure it out without using all kinds of tools that android doesn't really provide convenient access to. There are a few apps on the market that help with this but I am not sure what they are called offhand.
Programs that were identified as sources of slowdown for me have been:
Weatherbug
The Weather Channel
Calorie Counter
Locale
SMS Popup
10000
USA Today
National Geographic Wallpapers
CNN News Widget
Streamfurious
Nav4All
Waze
Just about every app with Admob Ads
And this is really just what I can think off offhand... there are more...
equid0x said:
There's probably no easy answer to this question. There could be IO contention, a runaway process, high CPU usage, a memory leak, shoddy code in some app, etc etc... One would really have to take a look at the whole state of the system at the time the problem is happening to be able to ascertain what is causing the slowdown.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Android. I'm sure nearly everyone is familiar with the common complaint "my computer is running slow". The reasons that can happen on a common PC are the very same reasons that can be happening here, and unfortunately there are many of those reasons. While in many cases, throwing memory at the issue may appear to solve the problem temporarily, it often is not a permanent fix.
The amount of userspace memory available really amounts to 1 thing and 1 thing only -> the total number of running processes that we can keep totally in memory at any given time. On stock android, slowdown due to an OOM condition should be minimal, since stock android doesn't swap. Discounting any other bottlenecks, there is a practical limit to the number of programs once would be able to run in the memory space that is available. Realistically speaking, android programs tend to be fairly small, so you'd really have to be running a lot of them to exhaust this space. It is far more likely one or 2 poorly written programs are hogging huge amounts of memory (and probably other resources), which is causing constant killing and restarting of other apps you are trying to run concurrently. You end up with contention on the slow flash, resulting in poor performance.
You can't even really compare the Nexus One to the G1 in this regard, because the G1 truly is terribly deprived of memory. Though, the argument in both cases could really be made that you are attempting to run the hardware beyond its design specifications...
Its been my experience that the culprit is usually one or 2 specific programs. Sometimes the best, although inconvenient, way to figure out which programs these are, is to keep watch of your usage habits, and if you suspect something is the problem, uninstall it, and see if the issue persists. Its time consuming but there really isn't any better way to figure it out without using all kinds of tools that android doesn't really provide convenient access to. There are a few apps on the market that help with this but I am not sure what they are called offhand.
Programs that were identified as sources of slowdown for me have been:
Weatherbug
The Weather Channel
Calorie Counter
Locale
SMS Popup
10000
USA Today
National Geographic Wallpapers
CNN News Widget
Streamfurious
Nav4All
Waze
Just about every app with Admob Ads
And this is really just what I can think off offhand... there are more...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm banking on it being an issue with an app that the OP has installed as well...not the phone or Android. I have only a handful of tried and true apps, and haven't experienced a slowdown even after 150 hours without a reboot.
OP... start uninstalling apps a couple at a time and wait several hours in between to narrow down the problem app.
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
stickerbob said:
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not just widgets that you should be thinking about... any app you've installed can throw something off.
stickerbob said:
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed the weather & news widget and the phone seems much faster now. I'll keep it like that for a day, see if it stays fast.
Hello, all. I am currently running the free version of Advanced Task Killer, which seems to work ok, but there has to be something better. What I've noticed is, that after a reboot, the app will tell me that I have about 240 MB of available memory when all apps are closed with the exception of the task killer itself.
However, by the end of the day, after I've opened and closed a few apps, sent some messages and emails, made some calls, etc, the task manager will show significantly less available memory available. It could drop to as low as 135 MB with all apps closed with the exception of the task killer.
This leads to me to believe one of two things:
a) The Task Killer is full of it and it does not have an accurate read of how much memory is actually available.
b) The Task Killer is only able to "kill" certain tasks while others remain running in the background and it does not show that the app(s) are actually running.
Honestly, I think it is option B, because I do notice that when the app tells me that I have less than normal available memory, the phone does tend to function slower and lag a bit. Nothing that cannot be fixed by a powering it off and on, but I am hoping that someone knows of a good app (even if it is a paid app) that will actually bring up ALL tasks running and kill them. I've also noticed that even with this task killer, Google Talk (which I have never used) always remains open in my phone and I have to manually go into into the settings and turn that off.
