Database Users

Just want my 32B to be as fast as possible. What to do?

So, I'm running Cyanogenmod 4.2.15.1 but I always think it's a bit slow. Maybe it's all the widgets, installed apps or often having mp3's playing in the background but I can't help thinking that the original ROM was much faster.
What can I do to improve speed?
I'm running TasKiller but that alone doesn't really speed things up enough.
For music, I'm using Meridian player, but perhaps there's a faster player out there?
Is it worth installing any of the 2.1 ROMs or should I wait for the official release or is that even likely to be slower than Cyanogenmod?

A couple of things you can do. You can use an application called setCPU which is for root users. It allows you to modify how the phone is run e.g. it can run from 128MHz to 528MHz depending on your preference. 528 will give you the highest performance. There is a min and max for them, and I have 384 to 528 usually.
Instead of taskiller, I use advanced task manager. Kill some processes as well. I like it better at least.
My recommendation is use superD or FastTest. They are, in my opinion, the fastest ROMs out there. A lot of Eclair ROMs are stable as well, but not as fast as the donut ROMs.

Thanks.
I've always thought that setCPU didn't make a difference, cause it's Magic is already running at max CPU in most ROMs. If not, how come it's mentioned so rarely around here? Surely it should be one of the most popular apps?
I've never heard of Super D or FastTest til you mentioned them. Might be worth a shot, although I'll have to admit I'd prefer not changing ROM all the time. When I first got the phone I tried loads of Sense ROMs but they all seemed either unstable or slow, or both. I think I'll read up a bit more on SuperD before having a go.

dont really have any other info on your setup except its a 32B....why not give us some more info in your signature, like:
what size and class SD card you have
whether you have swap enabled
whether you have compcache enabled
whether your sdcard is partitioned, and how
IMHO u dont need setcpu, its already written in to CM for the cpu to be 528-384
you could try:
JIT http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=637419
the swap userinit.sh http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=5342507&postcount=577
and the lowmemory killer minfree approach (which i prefer instead of "task-killers" which are just another app running) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=622666
and of course, the all important 10 MB RAM Hack http://www.absolutelyandroid.com/10mb-ram-hack-for-cyanogenmod-version-4-2-15/
CM should be nice and fast for you on a 32B, best one I've found so far

"what size and class SD card you have
whether you have swap enabled
whether you have compcache enabled
whether your sdcard is partitioned, and how"
SD card is class 4, 8 GB I think.
Yes, swap enabled. Can't remember the exact details regarding how the SD is partioned. Anyway to check that?
Don't think I've got compcache enabled. As a matter of fact, I've never heard that term before.
That 10 MB hack sounds interesting. I'll give that a shot.

I actually use setCPU profiles to save battery as well. When the screen is turned off, I have it set for almost minimum.
SuperD and FastTest have 10MB RAM hack versions so you don't need to install it on your own I don't thnk JIT hack is necessary for these ROMs anyways.

Armadillo123 said:
So, I'm running Cyanogenmod 4.2.15.1 but I always think it's a bit slow. Maybe it's all the widgets, installed apps or often having mp3's playing in the background but I can't help thinking that the original ROM was much faster.
What can I do to improve speed?
I'm running TasKiller but that alone doesn't really speed things up enough.
For music, I'm using Meridian player, but perhaps there's a faster player out there?
Is it worth installing any of the 2.1 ROMs or should I wait for the official release or is that even likely to be slower than Cyanogenmod?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got this just do as I do on my magic
Cyanogen is good for tons of features & I respect Steve (the ROM developer) for the ROM but for full speed & stability on a 32B Magic I suggest going by my signature as a guide.
I'm using Meridian player also & find it the best but Mixzing or Tunewiki is faster Mixzing has a little more then Tunewiki though but Meridian player is the best overall for the features.
OK in regards to ROMS, flash a new one all this talk of setcpu & stuff merely provides a quick fix but doesn't help in the long run (at least in my experience on a 32B Magic).
In fact here...
Download Dwang 1.17.1 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=567023
Add style & download Pays Black Elegance Theme 1.1 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=608412
Backup your apps & stuff & do a nandroid just to be safe.
Now proceed to enter recovery like your about to flash a ROM (as soon you will be ) wipe all that can be wiped (use Amon_RA Recovery for that) & flash Dwang like you did Cyanogen
Load it up (first start up is the longest), set up & when you hit the home screen power off your Magic & then switch it on into recovery like you are gonna flash a ROM (there it is again).
Flash Pays Black Elegance 1.1 Theme (NO WIPE!!) just flash over Dwang once that is done reboot & then try it for a week & report back here with your verdict
This is what I'm using & have been for over 2months now & I don't see me switching anytime soon as I can't find anything that is éclair that is like this ROM.
YES its 1.6 but it is super sweet for a 1.6 & personally for me it beats those 2.1 ROMs (which are good don't get me wrong but they ain't no Dwang)
ROM Stats
121 Apps installed
15-25sec wait on home screen load at times but not always & that is only cause I use like 12 widgets & filled 4 of the 5 screens with icons to applications.
10MB Hack is on this so 3D Games are a little laggy otherwise overall the best ROM i have used & only 1 random reboot but I kinda caused that running a whole heap of stuff like 30 processes at once haha.
Anyway let me know your verdict I hope my tip helps!