Any suggestions?
My suggestion is to not use one.
I do use Autokiller though which tweaks the thresholds for Android's internal "task killer".
It's best to let Android do it's thing.
Tikerz said:
My suggestion is to not use one.
I do use Autokiller though which tweaks the thresholds for Android's internal "task killer".
It's best to let Android do it's thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? Do you mind elaborating on why you feel that way a bit so I can understand? Because I do notice that when the I am running a bunch of things at once and I use this app to kill the tasks, it does improve the performance of the phone.
I can understand why some people say you don't need one but I do think it is necessary to have it installed for when you do. I'd rather kill apps than pop the case, battery cover and battery to fix a frozen phone.
I have some GPS apps I run occasionally that after exiting them they don't turn off the GPS or lock the GPS on and drain my battery. So for those apps where the developer didn't put a close buton on the menu it helps shut them down. I don't know why Google Market doesn't require apps to have a close option.
get OS MONITOR from the market
PAPutzback said:
I don't know why Google Market doesn't require apps to have a close option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because users shouldn't have to manage their own memory. Apple folks already love laughing at us for that very reason, and even though it pains me to say it they're absolutely correct.
I can certainly buy the argument that task killers are nice for those occasions when something does go haywire and it needs to be forcibly killed, and I can understand using one just because you're curious and want to see what's running and how much memory you have, etc, but beyond that I find that they're unnecessary. My EVO runs very smoothly without me manually intervening, even after many days of uptime with many apps running.
GHOST99K said:
get OS MONITOR from the market
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! That's detailed and a lot more than I bargained for....lol. Thanks! Good thing my phone is rooted and I was able to use it since I never did the recent update to the 1.47.xx OTA update and I'm waiting for a fully functional version to be released, but there is a lot of stuff on this that goes well beyond my basic knowledge. Apparently, my phone has 89 processes running with no apps running (according to Task Killer) and only one widget running and the CPU is fluctuating at 10-40% usage.
Interestingly enough, but apps report the same amount of available memory......EXACTLY the same. So it can be assumed that both apps provide an accurate figure of available memory.
I would advise against using a Task killer. Android has its own memory management, which works extremely well on the EVO, to be honest. The latest update (1.47) feels like its makes the EVO perform much better and allows it to be more efficient.
If anything, I would suggest you read this thread about an app called Autostarts, which isn't a task killer, rather a startup manager that can be tweaked to do many different things. By not allowing certain things to start up when your phone boots, you'll have more memory to begin with and Android will be more efficient in memory management. I would try Autostarts before using a task killer.
Hope that helps.
eagle63 said:
Because users shouldn't have to manage their own memory. Apple folks already love laughing at us for that very reason, and even though it pains me to say it they're absolutely correct.
I can certainly buy the argument that task killers are nice for those occasions when something does go haywire and it needs to be forcibly killed, and I can understand using one just because you're curious and want to see what's running and how much memory you have, etc, but beyond that I find that they're unnecessary. My EVO runs very smoothly without me manually intervening, even after many days of uptime with many apps running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, but having to run a task killer is a small price to pay to not be part of the iPhone bandwagon crew, IMO.
Are you running a custom rom on your phone? I just have a rooted stock rom. Maybe that's why your phone can go days without the performance being affected? I still have all the bloatware on mine, and I've put off removing it because I am still a noob at this and I'm in the learning process. I wonder if the new update that was just released improves this aspect of the phone at all.....?
pseudoremora said:
I would advise against using a Task killer. Android has its own memory management, which works extremely well on the EVO, to be honest. The latest update (1.47) feels like its makes the EVO perform much better and allow it to be more efficient.
If anything, I would suggest you read this thread about an app called Autostarts, which isn't a task killer, rather a startup manager that can be tweaked to do many different things. By not allowing certain things to start up when your phone boots, you'll have more memory to begin with and Android will be more efficient in memory management. I would try Autostarts before using a task killer.
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I will definitely look into it. All advise is appreciated as I am very new to all of this. You answered my last question on my previous post with this, too.... I can't wait for a fully functional rooted OEM rom to be released with the goodies from the new update to try it out. I'm hesitant to update my phone now and lose superuser as I use the WiFi tether a lot.
Hi all,
I've had this phone for a few days now and love it. However I find I have very little RAM available.
I have on average around 30-40mb of ram available and the phone sometimes slows down quite a bit. I've ad a look at the running apps and the main culprit was SPB Shell launcher which was using around 50mb. I have since stopped using this but I am still only getting around 40-50mb remaining (with timescape disabled) and again a sluggish phone at times.
How is everyone else's?
I am thinking of doing a factory reset and start afresh to see what app may be causing the problem.
Any other suggestions or is this normal with this phone?
Thanks for your replies.
I have the same. I thought it was down to having over a thousand contacts all duplicated in exchange and google.
I have 130m of internal space available. Is there any way of re assigning it as you can in windows mobile?
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App
My Average Free ram @150 MB
135 - 140ΜΒ here.
Have been checking with Advanced Task Killer (ofcourse NOT automatically set to kill everything, but fully manually every now and then), and noticed that there were times when the phone just left plenty of unnecessary apps wondering around in the background. Apps that are not the "always-on" by android system. So I kill EVERYTHING else except from:
1) Clock
2) TrackID
3) LiveWare
4) Media Sharing
5) Maps
6) Hanashi (WTF is that?!? it ALWAYS comes back by system.)
7) Setup wizard
(What remains always active by system also depends on the widgets you have, e.g. I have TrackID widget, you might not have it, so you wont need it.)
and have even noticed better battery performance...
EG, during nightime, I left the phone untouched (not used ATK), and when I woke up, I had a 12-13% battery drop, while the other day, after a fresh cleaning before sleeping, got around 4-5% drop. Both times with same conditions...
I have about 140 free and nerver under 100
Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk
What to you recommend to stop the unused processes from re starting again?
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App
Try Advanced Task Killer
Yeah I have about 150mb free.
And can I say coming from the x10, this phone is rediculously smooth. I love it!
Can we expect more free RAM once it's rooted/a custom fw is available?
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
im_iceman said:
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason I asked is that my phone does not run smoothly at times but very laggy and some items (contacts, emails etc) can take an age to load (well not an age but seconds but it feels like an age )
I was just wondering if this was the norm or not.
im_iceman said:
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeap, 2.3 handles RAM almos perfectly. EG, if you open as many apps as you want and just leave them in the background, when you try to launch a HUGE game (eg Asphalt 6), the system will free as much RAM as required for the game to run smoothly.
BUT, I have noticed that some apps are left idle without me usng them (and without being system triggered apps, which when closed, are not resprang), and are not automatically closed by system. I tested leaving overnight the phone without killing anything after a days usage (with more than 15 apps in the background), and while being at 15% when left at night (around 01:00 am), it was off in the morning (7:30 am).
Then I did a fresh reset to the device, noticed what apps are automatically opened by system, and protected them (unchecked them) from Advanced Task Killer (which was set to manual), so that it will not shut them down when I click the "kill all" button. Next night, I killed all non-system apps (that do not restart if you do no action), and left the phone overnight again to see if there is any difference. Battery dropped around 5%.
I did this twice under same conditions (same time gap, BT open etc.), and results were almost the same +/- 2%.
So IMHO, if you use a task killer app wisely, you could manage to get better battery performance when the phone is idle, but you will NOT get better performance (smoother UI etc.)
Again, all these IMHO.
@dragunov - completely agree with everything you're saying.. it's the difference between knowing what you're doing and blindly killing tasks because someone said it helps!!!
for the OP - would suggest figuring out what it is you've got running that's causing the lag cos it's not the phone hardware/ OS that's at fault - This is the only drawback of Android vs iPhone -the QA of the apps on the market doesn't pick up this sort of problem.
im_iceman said:
for the OP - would suggest figuring out what it is you've got running that's causing the lag cos it's not the phone hardware/ OS that's at fault - This is the only drawback of Android vs iPhone -the QA of the apps on the market doesn't pick up this sort of problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, thats what I intend to do. A factory reset and the re-install gradually my apps to see which ones are the problems.