From my experience, super d 1.10.2 was, by far the fastest rom i've ever, used i havent messed with swap or compcache, but super d truly gave me that wow factor when it came to my phone, only downside is that it sorta ate my battery real quick, and i changed back to 1.9.3 wesgarner kernel, which is pretty quick too ...

Use Dwang 1.17.1, buy CacheMate from Market and clear your cache weekly.
This is the fastest I can get my 32B to run. I've tried Super D and CM, they are slower in my opinion. Dwang includes 32Mb compcache by default which seems to be the sweet spot. I've never played around with swap on SD card.
I use the default music player with Pure Music Widget. I used to use some other music player with "genius-like" functionality and all that rubbish but found it to be too slow for my liking.
Make sure you do the build.prop edits for HSPA as per this thread.

Does Launcherpro fix the lag?

Hey all. I'm considering this phone as my first Android purchase because it's on a really good plan where I live. I've heard multiple, semi-contradictory reports of lag problems with this handset due to the TouchWiz 3.0 interface.
Quick questions:
How bad is it?
Does the fabled Launcherpro UI replacement app fix the lag?
Oh, and if it's not too much to ask, one further query:
Is there a way to backup pre-installed apps?
The telco I want to get this phone with has pre-installed a bunch of stuff that might be useful in tracking my usage etc. In the event of rooting and ROMing this thing, I may want to keep those apps and re-install them after flashing the ROM.
Thanks in advance

im in the same position as you.
the mention of slight lag keeps cropping up. This worries me. I will be coming from a HTC Desire. I am wanting speed improvements, not slow downs.
Can anyone advise?
Also - in preperation for my new galaxy, I installed Launcher Pro on my Desire to see what it is like. It is ok. A bit laggy tho (more so than stock). Then I tried the ADW Launcher (which doesnt get talked about as much coz presumebly it isnt as good). I found it very smooth and just as smooth as stock Sense. Therefore.. maybe you guys should be trying ADW launcher instead

I've used both launcherpro and touchwiz and the only time I've seen any lag with either was when the phone ran out of RAM(or below 60mb).

lagging might be solved by installing custom rom
I don't have the phone, though i've been following Paul (Modaco)
forum/twitter, he also had lag issued until he installed custom ROM
and did some changes in it.
You can review his work in his forum
forum.xda-developers.com/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=715038
good luck.

Toss3 said:
I've used both launcherpro and touchwiz and the only time I've seen any lag with either was when the phone ran out of RAM(or below 60mb).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, this is exactly what I mean by contradictory. It must be that some of them have it and some don't. WTF?
c_on said:
I don't have the phone, though i've been following Paul (Modaco)
forum/twitter, he also had lag issued until he installed custom ROM
and did some changes in it.
You can review his work in his forum
forum.xda-developers.com/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=715038
good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's good, but that doesn't really answer any of my questions all that much. Thanks anyway.

This phone is ultra fast, end of. it'll be even faster when it gets updated to access the full 512 megs of ram

compared to the nexus one i had for the past two weeks, the galaxy s has serious memory problems and is significantly slower than the nexus.
As described above, the device is lightning fast until the free memory drops below a certain point (60mb mentioned aboce seems to be about right).
At this point is becomes _very_ laggy, and the only way to get it back to normal is by killing tasks with a task killer app.
The way Android's memory model works, it should never be necessary to end applications manually. And with the nexus this was indeed never necessary.
On the samsung firmware however, garbage collection does not seem to work as it should. Maybe it expectes that there are 512mb RAM accessable (currently the galaxy's kernel only recognises 256). Or maybe it is something else. Anyway, something is currently broken. I'm on the JF3 firmware.

bookwormat said:
On the samsung firmware however, garbage collection does not seem to work as it should. Maybe it expectes that there are 512mb RAM accessable (currently the galaxy's kernel only recognises 256). Or maybe it is something else. Anyway, something is currently broken. I'm on the JF3 firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I installed Spare Parts and set Activity/Process management to aggressive, and I've not seen any lag yet (Also JF3 firmware). While it's not an ideal solution, I feel it's better than running a task killer as it doesn't make my phone unstable just because I forgot to put something on the ignore list.