When I first got the phone I loaded it up with apps so it will now be difficult to retrace so a fresh start is what I will do.
A quick update. I have done a factory reset and although the phone is smoother I still only have 40-50mb free (only app I installed was swype).
Can I just ask what free ram other users have?
Thanks
Right now.. 60Mb.
I had about 150 out of the box while taskkiller always said about 5 apps running background (not installed by me).
Now yesterday my arc froze while browsing the web and rebootet itself (screen was scary, single pixles loosing light while some were still on till everything was off).
Now that was the only time the arc did that and afterwards task killer now (after killing apps) only shows 2 or 3 apps running background and up to 195MB free RAM which is cool but scary at the same time ...
Still can recieve phone calls though and everything works ... well Im happy for more RAM
Oh yeah, got swype on my whitelist.
Honestly I don't understand the need for more ram?
having 60mb is similar to having 200mb, it's all about applications reserving their spots, once they needed they'll kick in, otherwise they stay idle ( talking about system apps and well developed applications )
even if you have 60mb you still can run games that require 100mb... smoothly
the lag some face is due to background application using the processor
I usese autokiller memory optimizer. See unlike the other appear that kill everything, autokiller mo just optimizes the Android system so you wont have to go hunting for those apps.
Sent from my CM 7 Monster Evol.
MJ_QaT said:
Honestly I don't understand the need for more ram?
having 60mb is similar to having 200mb, it's all about applications reserving their spots, once they needed they'll kick in, otherwise they stay idle ( talking about system apps and well developed applications )
even if you have 60mb you still can run games that require 100mb... smoothly
the lag some face is due to background application using the processor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter how many times we say it people just won't get it!!..
Spare memory is WASTED memory.. this is ANDROID/ Linux.. this is NOT MS Windows... it's DIFFERENT!!
So I searched and could not find a thread that compiled tips and tricks people use to increase their battery life and get the most ram or memory available.
This way we can put everything together so you don't have to search through a bunch of threads or posts to get information.
I'll start with mine first.
Battery and memory usually go hand in hand, but specifically for the battery I use Juice Defender (Ultimate). I got it to last 31 hours before with minor use. Even the free one said it increased my life 1.5x
I use Titanium Backup to freeze certain programs that run in the background, like the social networking ones since I dont use those along with wallpapers and non-essential system services like the Weather and date/time services. It would be nice to compile a list of all the services you can freeze without messing up the phone, I usually freeze a couple and then test my phone out.
Not having a lot of widgets or background programs running also helps.
I found programs that prevent start-up programs usually fail, the app starts anyways. Task killers also don't seem to work, the app just starts back up. The only one I have used with some success is "Free Memory", it seems to work.
I'm interested in other peoples methods, along with their normal battery life and how much free memory they have.
Somehow I went from having around 450MB free to only having 250MB, which really gets bad if I want to use the webtop and have a bunch of crap open. I might try to reflash it and start over, I went a little app crazy for a few days.
If people want, list the (system) apps you were able to safely remove along with ones you were able to freeze and I can make a list in this post. I would add mine but my phone is acting up right now.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...26699&_sacat=See-All-Categories&_fvi=1&_rdc=1
No, I'm not kidding either. I have three batteries for the Atrix. I go through about two a day. I run them all the way down, phone shuts off, I replace, and I have a 100% ready to go. Saved me in many instances. It sounds really convoluted, but it works.
I recommend installing widgetsoid and actively managing wifi.
Check out an app called Watchdog.
Basically what you should have instead of a task killer.
Instead of killing tasks wantonly, Watchdog simply monitors the CPU % each task/app/element running is consuming. You can custom set detection thresholds or leave the defaults, but whenever that threshold is crossed, you can get a little alert for it (customizable too). It tells you the app that's been acting up and give you the option of killing, ignoring, or "whitelisting" (permanent ingore, basically) it. The paid version also allows you to "blacklist" processes (permanent kill).
I would definitely recommend it.
So Samsung for whatever reason, decides it's a good idea to include an easy to access task manager with a giant "kill all tasks" button in TouchWiz. It seems like everyone I know, that has a Galaxy S II, has adopted a certain behavior due this. What they do is, every time they put their phone away, they will automatically go to this task manager and kill all tasks, before locking the phone. When I ask them why the hell they're doing that, the answer is usually something like "wasting battery blah blah blah" or "wasting CPU blah blah blah"... NO!
For starters:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
http://www.infoworld.com/t/smartphones/myth-android-devices-need-task-killers-609
http://androinica.com/2010/05/googl...-imply-task-killermanager-apps-are-pointless/
People that are doing this, educate yourself. And Samsung, well done for encouraging this.
Just because a task is in memory, doesn't mean it's doing anything, and certainly doesn't mean it's using up battery. If it's staying in memory, it's because there's no need to release it just yet. If you start it up again, it will already be there, and load up faster. The alternative is, you keep killing it, and every time you run it again, it will have to reinitialize and reload everything. Which option do you think is actually going to cost more battery?
The whole thing with people saying "oh no it's using CPU, i must kill it"... what?! If it's using CPU, it's probably doing something. Why the hell are you killing a process while it's in the middle of doing something? Do you not care about data integrity at all? It could have been in the middle of syncing, or in the middle of a write operation who knows.
If you run other applications and your memory runs low, then Android will close it. And it will close it properly, as opposed to you force killing it, denying it of any chance to clean up.
Obviously there are rare exceptions with dodgy programs. But most of the time, the tasks being killed are system apps, or trustworthy apps, properly written by Google or Samsung.
If you're not a developer, you probably won't understand the whole Android application lifecycle.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html
By force closing an application, you're not allowing it to run its onStop() and onDestroy() functions. This is where apps do all the clean up, releasing resources, unregistering things, closing connections etc.
Do you do this on your PC. Open up Windows task manager, and just kill any task that's using CPU. Or hell, just kill all tasks every 2 minutes! Good luck with that.
This has probably been said hundreds of times, but a lot of people i know are getting GSII's and I see them doing this constantly. It's stupid. Do you really think they designed the operating system so that you have to kill everything each time you touch it?
TLDR: Stop "killing all tasks" (unless theres actually something wrong) and well done Samsung for encouraging this. Just stupid.
Damn your right, I never used a task killer on previous android phones, but for some reason I have got into the habit of doing it now. So I'm going to kill that habit. Well noticed
Well according to the user guide (the full one from Samsung's website)... though personally I don't bother killing anything
Use the task manager › ›
Your device is a multitasking device. It can run more than one application at the same time. However, multitasking may cause hang-ups, freezing, memory problems, or additional power consumption. To avoid these problems, end unnecessary programs using the task manager.
1 In Idle mode, open the application list and select Task manager → Active applications.
The list of all the applications currently running on your device appears.
2 To close an application, select Exit.To close all active applications, select Exit all.
i like the placebo effect and stop telling me what i have to do or not to do!
your writing style is to aggressive, stop being aggressive!
For me, it is worth to have the clear memory option because I already faced the glitch or bugs program which cause my phone to run constantly at 1.2ghz and this will cause my phone become extremely hot. I can't see what application is running but for some reason, the cpu gone crazy. It drain battery in no time. With the simple one click button, I can closed the programs without need to restart the phone. Yes, generally I will let the android system to handle the application by itself but I still think it was a good moved by samsung to have task manager if we use it in proper way...
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Well it's not all that bad, with 2 cores one core can easily come into a deadlock and the device will continue to function albeit much slower and consuming a lot of power, when this happens in the taskmanager the processes are listed red
Thanks ever so for much for this post I have just got my first Android phone and thought by doing this it would increase the battery life a tad but did kinda think it was a bit daft having a system that required manually killing tasks. Coming from a Windows 6.1 XDA Zest I am still getting my head round an OS that's doesn't require hours on Internet to work out how to do things.