@mickeko thank you, I will try that.
Update: Setting Activity/Process management to aggressive in Spare parts doesn't help much. It is still very laggy.
I really wonder why mickeko does not have the problem - maybe I have a faulty device?

bookwormat said:
@mickeko thank you, I will try that.
Update: Setting Activity/Process management to aggressive in Spare parts doesn't help much. It is still very laggy.
I really wonder why mickeko does not have the problem - maybe I have a faulty device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had quite severe lag problems at first. I tried some task managers and they only caused more issues for me. Then I made a full factory reset, it's my first android phone so I wanted to get rid of any weird things I might have caused during my testing (I messed things up alot til I understood what it's about ). After factory reset, I installed spare parts, set to aggressive, and things work fine. I still have some lag, but it's way less than before.
I don't want to install inofficial firmwares quite yet, so I hope Samsung hurries up with the official update which seems to have resolved the lag entirely.

The lag is not being caused by lack of RAM (the device does see 512MB or RAM by the way, not only 256MB as reported above).
Currently the way the device is setup, it is writing all DATA files to the internal storage and not to the NAND as it should. For some unknown reason the internal storage has slow access times which is causing the lag.
There is a hack on Modaco's website that allows you to have the device write DATA onto the NAND and that fixes all the slow down issue however it has a limitation of max 130MB usable space on the NAND.
Samsung can fix this in a firmware upgrade by partitioning the space better.

clubtech said:
The lag is not being caused by lack of RAM (the device does see 512MB or RAM by the way, not only 256MB as reported above).
Currently the way the device is setup, it is writing all DATA files to the internal storage and not to the NAND as it should. For some unknown reason the internal storage has slow access times which is causing the lag.
There is a hack on Modaco's website that allows you to have the device write DATA onto the NAND and that fixes all the slow down issue however it has a limitation of max 130MB usable space on the NAND.
Samsung can fix this in a firmware upgrade by partitioning the space better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never had any issues with apps opening slowly before and after doing the hack I didn't notice a huge increase in speed(it's still noticeable though). Maybe some of the devices have worse access times or something as they seemed very high for such a high-end device?

You can watch my video of application starting speeds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAE_zKAtMvg
its launcher pro, MinFreeMem on max preset, and apps data is moved to NAND memory.
Just check the speed

clubtech said:
The lag is not being caused by lack of RAM (the device does see 512MB or RAM by the way, not only 256MB as reported above).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know much about the Android inner workings, but Android System Information states 326MB(?) RAM. Which implies that the OS sees less than 512MB RAM on my device.

mickeko said:
I don't know much about the Android inner workings, but Android System Information states 326MB(?) RAM. Which implies that the OS sees less than 512MB RAM on my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. it means that the rest is not accessible to u and is reserved to the OS.

vitalij said:
You can watch my video of application starting speeds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAE_zKAtMvg
its launcher pro, MinFreeMem on max preset, and apps data is moved to NAND memory.
Just check the speed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speechless.

Yes its fast now, but that speed obtained is only the same speed you get with the desire without any hacks. This phone should be faster, and one shouldn't have to root and hack it to obtain a speed only comparable to a HTC desire . It's not fair coz I want this phone badly but this lag issue is really putting me.of
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

But aren't there problems inherent with moving the apps data to NAND?
(I can't post the link because apparently the mods need to verify my account or something, but there's a thread in the dev forum titled "Fix for lag" that addresses this.)

Ah okay. Over at MoDaCo they're saying that it stuffs up when the NAND runs out of space (as the fix simply moves the folder for application settings to the NAND instead of the 'internal memory,' which is actually an SD card).

Javalu said:
Ah okay. Over at MoDaCo they're saying that it stuffs up when the NAND runs out of space (as the fix simply moves the folder for application settings to the NAND instead of the 'internal memory,' which is actually an SD card).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes there is one hidden thing here: If you have lots of heavy programs like some games, some navigation progs, google earth, you must keep those heavy programs in the old location. I did exactly this - moved to NAND everything except Google Earth, some Gameloft games and navigation. So now I have really fast phone, all my programs, and there is still plenty of space on NAND memory.

want to keep your newlt flashed phone as close to maximum performance as possible?

Hi! If you are like me just flashing your experia is never enough, you always end up installing the world of crap to your device.
After flashing and installing for a month or so i realised something (which is obvious if ou think about it) even if i install to the storage card something must go over to the device(link registry ect)
So after thinking for a day or so i figured out something.......if i install all my apps to the storage, reflash my phone then run them from the file explorer i can save some space as small as it may seem it adds up and hangs your ui and performance (especially manilla variants) .
now my phone runs as optimal as possible with all apps through the storage card and my UIs currently 6 on my device. When my battery is low (30 percent) i switch from manilla to orange or titanium so that i dont lose battery to processor heat.
Also a great thing to do if your run a manilla variant or want to flash one (advised only for flash files under 160 mb) is to increase your pagepool (my last was 40 currently 35) this is in its simplest term the system cache.
thats it for now ill talk about drivers and optimization tools later.
thanks for reading
ps if anyone that cooks roms wants ideas for the best performance and user satisfation pm me( the cooking process is a little to crazy for my brain lol)

Mod. edit: not a dev related issue, moved to general

What to expect after rooting?

I have a relatively new Aria that I have been considering rooting. Several reasons.
1. Not impressed with the onboard memory and would like to delete bloatware such as Peep, AT&T Maps/Navigator/Hot Spots, Footprints, Friend Stream, IM, Latitude, and a few others. A few of those apps keep showing up in my ATK list, so I'd like to just get rid of them, as I have no intent to use them...why let them wreck my RAM?
2. Speed. I've read enough forum posts to believe that my device will run selected apps faster. Make it so.
3. Use MicroSD card for apps. Hate to be limited to the internal capacity. I expect to partition the new SD card, 1GB dedicated to apps. New card likely to be 8GB.
Here are the questions...
1. I'll be getting a new SD card before the rooting begins. How important is the whole Class 2/4/6 thing. Is Class 4 good enough?
2. If I simply swap out the SD card with a new one before the root, what would I lose besides the photos, movies, music that I have manually transferred to the existing SD card?
3. How do I go about backing up the phone for restoration if the rooting thing doesn't work out?
4. What apps/functionality will I find in the phone after the rooting?
5. Is there a list of apps/files that should not be deleted after the rooting?
6. What is all this "flasing ROM" talk about? How do I chose what I should be flashing? What are the differences and does my device model matter in this decision?

I saw your post in the android forums also and will try to help you out. I can't help you much with your questions about just rooting it, as I switched to a CM6 ROM right after I rooted mine. I am also new the the Aria/hacking world and have only had my Aria for 4-5 days. With that said, I'll help with what I can. If anyone sees my n00b mistakes, please correct me.
1. For an Aria a class 4 MicroSD will be plenty. From what I've read, the classes only relate to write speed and not read speed. Class 4 writes at 4MB/s Class 6 at 6MB/s. I believe this means you would just have to wait a little longer for the files to write to the card. Also, read speed is always faster than write speed. I've also read that the speed rating is not universal. Some companies list their Class rating as their read speed instead of write speed. I've read that Kingston is one of the ones that actually list it as write speed. With this knowledge, I decided to buy a 8gb class 4 MicroSD from Kingston.
2. Before you root, I would format the new MicroSD card and move everything from the old one onto the new one.
I'm getting tired... it's nearly 2am and I can't answer your last questions without researching into all of it. I'll quickly type up what I can answer though.
3. When I rooted my phone, I was walked through using the Ubuntu LiveCD in the IRC. I think I made a backup using Clockwork Recovery, but I'm not totally sure if this program comes on the phone or if I put it there. I've read about unrooting some phone, but know little about it. I do suggest using the Ubuntu LiveCD method for rooting though. It definitely was simple. I also suggest going into the IRC if you are unsure of anything in the rooting process. They are really helpful there even though they don't have to be. Here's a link to the Ubuntu LiveCD root method. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=741824
4. Like I said, I switched to the CM6 ROM right after rooting so I am not familiar with a stock Aria that's just been rooted. I am pretty sure that it doesn't install any apps and just gives you superuser access to modify the programming.
5. Don't uninstall anything that you aren't sure of unless you make a nandroid backup in Clockwork first. I don't believe it's that simple to just go in there and delete important files anyway. I know that on CM6 I had to access the adb to delete some things. I won't get further into that.
6. A ROM is sorta an emulator. Think how people play Nintendo games on their computers. The ROM emulates a Nintendo system on your computer, so a ROM for your phone emulates another operating system on your phone. (in this case Android 2.2 would being emulated on your phone) You don't have to install a new ROM after you root your phone. You can if you want, but you don't have to. As far as what version to install... I do not know the exact differences in each ROM. I am running CM6 Liberty A012 and don't have problems with it. The different builds of CM6 just fix bugs, I believe. I don't think they are 'theme specific', for lack of a better term, meaning that one isn't better than the other for gps use or whatever. Finally, as long as you have an HTC Aria, your device will work for any mod listed in this Aria forum.
Hopefully I didn't confuse you more and hopefully I didn't give the vets of this forum more work to fix my mistakes. I also hope that what I wrote is at least a little better than letting it go unanswered, as I assume you are as impatient for information as I am.