Sad, but true, I was getting onto Android from Symbian, and first thing after I realised that I do not have option of killing all apps, I have installed the task killer and kept using it for like a week, then I've read one of the articles about it, that its wrong, and that Android is not working as Symbian nor Windows, so I realised that I dont need to do that... unninstalled it and not using it at all since
You don't need Task manager / killer if only all android applications are developed by good programmers that implement Android application lifecycle properly.
The problem is not all applications are developed this way. Some application may buggy / in beta stage that still consuming processing time even they are in background.
Task manager is still useful to close nasty program manually. But I do agree, auto-kill is useless and can cause battery drain and system instability.
Yep .. it's mostly services what eats battery. And there is poor control over that. It would be interesting to see what service was active at what time, or even how much battery did it use. All battery discussions are about guessing what is running in the background and how often and how much. We should not guess such things.
As far as I'm concerned an in built task manager is just as important as an in built modem right now. There are far too many unstable applications out there that hang up and Android can never fully deal with them(despite what research may or may not have been done in the past).
I have a few games installed on my S2(namely Pool Break Pro & TNA iMPACT!) that crash quite often and require the use of the task manager to manually end those programs(they are in the task manager highlighted in red when they have stalled).
However, what I will say is that the button to clear memory in the RAM manager really shouldn't be there at all. The task manager alone is more than enough to manually exit necessary apps that crash and stay open for no reason.
I like to have the ability to close programs easily at hand. It gives me better control over "rogue" apps. I only use it for a few programs though, like the Engadget app. It seems to be poorly coded, often using 40-50% CPU when running in the background.
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I like it because it lets me close frozen apps quicker..
the_Calen said:
i like the placebo effect and stop telling me what i have to do or not to do!
your writing style is to aggressive, stop being aggressive!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol yes. Not to be taken too seriously.
Force closing apps with the task manager when somethings wrong with the phone or closing broken apps makes sense. I'm just talking about people that instinctively press the close all apps button every time they use the phone for a second. It's just silly. Basically doing what those automatic task killing apps do.
I use to kill opera everytime i'm done with browsing because even in idle mode the phone gets very hot when opera runs in the backgtound. But after these explanstions i stop force killing every app
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If a program is badly written and won't stay idle, then kill it.
I am very selective about what I install, and never kill or need to kill anything.
You have 1 GB of ram on this phone. If you want best battery and speed, don't kill anything. loading a running app from ram uses less power than starting from scratch and booting it from nand, then starting it up.
So if apps are well written, don't kill them. If stuff stays around causing drain, kill it individually but find a better app
This thread is spot on... for the most part. Like Pulser said, there are apps when idling/cached, cause detrimental effects like the one I detailed here causing your phone to stay Awake constantly and draining battery:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1094666
ATK isn't the most elegant method, but it allows you to put everything else on ignore and have it actively kill the apps that love to stay cached and cause issues even after you've exited out of them.
Is there a way to "lock" some apps into a memory so they never quit by the android OS except if I would decide to?
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You have a valid point, but most of the time those apps don't do anything critical that it would hurt to interrupt. I usually prefer to exit them normally, but sometimes I just kill it, like when I forgot the Messages / Internet open. No need to paranoia though, leaving a few open won't kill your battery.
PINki92 said:
Is there a way to "lock" some apps into a memory so they never quit by the android OS except if I would decide to?
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Click to collapse
That's exactly what I needed. There are some apps, like SetCPU, TB, Root Explorer, which can be added to SuperUser authorization and it won't get killed by anything unless someone manually kills it. I'd really really like to know how to add an app under SuperUser or anything which will do the job to add the app in to the OS and which can't be killed by any Task Killer or anything.
Besides I also hate those Task Killer apps, they are meaningless unless an user do nothing regularly with his/her phone.
I've no Task Killer installed but once I used the built in Memory Clear feature and next day my schedule app got closed. From then I never touched it. But one thing if RAM usage goes above 400 MB I think sometime its good to clear the memory as it will help to refresh it. But Samsung should had put the Memory Clear feature more precisely.
Regards.
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