Anthony1s, your post is spot on except for a bit of confusion on what the term "ROM" really means. You basically have the idea right except that it really has nothing to do with emulation. You aren't emulating an operating system on your phone; you are running it natively!
The "ROM" (in terms of how it applies to an Android phone) is basically the main operating system and a collection of apps necessary for the phone to function. When you "flash" a ROM, you are replacing what is currently on the phone with a new version of the operating system. That's all you really need to know as far as Android ROMs are concerned.
For the Aria, there aren't a ton of options yet on which ROM to use. The Liberated ROMs by attn1 are created by taking the default ROM that comes with the phone and making minor adjustments -- namely, deleting a few built-in apps that most people don't want and removing boot up sounds. If you use this ROM, your phone will appear to function virtually unchanged from the way it comes out of the box. Everything will look the same, it will still have Sense UI on Android 2.1 (Eclair), etc. If the only thing you want is to remove some of the "bloatware" apps, I suggest using one of the Liberated ROMs instead of trying to delete the apps manually. It's a lot simpler this way.
There's also the CM6 Froyo ROM. You can read the thread on it to see all the differences, but it uses Android 2.2 (Froyo) with the default Android UI (not Sense UI). Also, if you install this, you have to do a complete reset on the phone to clear all settings/etc., which is not necessary with Liberated. The CM6 ROM is still in an early development stage which means there are probably some bugs that you will encounter although it may not be anything too significant, whereas the Liberated ROM seems to have almost everything working correctly. The main advantage of this build is the fact that it uses Froyo which has some speed improvements for apps among other new features.
Hopefully that answers all your questions.

Thanks Drumist. I got a question that I've had on my mind for two days. I've read that the Nexus One gets more MFLOPS because froyo 2.2 uses a JIT compiler. Does the CM6 ROM use a JIT compiler or is that something we have to wait for in the official release? I don't mean to hijack, but your knowledge reminded me of my question.

Yes, the CM6 ROM has the JIT compiler. It's one of the reasons the benchmarks for the Aria on CM6 are almost double that of the stock rom. You can actually turn it off as well if you hit Menu > Cyanogen Mod Settings > Performance Settings.

Things to get sense 3.5 running smoother

Just trying my best to help out! These are the things i do to improve performance on my hd2 (tmous) running sense 3.5. Some of these are risky so read before applying
1. Swap.
There is much of debate about using swap on your android device,some say its useless and it wears down the sd card and others say it speeds up your device on a notable level. What i've noticed is that swap behaves according to what else is using the sd on android at the time, remember that android is also accessing the fat32 and your ext4 partitions. Right now im not using my ext4 partition on my sd and and i can notice the little boost from swap , and on the previous rom which ext4 was needed, using swap would more show up on benchmark than actually being experienced.
HOW TO GET SWAP WORKING. Its very easy on the sense 3.5 roms!!!! Just partition your sd using recovery in magldr, download script manager from the market and download swap-hard.sh from Dorimanx's high performance rom.
in script manager go to where u downloaded the script and run it (run as root and run at boot). Thats it!
2. VM heap size.
i set mine to 96m ,using blade buddy from the market. In advanced settings edit the value in dalvik.vm.heapsize press menu save and restart.(dont overdo it 96 already is.
3. Overclock. I just overclock to 1.382Ghz max 576 min with the performance governor. (please read about the dangers of overclocking your hd2 before choosing to do so.)
4. v6 supercharger. Search for it, read the thread!!! use and enjoy!
5. Reduce system traffic. As wonderful as the hd2 is we need to remember that it has its limits no matter the os u put on it (lack of speed, heating up, speedy discharges ect). this is all due to what im calling system traffic, the autosync every 10 minutes, the running 10 apps you dont need just because, things like that. These things unbalance the performance vs the productivity. Set the auto sync to an hour or take it off . close apps when u r done with them. Clean up the temp files regularly (caches ect).
6.Flash the newest radio Leo_RADIO_2.15.50.14
This is it for now if u got anything else to help then please reply as these things can help any rom , also u shall take full responsibility for any future damage to your phone or phones hardware (nothing to be scared about but im putting it up incase.) And it would be great to get a dev's opinion on this and to also correct or guide people to better settings.
i would love to post a video but i have a dell streak 7 and the vid recording is horrid!!! but the average quadrant is in the 1200s.